These simple questions – each based on indisputable facts – establish that somebody outside of the IRS told her they wanted the tax agency to “fix” something involving groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax status, that she directed subordinates to begin a (c)(4) project she feared could be seen as “political,” that she viewed Tea Party groups as “dangerous,” and that she ordered that such groups be subjected to “multi-level review.” Those are the four essential points of the IRS scandal: Who ordered the tax agency to get involved, who in the tax agency responded, who they targeted and what actions they took. She cannot answer these questions because, as she herself has claimed, that would be incriminating. Lerner and others must hope Issa doesn’t already have the answers.
Gee, I kind of hope he does. I’m guessing White House counsel’s office, myself.
Jeez, log onto twitter to argue on some other site and discover Rand is bogarting links.
The immediately public evidence would be the numerous letters sent by Democrat Congress persons demanding the extra scrutiny.
“She is protecting no one! This is a phony scandal! Pay no attention to the statist taking the Fifth! Nothing to see here–move along, serfs! Know that Dear Leader and those who serve him have only your best interests at heart!”
Those are the four essential points of the IRS scandal:
Who ordered the tax agency to get involved
The law puts the IRS in charge of 501c4 administration.
who in the tax agency responded
Lerner’s Cincinnatti office handled 501c4s.
who they targeted
501c4 applicants that appeared to be political (and thus possibly in violation of the 501c4 criteria), including groups on the right and left.
what actions they took
They asked the applicants for lots of information, asked higher ups in D.C. for guidance, used inappropriate be-on-the-lookout (BOLO) search terms (for both right and left), and took a very long time processing the applications, while only turning down one of them (from a liberal group), presumably for fear of getting in trouble by making the wrong decision.
The “essential points of the IRS scandal” are nothing more than bureaucratic standard operating procedure: when handed a political hot potato, stall.
Issa has nothing, and knows it, which is why he won’t even release the testimony that he’s collected, and won’t listen to a proffer from Lerner’s attorney. Remember that just last week Issa was claiming that he had an agreement to get Lerner’s testimony, to hype Wednesday’s hearings, and of course this blog bought the story. He was just blowing smoke, as he has been this whole time, stringing his credulous audience along. Just wait until the next hearing — that’s when we’ll see the smoking gun!
Issa has had his chairmanship and subpoena power for three years now, and despite dozens of hearings and tens of millions of dollars he hasn’t managed to make a single charge stick against, in his words, the most corrupt administration in American history. But he’ll keep on selling his scandals, because there are suckers lapping it up.
Issa has had his chairmanship and subpoena power for three years now, and despite dozens of hearings and tens of millions of dollars he hasn’t managed to make a single charge stick against, in his words, the most corrupt administration in American history.
Yea, it should be pretty damn easy to peel evidence off of the most transparent administration ever.
“The law puts the IRS in charge of 501c4 administration.”
The emails show that there was pressure to use the IRS to do an end run around Citizen’s United and the FEC. We need to know who were the people who decided to change IRS operating procedures to target political dissidents for persecution. Also, public statements by elected Democrats show there were public efforts to use the IRS as a weapon against political opponents.
“Lerner’s Cincinnatti office handled 501c4s.”
Once again evidence shows that not only were the offices in DC involved but also other offices around the country. Its like you argue about this stuff but don’t actually read anything about it.
“501c4 applicants that appeared to be political”
There is nothing wrong with groups being political, it isn’t a violation of the regulations. You are arguing for the criminalization of groups having a mission statement or any ideological goals or aspirations. All of those groups were operating within the law yet were denied the same rights and privileges enjoyed by Democrat groups. At the same time the IRS was targeting conservative groups, Democrats were spending record amounts of money on politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
“including groups on the right and left.”
Groups on the left were not subjected to the same treatment, which you know very well. Here is another case where emails show the IRS took care to provide a fig leaf to cover their political persecution. None of the leftist groups were harassed for years as conservative groups were.
“asked higher ups in D.C. for guidance”
So now you admit it wasn’t just Cincinnati? What were the orders out of DC and who issued them?
“The “essential points of the IRS scandal” are nothing more than bureaucratic standard operating procedure: when handed a political hot potato,”
Who handed the IRS the hot potato? Low level IRS staffers don’t just spontaneously decide to take on the roll of the FEC or the legislature in dealing with the alleged problems of Citizen’s United.
