no charges in IRS investigation?

[B-Man]

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: House Releases Report on Lois Lerner’s Role in the IRS Scandal. 141 pages, summary at the link. Full report here. Some key bits:

Lerner broke IRS rules by mishandling taxpayer information: While Lerner told Congress under oath, “I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations,” e-mails show Lerner handled protected 6103 taxpayer information in her nonofficial e-mail account. In a November 2013 letter from Daniel Werfel, Werfel notes, “We do not permit IRS officials to send taxpayer information to their personal email addresses. An IRS employee should not send taxpayer information to his or her personal email address in any form, including redacted.” – p. 33

 

Lerner planned to retire in October all along: While House Democrats have pushed that Lerner was forced out by the IRS as a result of the TIGTA report; new e-mails indicate that Lerner had planned an October retirement long before TIGTA released its report. Her paid leave amounted to a paid vacation preceding her retirement – it does not appear that the IRS penalized her in any way for her conduct. – p. 40-41

Much, much more at the link.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: The Silence Of The Tax Lamb.

 

.

[B-Man]

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: ‘

 

We’re Going to Get Creamed’: Lerner Emails Paint Picture of Planning 501©(4) Scrutiny.

 

 

 

 

CBS News: Lois Lerner Under Fire In New House Oversight Committee Report.

 

.

[Tiberius]

*yawn*

[TakeYouToTasker]

*yawn*

The delegitimizing of the federal government is of no concern to you?

[IDBillzFan]

The delegitimizing of the federal government is of no concern to you?

 

He's a statist. If anything, he doesn't understand why the government doesn't use more of its agencies to tamp down opposition.

[TakeYouToTasker]

He's a statist. If anything, he doesn't understand why the government doesn't use more of its agencies to tamp down opposition.

There are agencies left that don't do this?

[IDBillzFan]

There are agencies left that don't do this?

 

Sure they do it. Just not enough for gatorman's tastes. Remember, this is a guy who thinks the WH and State Dept. leaving four Americans for dead in Benghazi is a knee-slapping good time. Anything short of federal control of your entire life is not enough for gatorman.

[B-Man]

IRS Regulations Divide NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus

 

It’s rare that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congressional Black Caucus fall on opposite sides of a political issue, but the Internal Revenue Service’s proposed regulation of 501©(4) groups has put them at loggerheads.

 

While the NAACP last month issued a harsh critique of the controversial regulations, warning that they would cause many of the group’s regional branches to lose their tax-exempt status, every member of the CBC that case a vote on a House bill that would have delayed the implementation of the regulations for a year opposed the measure.

 

“As drafted, the proposed regulations would cause the ‘primary’ activity — by any measure — of these NAACP unites to be counted as ‘candidate-related political activity,’ with the result that most branches and conferences would lose their tax-exempt status,” the chairwoman of the NAACP’s board of directors, Roslyn M. Brock, and the group’s interim president and chief executive offer, wrote in a public comment to the IRS.

Other liberal groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Service Employees International Union have also spoken out against the regulations, which would classify much of the day-to-day activity of social-welfare — voter education, non-partisan voter registration, and get-out-the-vote activities — and limit the amount of those activities permitted under the law.

 

The curtailment of activities like voter education and registration is a matter of particular sensitivity for the NAACP, which told IRS that its regulations would prohibit much of the work the group did, in its early years, to battle race discrimination in the administration of the country’s voting laws. The IRS’s rule making, they said, ”should not be permitted to undermine the progress we have made over the past century to expand the franchise.”

[3rdnlng]

http://www.conservative-daily.com/2014/03/28/irs-head-defies-subpoena-for-lois-lerner-emails/

Over the past year, there have been a lot of developments in the IRS targeting scandal. While Lois Lerner continues to plead the fifth and refuses to answer to her involvement in the targeting (while simultaneously claiming she did nothing wrong), the evidence that Congress has been able to gather proves, beyond a doubt, that she was at the heart of the scandal.

We know that the evidence is there. Just from what the House committees have been able to access so far, we know that Lois Lerner deliberately ordered the targeting of conservative groups for political reasons. Common sense would dictate that there should be more evidence out there. So, Congress has started looking for it.

The House and Senate Committees have subpoenaed the rest of Lois Lerner's emails but the Chairman of the IRS, John Koskinen, told the House Government Oversight Committee on Wednesday that it could take years for the IRS to redact the sensitive information in the files.

Years? They are going to drag the release of Lois Lerner documents on for years?! How is this acceptable? The Obama administration is trying to stall once again, delaying the investigation into the IRS not only until after the mid-term elections, but also after Barack Obama is out of office! This is how the Obama administration handles these scandals. They stall and stall until people either forget about their transgressions or the criminals responsible retire with full benefits and the statute of limitations expires!

