Judicial Watch has just released a new batch of documents forced
out of the Obama IRS that show the Obama administration's scandalous
misuse of the IRS to target Tea Party and other conservatives is not
going away.
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Included in the new batch of documents is a February 2012 email from
Lois Lerner, who was then head of the IRS' Exempt Organizations Branch,
asking that a special program be set up to "put together some training
points to help [IRS staffers] understand the potential pitfalls" of
revealing too much information to Congress.
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We also found a remarkable Lerner email from 2013 in which she says she is willing to take the blame for not having provided sufficient direction to her underlings on how best to investigate the targeted groups, and then conceded that she "understands why the IRS criteria" leading to targeting of Tea Party groups and other opponents of the President Obama "might raise questions."
In May 2013, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released an audit, however,
the IRS had used "inappropriate criteria" to identify potential
political cases. "Early in Calendar Year 2010," the TIGTA wrote, "the
IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations
applying for tax-exempt status to (e.g., lists of past and future
donors)." The illegal IRS reviews continued for over 18 months and, the
TIGTA reported, "delayed processing of targeted groups' applications"
preparing for the 2012 presidential election.
Not so coincidentally, during this period of time, Lerner emailed former Director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements Holly Paz, attempting to limit information provided by the IRS to Congress about non-profit classifications. Here is the exchange:
Thursday, February 16, 2012 1:28 PM- Lois Lerner to Holly Paz:
Subject: Review of Classification Write -Ups
While you were gone, Judy [Kindell - former Lerner advisor] and Sharon [Light - Lerner advisor] had
the opportunity to look at some of the write -up from the referral
committee and classification folks on cases they had reviewed. We are
all a bit concerned about the mention of specific Congress people,
practitioners and political parties. Our filed folks are not as
sensitive as we are to the fact that anything we write can be public-or
at least be seen by Congress. We talked with Nan [Downing - Director of EO Examinations] and
she thought it would be great if R & A could put together some
training points to help them understand the potential pitfalls, as well
as how to think about referrals. As a starting point, Nan has sent up a
bunch of papers that I asked Tom Miller [EO technical advisor] to review to provide feedback to Sharon/Judy -or whomever we decide should draft the training.
If
there is nothing to hide "on cases" the IRS "reviewed," then why the
sensitivity training on how IRS employees can cover their tracks from
Congress?
So,
besides confirming Lerner's role in making sure Congress had no clue
about the Obama IRS targeting effort, we also uncovered Lerner's most extensive and detailed discussion to date about the IRS scandal. (Remember, Lerner choose contempt of
Congress rather than testifying under oath about the scandal.)
Judicial Watch did what Congress couldn't. Lerner reveals much in a
January 31, 2013, email to TIGTA investigator Troy Patterson:
We
feel your folks are being too narrow in their view and have decided
that because of the language on the earlier BOLO [Be On the Lookout]
list regarding Tea Party, everything that followed was tainted...They
also don't seem to be taking a big picture look at what we have done...
When we describe that process, they acknowledge that that approach
sounds reasonable, but seem to be saying that reasonableness is
overshadowed by the fact that the criteria look bad to folks on the
outside, so there is no way we could cure the initial bad impression.
We
understand why the criteria might raise questions....So, I'm not sure
how they [TIGTA] investigators are looking at we were politically
motivated, or what they are looking for with regard to targeting. They
didn't seem to understand the difference between IRS acting in a
politically motivated manner and front line staff people using less than
stellar judgment. I am willing to take the blame for not having
provided sufficient direction initially, which may have resulted in
front line staff doing things that appeared to be politically motivated,
but I am not on board that anything that occurred here shows that the
IRS was politically motivated in the actions taken.
Again,
what your JW has just uncovered shows that the IRS scandal is far from
over. We also have email records from Lerner herself in which she admits
and then denies her culpability and that of the IRS in the scandal.
There was a lot more going on here than "bonehead decisions in local
offices," as President Obama would have us believe.
Let's explore further.