“Issa has nothing, and knows it, which is why he won’t even release the testimony that he’s collected”
What testimony? Lois Lerner keeps pleading the 5th.
“claiming that he had an agreement to get Lerner’s testimony, to hype Wednesday’s hearings, and of course this blog bought the story. ”
Really? People here thought Lerner would actually give congress information? It was widely expected that she would just take the 5th again. Posting a link announcing that she would testify isn’t “buying” anything.
The Democrat progression on this scandal has been rather interesting. It started out with fake outrage and then moved to, “I don’t like these Tea Party groups or Citizen’s United so they deserved the IRS persecution.”
Might have to coin a new nick name for you, Jack Boot Jim. Your motto could be, “It’s not like we sent you to the camps.”
groups on the right and left.
Groups on the left were targeted? Gee, it would seem pretty easy to come up with a dozen or so examples to equate to the hundreds on the right. I guess statistical sampling and population comparison isn’t something Jim is capable of doing. It’s probably why he believes Mann. But is this the information that supposedly Issa is hiding? How could Issa hide such a thing? I’m not asking that from a moral standpoint. If there were dozens of lefty groups targeted, then why aren’t that pleading their cases to the general public like the groups on the right? Why aren’t Democrat Congressmen upset that these groups were improperly targeted by the IRS? Remember Lois Lerner has already apologized for violating IRS procedures and improper targeting. It was her claim that started this.
I think Jim is just making up BS. Excuse me, I think Jim is simply repeating someone else’s made up BS. For certain, Jim has never made a charge that has stuck.
“But is this the information that supposedly Issa is hiding? How could Issa hide such a thing? I’m not asking that from a moral standpoint. If there were dozens of lefty groups targeted, then why aren’t that pleading their cases to the general public like the groups on the right? Why aren’t Democrat Congressmen upset that these groups were improperly targeted by the IRS?”
For the same reason no one collected on the $100,000 offered by Breitbart to give proof that someone actually did spit on and call black congresspeople names.
The mass targeting of lefty organizations, which Jim is mechanically spouting, is all made up.
Groups on the left were targeted? Gee, it would seem pretty easy to come up with a dozen or so examples
It isn’t too hard; here’s a start:
Coffee Party USA
Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada
Rebuild the Dream
Progressives United Inc.
Progress Texas
Progress Missouri Inc.
Tie the Knot
ProgressNow
Across the Aisle Foundation
The East Hampton Group for Good Government Inc.
League of Women Voters of Hawaii
But is this the information that supposedly Issa is hiding?
No, Issa has refused to release all the transcripts of interviews his committee’s investigators have conducted with IRS employees. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has urged Issa to release the interviews, presumably because they don’t support GOP theories.
Why aren’t Democrat Congressmen upset that these groups were improperly targeted by the IRS?
Maybe they are upset, but aren’t being dramatic about it because they don’t see political profit in attacking the IRS? Or maybe they understand that 501c4 enforcement is a tricky business?
The groups did not receive the same type of scrutiny. They were not treated the same way nor asked the same questions. If Democrat groups were asked about the content of their prayers and the membership rolls of their churches, we would have heard about it. None of these liberal groups have come forward with any information regarding the specifics of any IRS actions against them.
If Democrat groups were asked about the content of their prayers and the membership rolls of their churches, we would have heard about it.
So much ignorance in one sentence. Let’s break it down:
* The religious group that was asked about prayers was applying for 501c3 (charitable) status, not 501c4 (social welfare) back in 2009, before Citizens United. That story has nothing to do with the IRS targeting “scandal”.
* The IRS has also asked for similar information from liberal religious 501c3s, e.g. All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena.
* “I haven’t heard of it, so it didn’t happen” is a very poor argument. In this very thread Leland and Gregg make that very argument about liberal groups not being targeted, never mind that you can easily find examples of liberal groups that were selected for scrutiny.
None of these liberal groups have come forward with any information regarding the specifics of any IRS actions against them.
Because you haven’t heard of it? Or maybe because they don’t have the same sort of persecution complex that afflicts the anti-Obama groups? Yes, groups have come forward with “information regarding the specifics of any IRS actions against them”. It took me about 5 seconds to find Coffee Party USA’s statement on their IRS application. I’m sure you can find other groups’ responses, if you bother to look.