[Tiberius]

[url=http://www.conservative-daily.com/2014/03/28/irs-head-defies-subpoena-for-lois-lerner-emails/]http://www.conservative-daily.com/2014/03/28/irs-head-defie not only until after the mid-term elections, but also after Barack Obama is out of office! This is how the Obama administration handles these scandals. They stall and stall until people either forget about their transgressions or the criminals responsible retire with full benefits and the statute of limitations expires![/font][/color]

maybe she was just a distraught, love lorn female like Bridge Kelly who has been pointed out by Christies totally independent and non-defense oriented review found? those women scorne you know! They close down lanes of traffic after going insane after bad love affairs, lol

[3rdnlng]

maybe she was just a distraught, love lorn female like Bridge Kelly who has been pointed out by Christies totally independent and non-defense oriented review found? those women scorne you know! They close down lanes of traffic after going insane after bad love affairs, lol

 

Yep, another day and a dumber post than yesterday. You're on a roll.

[OCinBuffalo]

http://www.conservat...-lerner-emails/

 

Over the past year, there have been a lot of developments in the IRS targeting scandal. While Lois Lerner continues to plead the fifth and refuses to answer to her involvement in the targeting (while simultaneously claiming she did nothing wrong), the evidence that Congress has been able to gather proves, beyond a doubt, that she was at the heart of the scandal.

We know that the evidence is there. Just from what the House committees have been able to access so far, we know that Lois Lerner deliberately ordered the targeting of conservative groups for political reasons. Common sense would dictate that there should be more evidence out there. So, Congress has started looking for it.

The House and Senate Committees have subpoenaed the rest of Lois Lerner's emails but the Chairman of the IRS, John Koskinen, told the House Government Oversight Committee on Wednesday that it could take years for the IRS to redact the sensitive information in the files.

Years? They are going to drag the release of Lois Lerner documents on for years?! How is this acceptable? The Obama administration is trying to stall once again, delaying the investigation into the IRS not only until after the mid-term elections, but also after Barack Obama is out of office! This is how the Obama administration handles these scandals. They stall and stall until people either forget about their transgressions or the criminals responsible retire with full benefits and the statute of limitations expires!

Yeah...but...I'd say about 95% of the damage that could have been done, has been done. Let's face it, someone would have fallen/will on their sword if this gets anywhere near the POTUS. Somebody would have gone to jail, and then gets $20k per on the lecture circuit. Ollie North comes to mind.

 

That's what's so stupid. Unless there is direct evidence linking Obama to this, and they really are covering it up(5% chance, given Obama's standard approach = no personal involvement in anything, other than playing golf), the Democrats could have killed this issue off by simply "sacrificing their pawns", or knights in Lerner's case. They tried that with the Cincy thing. That was never going to work. We all know policy emanates from DC.

 

Instead, they, not Rs, keep it going, keep allowing for the possibility that this does reach the top of the WH, and thus keep the right focused on finding the answer, and giving them reasonable cause to keep dragging the left through the mud. Thus, even more damage is done. It's fascinating stupidity.

 

Not only do they keep their political enemies energized with this stupid approach(and yeah TEA party says hello), they put their supporters, especially at the grass roots/extended family outings, in a one-down position.

 

Bad Benghazi, IRS, and NSA behavior is preventing the left from taking the moral high ground on things like the minimum wage or immigration. You can't take moral high ground, when you have that much immoral hanging around your neck.

[3rdnlng]

Damn are these federal employees dumb!

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/9/dallas-irs-office-plastered-pro-obama-stickers-scr/

Even as the IRS faces growing heat over Lois G. Lerner and the tea party targeting scandal, a government watchdog said Wednesday it’s pursuing cases against three other tax agency employees and offices suspected of illegal political activity in support of President Obama and fellow Democrats.

In one case the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates federal employees who conduct politics on government time, said it was “commonplace” in a Dallas IRS office for employees to have pro-Obama screensavers on their computers, and to have campaign-style buttons and stickers at their office.

In another case, a worker at the tax agency’s customer help line urged taxpayers “to re-elect President Obama in 2012 by repeatedly reciting a chant based on the spelling of his last name,” the Office of Special Counsel said in a statement.

[3rdnlng]

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/other/203073-house-panel-refers-lerner-case-to-doj-for-charges

 

After a rare session conducted mainly behind closed doors, the committee voted to send a criminal referral to Attorney General Eric Holder on a party-line 23-14 vote.

The letter to Holder outlining the potential charges says that Lerner recklessly exposed confidential taxpayer information, misled the inspector general investigating the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups and pushed the agency to only take a deeper look at conservative organizations.

Republicans specifically accuse Lerner of "targeting" Crossroads GPS, the conservative-leaning group with ties to Karl Rove that sought tax-exempt status.

House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) cast the referral as standing up to an immensely powerful government agency that "can strike the fear of God" into average taxpayers.

“We have to make sure that the signal goes out that this can’t happen again," Camp told reporters. "If we don’t stand up for people’s constitutional rights on behalf of the American people, who else will?”

