Lerner’s FEC Problem

[Valin]

NRO:

Did she illegally disclose information to the FEC?

Eliana Johnson

8/11/13

 

The phony scandal at the IRS keeps growing.

 

E-mail correspondence unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee reveals that Lois Lerner, the figure at the center of the scandal, may have committed a felony by divulging information about a conservative group to the Federal Election Commission, in an incident that dates back at least to 2008, before President Obama took office. Though some conservatives have eagerly sought evidence that Obamas White House instigated the IRSs targeting of tea-party groups, the latest evidence suggests that an anti-conservative bias may instead be an endemic feature of the federal bureaucracy. And now, an FEC official is raising the specter of systemic bias at that agency, too, calling the techniques its lawyers employ a much more sophisticated way of discriminating against conservative groups than those used by the IRS.

 

(Snip)

 

Tax-law experts, however, disagree about whether Lerners apparent disclosure was a violation of Section 6103. Steven Willis, a professor of tax law at the University of Floridas Levin College of Law, argues that it was. The law does not allow for disclosure of pending applications, Willis says, and though he acknowledges that the law is a technicality, he maintains that Lerners violation is something more serious. In her position as director of Exempt Organizations, Ms. Lerner would surely have been aware of section 6103, Willis tells me. She would have had responsibility to ensure that employees who reported to her not violate the sections. Further, her role as a senior IRS official adds to the seriousness.

 

(Snip)