Gee Jim, your own Coffee Party link says:
The inclusion of a small number of liberal groups was to provide a fig leaf. Lerner’s emails show they were taking actions for this purpose. The Coffee Party was a joke. It never went anywhere and was the perfect sacrificial lamb. OFA on the other hand…
Then there is the fact that 100% of 5o1c4 groups audited were conservative groups. http://aclj.org/free-speech-2/all-groups-audited-by-irs-were-you-guessed-it-conservative
Certainly doesn’t look like Obama and the Democrats are using the IRS to persecute their political opponents…
I mean, it isn’t like Obama’s own campaign turned nonprofit didn’t receive the same scrutiny right?
That “fact” is a partisan claim by a GOP Congressman, and it doesn’t necessarily mean what you suggest. Here’s the whole quote:
So dozens of groups (not all right-leaning) were flagged for surveillance, and an unknown number of those were audited, presumably based on information collected by that surveillance. We don’t know what criteria were used for either the flagging or the audits, or what criteria Camp is using to identify groups as “right-leaning”. Camp has no proof of wrongdoing, just innuendo.
Jim:
“Just because 100% of the groups audited were conservative groups doesn’t indicate there was any bias!!!!! Nothing to see here. Move along. All is well!”
“Just because 100% of the groups audited were conservative groups doesn’t indicate there was any bias!”
No, it doesn’t. For all we know only a handful of groups were audited, and there are plenty of non-biased criteria that could yield that result.
A note about inferring bias from statistics. Blacks in the U.S. are much more likely to be charged with marijuana offenses than whites. By itself, that doesn’t prove bias — after all, maybe blacks are much more likely to use marijuana. As it happens, blacks aren’t any more likely to use marijuana, so the huge disparity in arrests must have some other explanation — and bias is among the possibilities. But you need to know a lot more than “all of the audited 501c4s were right-leaning” to conclude that they were audited because they were right-leaning.
As is usual for Jim, he lists a source that is so bereft of data as to be meaningless. He takes a report from…from WHO?
The Treasury department. Oh yeah that’ll be accurate…it’s only the entity under investigation.
The article Jim cites has a pie chart right at the top which has 1/3 of the affected entities being Tea Party groups….
And “Other” makes up almost 3/4 but of course the Treasurey department won’t say who those “other” are.
Useless data.
And Jim doesn’t even have the excuse that this occurred way down the article. It’s right on top.
Jim always does this with his sources – ignores information that destroys his argument.
Jim also hopes you won’t see this sentence:
“Of these, “the majority of the groups selected for extra scrutiny probably matched the political criteria the IRS used and backed conservative causes, the Tea Party, or limited government generally,” wrote Martin A. Sullivan in a June 3 piece in Tax Notes, a newsletter published by the Tax Analysts group. “But a substantial minority — almost one third of the subset — did not fit that description.”
So as usual Jim cherry picks tiny bits of sentences in an article (his list) and ignores what the article says.
He does this all the time. Therefore I view any article Jim sites as immediately suspect.
I hope Issa keeps digging. Based on the usual suspects around here going into full deflection mode there is certainly more to be exposed. Otherwise they would encourage Issa to keep going and make a fool of himself. Afterall, there is nothing to find. Right?
I suppose I’m a “usual suspect”, but I have no inside information about what Issa might find. I just know that he hasn’t found anything to date, despite lots of hype and drama. Scandal theater seems to be good for him and the GOP politically — it keeps the base riled up — whether or not he finds anything.
How can you read Lerner’s emails and say there is nothing there? But it doesn’t matter because even if there was a smoking gun, you think conservatives deserve what happened.
I think conservatives, and liberals, deserve fair enforcement of the law. It isn’t persecution to demand that 501c4 applicants of every ideology show that they actually qualify for 501c4 status.
How does fair enforcement of the law mesh with the idea of Obama unilaterally amending the Affordable Care Act?
“deserve fair enforcement of the law.”
Which law? The ones Tea Party groups were following in their applications or the ones you don’t like like Citizen’s United? You have already said the IRS should target groups after Citizen’s United. I understand that you don’t like the ruling but who gave the order to change established regulations at the IRS to implement Democrat’s political ideology?
Which law?
The Internal Revenue Code.
You have already said the IRS should target groups after Citizen’s United.
I’ve said that the IRS should scrutinize 501c4 applications to make sure that groups — of whatever ideology — meet the 501c4 requirements. Do you think they should approve groups that don’t meet the requirements?