The Ways and Means letter says that Lerner took a particular interest in Crossroads GPS after receiving complaints from campaign finance reform groups like Democracy 21. Lerner showed no such interest in liberal groups, the letter says, despite receiving similar complaints.

[IDBillzFan]

Emails now show Lerner feeding info to Elijah Cummings and violating, oh, a crapload of laws.

 

But yeah...nothing to see here....

 

New IRS emails released by the House Oversight Committee show staff working for Democratic Ranking Member Elijah Cummings communicated with the IRS multiple times between 2012 and 2013 about voter fraud prevention group True the Vote. True the Vote was targeted by the IRS after applying for tax exempt status more than two years ago.

 

Further, information shows the IRS and Cummings' staff asked for nearly identical information from True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht about her organization, indicating coordination and improper sharing of confidential taxpayer information.

 

Emails here.

 

Now Cummings is lying? Yikes. This is going to get ridiculously ugly.

 

Time for an executive order on fracking!!!

[DC Tom]

Emails now show Lerner feeding info to Elijah Cummings and violating, oh, a crapload of laws.

 

But yeah...nothing to see here....

 

 

 

Emails here.

 

Now Cummings is lying? Yikes. This is going to get ridiculously ugly.

 

Time for an executive order on fracking!!!

 

That article's a joke. By those emails, Lerner and her staff did nothing wrong in trying to fulfill a Congressional request, and strictly in accordance with the law. And by the law, the 990-EZ (which is what they provided) is disclosable.

 

Cummings, unsurprisingly, is an ass. He requested something the IRS was flat-out not permitted to receive.

[B-Man]

MSNBC’s Reid: Holding Lois Lerner In Contempt ‘Really Does Ratchet Up The…Persecution Of Her’

The folks at MSNBC seem to be doing their best to try and minimize the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups. Ever since the initial reports broke in 2013, liberals have characterized conservative outrage as nothing more than a political stunt and one of many “faux scandals and conspiracy theories.”

 

The most recent example came from Obama activist turned MSNBC host Joy Reid, who on Wednesday April 9 during her daily Reid Report program declared that GOP efforts to hold IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress “Really does ratchet up the level of what you might call persecution of her.”

 

 

 

 

 

Lerner talked of job with Obama's 'Organizing for Action'...

 

 

" Quid pro quo, Lois"

[Tiberius]

Damn are these federal employees dumb!

 

[3rdnlng]

 

You are a clown who doesn't see the significance of federal workers knowingly and purposely violating the law on government time.

[B-Man]

When ‘No’ Means ‘No’ :Lois Lerner willfully and knowingly exposed herself to a contempt vote.

by C. Boyden Gray

 

Some people can’t take “no” for an answer. Often that’s an admirable quality. But when you are a witness at the center of a congressional investigation, and the “no” reflects the House Oversight Committee’s decision not to accept your refusal to testify, then it’s not quite so simple. And that is where Lois Lerner, the former Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the IRS scandal, now finds herself.

 

Lerner’s case is by now well known. From 2006 to 2013, she was the IRS’s Director of Exempt Organizations, vested with power to decide which nonprofit organizations receive tax-exempt status, which ones do not, and which ones find themselves subjected to painful trials in the process.

 

That is no small matter. As Chief Justice John Marshall warned, “the power to tax” is “the power to destroy.” All the more so for nonprofit organizations, for which tax-exempt status truly is the difference between life and death.

 

And tax-exempt status benefits more than just a particular organization, its donors, and its direct beneficiaries. The federal government exempts these organizations from taxes precisely because of the benefits that accrue to society at large. As Justice Brennan once wrote, each of these groups “contributes to the diversity of association, viewpoint, and enterprise essential to a vigorous, pluralistic society.” And thus, as Justice Powell wrote, “the provision of tax exemptions to nonprofit groups is one indispensable means of limiting the influence of governmental orthodoxy on important areas of community life.” (I might add that this is what President George H. W. Bush alluded to when he praised America’s “thousands and tens of thousands of ethnic, religious, social, business, labor-union, neighborhood, regional, and other organizations, all of them varied, voluntary, and unique,” which “spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.”)

 

{snip}

 

Having served as White House counsel, I recognize as well as anyone the fundamental constitutional and practical stakes at issue when Congress investigates an administration, or when an administration defies Congress’s investigation. Such matters must always be handled with care by all parties to the process. The rights protected by the Fifth Amendment, and the obligation to comply with congressional subpoenas, must never be taken lightly.

 

But it is the very gravity of those stakes that requires all parties to this controversy to take seriously the legal standards governing these proceedings, and to interpret and apply them in good faith. The Supreme Court and the lower courts do not require a committee to utter certain “magic words” in rejecting a witness’s refusal to testify, nor do they require the committee to guarantee the witness’s future prosecution (by uncontrolled third parties) before voting to recommend the witness be held in contempt. The House Counsel was right to reject such erroneous arguments.

 

.