{"id":35687,"date":"2013-05-18T07:58:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-18T11:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35687"},"modified":"2013-05-18T09:40:19","modified_gmt":"2013-05-18T13:40:19","slug":"irs-scandal-update-18-may-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35687","title":{"rendered":"IRS Scandal Update &#8211; 18 May 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s update for the last 24 hours or so:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The IRS asked one Pro-Life group for the following information in connection with their application for tax-exempt status:\u00a0 &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/congressman-irs-asked-pro-life-group-about-the-content-of-their-prayers\/article\/2529924\">Please detail the content of the members of your organization\u2019s prayers.<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>Senior Treasury officials &#8211; including the Deputy Treasury Secretary and the Treasury Department General Counsel &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/05\/18\/us\/politics\/irs-scandal-congressional-hearings.html\">were informed in June 2012<\/a> of the fact that the IRS IG was investigating elements of the agency for ideologically-motivated harassment.<\/li>\n<li>It appears the IRS avoided disclosing the scandal involving additional scrutiny and\/or harassment of conservative organizations and individuals, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/blogs\/report-irs-deliberately-chose-not-fess-scandal-election_724711.html\">deliberately waiting until after the 2012 elections to disclose the scandal.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The outgoing head of the IRS, Steve Miller, in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committed on Friday, 17 May 2013, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/348637\/irs-head-cant-remember-who-was-responsible-targeting-andrew-johnson\">couldn\u2019t remember who at was responsible for targeting conservative groups<\/a> by his agency.\u00a0 Even though he did remember asking his senior technical advisor, Nancy Marks, that question, he just couldn\u2019t remember her answer.<\/li>\n<li>The initial disclosure of the IRS scandal by Acting IRS Tax Exempt Division chief Lois <a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2013\/05\/17\/lerners-admission-was-pre-planned-public-disclosure\/\">Lerner was not spontaneous<\/a>, but was pre planned and timed to coincide with the release of the IRS IG Report on the same matter.<\/li>\n<li>The husband of the current head of the IRS\u2019s Tax Exempt Division, Lois Lehrner, <a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2013\/05\/16\/embattled-irs-official-lois-lerners-husbands-law-firm-hosted-an-obama-campaign-organizing-meeting\/\">works for a law firm with close ties to the current Administration<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Ms. Lerner also <a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2013\/05\/14\/irs-official-lerner-approved-exemption-for-obama-brothers-charity\/\">personally approved the tax-exempt certification<\/a> for that highly-questionable charity run by the POTUS\u2019s half-brother.<\/li>\n<li>Senators Chuck Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen and Al Franken <a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2013\/05\/17\/flashback-schumer-franken-urged-irs-to-target-tea-party-in-2012\/\">urged the IRS to target conservative organizations in 2012<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>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, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/Big-Journalism\/2013\/05\/17\/Anchor-Who-Complained-About-IRS-Harassment-Off-The-Air\">has been \u201ctemporarily\u201d taken off the air by his employer.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>That \u201dparagon of taxpaying virtue\u201d Rep. Charles Rangel seems even bothered, saying, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/freebeacon.com\/rangel-this-is-wrong-to-abuse-the-tax-system\/\">This is wrong to abuse the tax system<\/a>.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But don\u2019t worry about any of that, folks.\u00a0 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:\u00a0 \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2013\/05\/17\/irs-official-on-targeting-tea-party-it-is-absolutely-not-illegal\/\">It is absolutely not illegal<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sweet Jesus &#8211; what\u2019s next? \u00a0\u00a0Is someone in this Administration about to stand up and publicly say, \u201cIf the President does it, it\u2019s not illegal\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s update for the last 24 hours or so: The IRS asked one Pro-Life group for &hellip; <a title=\"IRS Scandal Update &#8211; 18 May 2013\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35687\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">IRS Scandal Update &#8211; 18 May 2013<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,185,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-crime","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}