Lois Lerner Directly Involved in IRS Targeting, Letters Show

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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/349212/[title-raw]?

 

By Andrew Stiles
May 23, 2013 6:49 PM

 

A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups as recently as April 2012, more than nine months after she first learned of the activity.

 

Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to 15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012. The letters, such as this one sent to the Ohio Liberty Council on March 16, 2012, informed the groups applying for tax-exempt status that the IRS was “unable to make a final determination on your exempt status without additional information,” and included a list of detailed questions of the kind that a Treasury inspector general’s audit found to be inappropriate. Some of the groups to which Lerner sent letters are still awaiting approval.

 

Lerner has denied involvement in the targeting, which she has blamed on a few “front-line people” in the agency’s Cincinnati field office. “I have not done anything wrong,” she told members of the House oversight committee on Wednesday. However, she then refused to answer any questions, citing protection under the Fifth Amendment. She has since been placed on (paid) administrative leave, and the committee may call her to testify again.

 

“One thing is clear: this correspondence shows [Lerner’s] direct involvement in the scheme,” wrote Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ACLJ. “Further, sending a letter from the top person in the IRS Exempt Organization division to a small Tea Party group also underscores the intimidation used in this targeting ploy.”

 

The letters coincide with former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman’s March 2012 testimony before Congress, in which he said there was “absolutely no targeting” of conservative groups at the agency. Months later, an internal IRS investigation concluded that the agency had engaged in such targeting. Obama-administration officials have insisted the targeting stopped in May 2012, although a number of ACLJ clients have received similar requests for information from the IRS within the past year, according to chief counsel Jay Sekulow.

 

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[Valin]

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As long as we're all going back to 1973....

[Casino67]

Which is going to end first, the Arias trial or this mess?

[Valin]

Which is going to end first, the Arias trial or this mess?

Who? Not that I'm really interested in Arias.

[Casino67]

 

Which is going to end first, the Arias trial or this mess?

Who? Not that I'm really interested in Arias.

 

I have Fox open in another window and heard Shep talking about the jury deadlock and what is going to happen now. I hear that old song "I'll be home for Christmas" playing in the background for the next jury.

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On section 1203: A footnote

Scott Johnson

5/24/13

 

A knowledgeable reader who asks us to withhold his name writes to comment on our post On section 1203. Our reader writes:

 

 

Im writing to comment on your post on the IRS and section 1203. Like the retired CID agent you quote, Im a regular reader and a fan. Im also an attorney with many years of service with Chief Counsels Office of the IRS. I agree with most of what the writer says (especially as respects section 1203), but I would qualify what he says about the significance of time elapsed statistics as it affects the targeting scandal. The writer is absolutely correct that time elapsed statistics are one of the principal, if not the principal, driving metrics in the IRS (much to the frustration of a lot of the more conscientious agents and mangers).

 

(Snip)

 

If and when I have some time, Id like to give you some thoughts as to why most of the conventional wisdom concerning the IRS scandal is wrong and why the wrong leasons will likely be drawn from this sad affair. For now Ill just make two observations: First, the image of the IRS as being composed of a bunch of left-wing activists that is being peddled in some quarters is factually wrong (Id note that my own organization has been the breeding ground for such well known radical leftist as Michele Bachmann). I have no hard data to prove it, but Im convinced that the IRS has a higher percentage of center and center-right employees than almost any other Federal agency (at least among the field agents; I cant speak to the national office types). When you think about it, this only makes sense, since what IRS agents do is accounting, and accounting is numbers, which is something liberals neither like nor are particularly adept at.

 

Second, there is no single monolithic IRS culture and any generalization made about the IRS as a whole is likely to be wrong. There are significant cultural differences among various divisions and between the field offices and the national office. And the service centers are a whole other world. For better or worse, the reorganization that followed RRA 98 has made the IRS something of an amalgamation of separate organizations. TEGE, which is where current problem lies, probably has less interaction with the rest of the organization than any other division.

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Drip...Drip...Drip...Drip...

 

American Center for Law and Justice: IRS scandal goes higher than Lois Lerner

Charlie Spiering

5/29/13

 

On MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ this morning, Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice discussed the federal lawsuit being filed by the organization against the IRS on behalf of more than 20 Tea Party and conservative groups.

 

Sekulow said that the idea that the IRS scandal was only the result of “rouge agents” in Cincinnati was false.

 

“I’m suggesting that the White House knew there was a problem with the agency’s approach because the Deputy Treasury Secretary was aware of it, the White house counsel was aware of it and Chief of Staff was aware of the problem so it goes higher than Lois Lerner,” Sekulow explained. “I don’t think she is the only person involved in this.”

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive!

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Why She Took the Fifth

It is illegal to provide the government false or misleading information.

Eliana Johnson

5/30/13

 

No wonder Lois Lerner took the Fifth.

 

Lerner, the IRS official sent on paid leave last Thursday after refusing to resign, would have had a tough time testifying before Congress about the agencys discrimination against tea-party groups without incriminating herself in the process, an examination of her conflicting representations reveals.

 

Her misdeeds go beyond a failure to inform Congress of the IRSs targeting of conservative organizations, a lapse of which other agency officials, including acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller and former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, are also accused. According to documents accessible on the website of the House Oversight Committee, Lerner also misled that body in its investigation; sidestepped lawmakers inquiries; and actively defended the intrusive questions that have been widely denounced by the inspector general, the current and former IRS commissioners, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

 

If the Treasury Department inspector generals report published in mid May is to be believed, Lerners communications with the House Oversight Committee have been willfully dishonest. And providing the United States government with false or misleading information carries criminal liability.

 

 

(Snip)

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http://youtu.be/xLXR8UCb0iI

[Draggingtree]

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Scott Johnson in IRS

Why Lerner took the Fifth

Whether or not IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner properly asserted her Fifth Amendment right not to testify absorbed commentators after her appearance before the House Oversight Committee last week. But the question why Lerner took the Fifth has not received a comparably close look. Before asserting the Fifth Amendment, Lerner denied that she has misled Congress. Thus the controversy over whether Lerner had waived her Fifth Amendment protection.

 

Over at NRO, my daughter Eliana takes a deep dive into the representations previously made by Lerner to Congress in response to inquiries regarding the IRS treatment of Tea Party and conservative groups. Eliana’s research suggests that Lerner both failed to inform Congress of the IRS targeting of these groups for special treatment, but also misrepresented the targeting:

 

According to documents accessible on the website of the House Oversight Committee, Lerner also misled that body in its investigation; sidestepped lawmakers’ inquiries; and actively defended the intrusive questions that have been widely denounced by the inspector general, the current and former IRS commissioners, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/05/why-lerner-took-the-fifth.php