The
documents obtained by Judicial Watch also include the initial June 2011
email in which Lerner told associates that her computer had crashed and
her Blackberry no longer worked. The IRS failed to inform Judicial
Watch (and the federal court handling this FOIA litigation) that
Lerner's computer had crashed, and that critical Lerner emails may have
been wiped out. Three years later, in June 2014, it buried the information on page 15 of a letter from the IRS to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). The Lerner email contained:
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 8:54 AM- Lois Lerner to Williams Grant [IRS spokesman]; Kindell Judith E:
My
computer crashed yesterday and my Blackberry doesn't work in my office
so I just saw this. Unfortunately, I am tied up until at least 12 and
because Blackberry truncates, I can't see bottom of email ...
This
email also discloses the IRS investigations extended beyond mere audits
of Tea Party and other groups, and included a separate investigation
arm of the IRS, the Review of Operations Unit:
Also,
we often use the ROO [Review of Operations Unit] to do initial research
(.) Before starting audits-they don't touch taxpayers, but can look at
publicly available info about orgs.
Ironically, it was this very JW lawsuit that resulted in the disclosure of
Lerner's "lost and found" IRS emails. Indeed, our review of these
documents is showing document gaps caused by the Obama IRS' refusal to search for Lerner's emails.
And the documents raise questions about the judgement of Senator John McCain (R-AZ). A May 1, 2013, email
exchange between Lois Lerner and other top IRS staffers revealed that
she met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee in a "marathon" meeting to discuss concerns raised by both
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. McCain that the IRS was not reining in
political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.
This occurred 11 days prior to Lerner's admission, during an American
Bar Association meeting, that the IRS had "inappropriately" targeted
conservative groups. These emails show for the first time that those
attending this pressure meeting were key aides to McCain, the ranking
minority member of the committee:
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 10:26 AM - Lois Lerner to Nikole Flax [Chief of Staff to then-Commissioner Steven Miller] and others:
Yesterday's marathon went well thanks to "the village." Glad to have all of you as part of that village.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 12:23 PM - Sinno Suzanne [IRS Legislative Counsel] to Lerner and others:
I also took notes so I can compare and make sure we captured everything.
The staffers are below.
Laura Stuber (Majority Senior Counsel)
Elise Bean (Majority Staff Director and Majority Chief Counsel)
Kaye Meier (Senior Counsel for Senator Levin)
Henry Kerner (Minority Staff Director and Minority Chief Counsel)
Stephanie Hall (Minority Counsel)
Scott Wittmann (Minority Research Assistant)
The IRS seems to have blacked out the notes of the meeting.
And McCain and Levin said nothing about the meeting at the time. But,
in a press release sent 24 days after the meeting - and 13 days after
the IRS scandal had already broken - the two senators claimed to be
shocked at the news of the IRS targeting. The press release contained a
letter the two senators sent to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel claiming
outrage that the subject had not even been broached in their committee
staffers' six-hour marathon meeting. But one is reminded of
Shakespeare's observation regarding Lady Gertrude's transparently
excessive claims of piety: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much,"
because the letter also confirms that Levin (who is now retired) and
McCain put pressure on the IRS to control political speech:
On
April 30, 2013, Ms. Lerner and seven IRS colleagues spent six-hours
being interviewed, on a bipartisan basis, by Subcommittee staff. That
interview covered, among other topics, how the IRS determines which
groups to review, what actions are taken in connection with the IRS
reviews, and how the laws and regulations are used to examine those
groups. Ms. Lerner failed to disclose the internal controversy over the
search terms used by the Cincinnati office to identify 501(c)(4) groups
for further review, the actions taken by that office in reviewing the
identified groups, the investigation and imminent findings by the
Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA);
and TIGTA's conclusion that the IRS had used inappropriate criteria to
target Tea Party and other conservative groups. Ms. Lerner also failed
to disclose that she was fully aware of these issues as early as June
2011, and, according to TIGTA, had been personally involved in reviewing
questionable actions taken by the Cincinnati office.
Judicial Watch previously forced the release of
IRS documents that indicate extensive pressure on the IRS by Senator
Levin to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations.
Senator McCain has been vociferous in his calls for reining in free and
open political discussion. He was one of the chief sponsors of the
McCain-Feingold Act, and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the "worst decisions I have ever seen."
One might conclude from these documents that McCain was happy to have
Levin push the IRS to impose by regulation what the Supreme Court had
already ruled to be out of bounds.
Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the Justice Department's do-nothing,
In the meantime, you might want to ask Sen. Mitch McConnell,
the Kentucky Republican running the Senate, whether he will tie Obama's
nomination of Loretta Lynch to getting justice for the American people
in the Obama IRS scandal.
As I wrote previously,
this ought to be a major issue on the nomination fight over Loretta
Lynch, Obama's proposed successor to the disgraced Eric Holder. Under
Justice Department regulations:
The
Attorney General, or in cases in which the Attorney General is recused,
the Acting Attorney General, will appoint a Special Counsel when he or
she determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is
warranted and-(a) That investigation or prosecution of that person or
matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating Division of
the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the
Department or other extraordinary circumstances; and (b) That under the
circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside
Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter."
Should
Mitch McConnell lead Republicans and Democrats in requiring the
appointment of a special counsel for Loretta Lynch (or, actually, a
better nominee) to get a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate? Let Mr.
McConnell and your other Senate representatives know what you think.
You can reach them at 202-224-3121.
We'll
keep on doing what Justice and Congress won't. There is more to come.
We already have several thousand more internal IRS documents under
review, several other lawsuits, and more leads that will keep us working
at full capacity. And we will keep you posted!
When
an explosion occurs in a Muslim neighborhood at a building owned by a
person previously implicated as a terrorist financier, one would think
that authorities might conduct a thorough investigation. But the
results of an independent Judicial Watch investigation - that required a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to get key information -
shows that authorities dropped the ball on the deadly January 1, 2014,
explosion.
At 8:16 a.m. on New Year's Day in Minneapolis, a building at 516 Cedar Avenue containing a grocery store and several apartments exploded, killing three people and injuring 13. All of the apartments were occupied by single men. Many were hurt while jumping out of the burning building's windows in order to escape the carnage.
The
building was owned by Garad Nor, the owner of a money-transfer company
who had initially been implicated as a terrorist financier by the U.S.
Treasury Department. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
But within months of the Sept. 11
attacks, U.S. agents raided and blocked the accounts of five
Minneapolis money-transfer operations, including his company Aaran Money
Wire Service Inc.
Nor,
who also goes by the name Garad Jama, was in Dubai the day he learned
through CNN that his name was listed among 62 individuals and
organizations that the U.S. government said had helped fund Osama bin
Laden.
He
returned immediately to defend himself, and nine months later, after he
sued several members of then-President George W. Bush's cabinet, Nor's
name was finally removed from the United Nations list of entities
believed to have terrorist ties. The U.S. Treasury Department unfroze
his business' assets.
The apartment building was also adjacent to the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Civic Center, a mosque which lists the Muslim Brotherhood as a contact on its website "Links" page. Immediately after the blast, FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said
that the agency was aware of the explosion, "but it would be sheer
speculation to theorize what may have occurred here as far as any mosque
or any other business in the area." Amazingly, within 48 hours, the
FBI denied any terrorist activity was associated with the explosion.
Documents separately obtained by Judicial Watch from the State Fire Marshal Division of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, however, reveal that the explosion apparently was never thoroughly investigated.
In his January 10, 2014, report, Deputy State Fire Marshal Investigator Ronald C. Rahman admitted, "I did not retain any evidentiary artifacts from the scene." Furthermore, in his concluding report on the case Rahman wrote, "[T]he cause of this incident must be classified as 'Undeterminable.'"
Before
the building's destruction, G. Schmitz, fire investigator for the
Minneapolis Fire Department who was on the scene on the day of the
explosion, reported, "The origin of the fire is undetermined."
Suggestions by some that the fire may have been caused by "some kind of gas leak," were quickly refuted by Minnesota's Centerpoint Energy spokeswoman Becca Virden, who
stated that they "can detect a gas leak even when you can't detect it -
highly sensitive equipment. They have checked there were no gas leaks reported before and there are no gas leaks in the area now." Virden added, "We had no natural gas in the area."
The
documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the State Fire Marshal
Division of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety substantiate
doubts that a gas leak caused the explosion. Check out these details
from a February 28, 2014, supplemental report filed by Deputy State Fire
Marshal Rahman:
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