Category: Crime

Today’s update for the last 24 hours or so:

• The IRS asked one Pro-Life group for the following information in connection with their application for tax-exempt status:  “Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.“
• Senior Treasury officials – including the Deputy Treasury Secretary and the Treasury Department General Counsel – were informed in June 2012 of the fact that the IRS IG was investigating elements of the agency for ideologically-motivated harassment.
• It appears the IRS avoided disclosing the scandal involving additional scrutiny and/or harassment of conservative organizations and individuals, deliberately waiting until after the 2012 elections to disclose the scandal.
• The outgoing head of the IRS, Steve Miller, in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committed on Friday, 17 May 2013, couldn’t remember who at was responsible for targeting conservative groups by his agency.  Even though he did remember asking his senior technical advisor, Nancy Marks, that question, he just couldn’t remember her answer.
• The initial disclosure of the IRS scandal by Acting IRS Tax Exempt Division chief Lois Lerner was not spontaneous, but was pre planned and timed to coincide with the release of the IRS IG Report on the same matter.
• The husband of the current head of the IRS’s Tax Exempt Division, Lois Lehrner, works for a law firm with close ties to the current Administration.
• Ms. Lerner also personally approved the tax-exempt certification for that highly-questionable charity run by the POTUS’s half-brother.
• Senators Chuck Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen and Al Franken urged the IRS to target conservative organizations in 2012.
• Larry Conners, the news anchor who complained that he might have been the target of IRS retaliation after asking the POTUS pointed questions about First Family vacations, has been “temporarily” taken off the air by his employer.
• That ”paragon of taxpaying virtue” Rep. Charles Rangel seems even bothered, saying, “This is wrong to abuse the tax system.”

But don’t worry about any of that, folks.  Just sit back and listen to the former head of the IRS, Steve Miller, speaking about the recent targeting of conservative group and individuals by his agency:  “It is absolutely not illegal.”

Sweet Jesus – what’s next?   Is someone in this Administration about to stand up and publicly say, “If the President does it, it’s not illegal”?

Some additional revelations regarding the ongoing IRS scandal that came out in the past 24 hours:

• USA Today reports that an analysis of statistics regarding political groups applying for tax-exempt status shows clear bias against conservative and in favor of liberal groups on the part of the IRS from 2009-2011.  Organizations whose titles self-identified them as conservative organizations were slow-rolled; organizations whose titles self-identified them as liberal were apparently expedited.
• Close to 500 groups appear to have been targeted by the IRS, and maybe more.  The Administration originally claimed 75..
• A prominent Catholic academic was audited by the IRS in 2010 after publicly opposing  Administration allies and/or policies.  She was asked “who was paying her”; attempts were made to keep her husband, with whom she files jointly, from being present at the audit.  Many of the questions asked at the audit were reportedly of a political vice financial nature.
• One of the co-chairmen of the POTUS’s re-election committee has been accused of receiving and using unlawfully leaked IRS information against Mitt Romney.
• Among the information requested by the IRS from conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status were donor rolls, copies of Facebook posts, resumes, descriptions of media interviews, what issues the group considered “important to them”, copies of web pages, copies of blog posts, and in at least one case members’ recent reading preferences.  The IRS also asked at times if anyone in a conservative group applying for tax-exempt status knew other selected individuals – by name.
• The IRS cursory, “scratch the surface” IG Investigation into the issue itself is titled “Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review”.
• Even Chuck Rangel – himself hardly a shining example of ethical conduct himself – has publicly stated that the Presidents answers to date have been lacking.
• The Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee ain’t too happy about being lied to during Congressional testimony by a top IRS officials, including a former Director..
• Lower-level IRS employees in Cincinnati apparently have stated “”they simply did what their bosses ordered”. And there appear to be at least four Cincinnati IRS employees involved – not two, as the Administration has claimed.
• Letters have surfaced sent from offices in DC and California to conservative groups that appear to be ideologically-based harassment.

But again, folks:  “don’t worry – be happy”.  Everything is under control.  The Administration has only your best interests in mind.  They have investigated the matter and found that all this IRS brouhaha was due to “two ‘rogue’ employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office”.

Yeah.  Right.  If you believe that last claim, I have this bridge.  And I can make you a really great deal on it.

It’s beginning to look like the politically-motivated abuses at the IRS have been around for a while longer than originally thought.  And it also looks like they may be a bit more expansive – both organizationally and in scope – than originally reported.

Here new highlights that have been reported over the last 24 hours or so:

• Senior IRS officials knew about ideologically-motivated targeting of IRS-scrutiny by lower-level subordinates as early as August 2011.
• Individuals at IRS HQ appear to have been directly involved in the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.
• A ridiculously excessive amount of information was requested from conservative groups so targeted, including requests for lists of donors, applying for tax-exempt status.
• The acting IRS chief knew about the targeting of conservative groups in early May 2012, but said nothing – even when questioned about the matter at a Congressional matter nearly 3 months later.
• At least one member of the media has now alleged that he was targeted by the IRS for harassment after interviewing the POTUS, presumably in retaliation.
• The Billy Graham Evangelical Association has indicated it believes it may have been targeted by the IRS.
• An application for a charity that had been soliciting donations unlawfully for years and which was run by the POTUS’s half-brother was approved in June 2011 in roughly one month – with the approval retroactive to December 2008.  (Some conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status have seen waiting periods of more than 3 years.)
• White House spokesman Jay Carney has acknowledged that some individuals at the White House (not identified) “were aware” that the IRS was targeting conservative groups and did nothing.

Yes, the above appears to draw a rather troubling picture.  But don’t worry.  The Administration has everything under control.  Nothing to see here; move along.  “Pay no attention to the man behind the screen.”

Or the names on the “enemies list”.

Remember that “IRS thing” Doc Baily and I have each written about previously here at TAH?  You know, where private advocacy groups were apparently targeted for “special attention” by the IRS based on political philosophy, ethnicity, or  because they “contradict the Administration’s public policies”?

Well, it’s possible that’s not all that was going on.  According to an article at the Daily Caller yesterday, it appears that information might have also been “leaked” by a person or persons at the IRS for partisan political purposes.  Specifically, it appears that paperwork showing a donation made by GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney to the National Organization for Marriage (which received a large amount of airplay during the last Presidential campaign) may have been leaked by the IRS.

If you’re thinking that’s illegal – you’re correct.  See the Daily Caller article for details.

Separately, in a book written well before this latest IRS brouhaha became public, former SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld indicated that corporate executives often refrain from public criticism of the President or his policies out of fear of possible future retaliation by government agencies.   He indicates that corporate executives often considered possible actions by the IRS, SEC, congressional committees, and other government agencies before voicing public opposition.

Rumsfeld does not come out and state that he has knowledge of such abuse.  However, the implication is reasonably clear:  corporate executives have seen enough “temporal coincidences” between public statements against Presidential positions or polices and additional regulatory scrutiny to notice – and to be wary.

Stay tuned.  This looks to be getting “curioser and curioser” with each passing day.