How does fair enforcement of the law mesh with the idea of Obama unilaterally amending the Affordable Care Act?
Yes, some people (big employers who don’t provide health insurance, individuals who had non-compliant policies) are benefitting from delays in the enforcement of some ACA provisions, while others (e.g. individuals who didn’t have non-compliant policies) aren’t. So the enforcement isn’t perfectly uniform. But it isn’t distorted by political favoritism. It isn’t as if big employers and people with non-compliant policies tend to be Democrats, and people without insurance tend to be Republicans; if anything it’s the other way around.
Boy, it’ll be interesting to see who and how many get pardoned when Obama finally leaves office. He probably will need to do something just to protect himself.
what did you think when Bush commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby?
What did Scooter Libby do to deserve that sentence?
According to the jury, he lied to federal investigators, lied to a federal grand jury, and obstructed justice.
How could he obstruct justice when the things he lied about had little to do with what was being investigated?
The jury apparently thought that Libby’s lies obstructed justice.
Because the prosecutor told them they did. That doesn’t mean they actually did. And in fact they didn’t, since no one at the White House did anything wrong.
So Holder and Clapper should go to jail?
Because the prosecutor told them they did. That doesn’t mean they actually did.
Libby’s attorneys told the jury they didn’t. The jury weighed the evidence and decided that Libby’s lies did obstruct justice. They found him not guilty on one of the two counts of lying to federal investigators — it isn’t as if they blindly agreed with everything the prosecutor alleged.
no one at the White House did anything wrong
So it’s not wrong to lie to FBI agents and grand juries? Bill Clinton will be so glad to hear that.
Bill Clinton did a lot more than that.
The thing Clinton did for which there’s the best evidence is that he lied to a grand jury. But here you are saying that’s there’s nothing wrong with that!
Clinton didn’t just lie to a grand jury. There is abundant evidence that he suborned perjury, from at least three people, through bribes and physical threats. And he did so to avoid the legal consequences of sexually harassing one of his employees while governor of Arkansas.
So suborning perjury is wrong, but committing perjury yourself isn’t? What an interesting moral calculus.
And no, the evidence for suborning perjury wasn’t as iron-clad as the evidence for Clinton’s perjury itself. The articles of impeachment made no mention of physical threats, and charged him with obstruction of justice rather than subornation of perjury (i.e. they didn’t think they could prove perjury by others, just that Clinton had encouraged others to lie).
76.24.229.209
Submitted on 2014/03/10 at 7:51 am | In reply to Jim.
So suborning perjury is wrong, but committing perjury yourself isn’t?
No, they’re both wrong, but one is much wronger than the other, particularly when it occurs via bribes and threats of physical harm. And there was plenty of evidence of it (hint: subornation of perjury is obstruction of justice; they didn’t need to be more specific than that).
no one at the White House did anything wrong
[perjury and suborning perjury are] both wrong
Possible conclusions:
1) You don’t think Scooter Libby worked “at the White House”
2) You don’t think Scooter Libby committed perjury, guilty verdict aside
3) You’ve decided since yesterday that perjury is in fact wrong
hint: subornation of perjury is obstruction of justice
But obstruction of justice is not necessarily subornation of perjury. Encouraging a witness to lie to a grand jury is obstruction of justice, but it isn’t subornation of perjury unless the witness actually goes through with it. If the House thought it could prove subornation of perjury, they would have made the charge. They didn’t.
So it’s OK to try to get someone to perjure themselves through threats and bribes, as long as you aren’t successful? Like failing in an attempted murder?
Perjury is in fact wrong, but prosecutors have discretion. Fitzpatrick abused his so he could get a conviction from someone on something, when his original investigation fell apart.
Bush pardoned one aide who went to jail for not being the person who leaked the name of Valerie Plame. The person who did leak her name, a Bush detractor, wasn’t ever charged with anything.
In contrast, Obama will probably end up having to pardon half of his top officials for a laundry list of crimes.
Nitpick: Bush didn’t pardon Libby, he commuted Libby’s sentence.
Obama will probably end up having to pardon half of his top officials for a laundry list of crimes.
Time will tell. Other than Ford, every president since LBJ has had at least one top aide face criminal charges. So far Obama’s team is clean.
Obama’s team is only “clean” because his Attorney General is corrupt and won’t prosecute (or even properly investigate) any of his team’s wrong doing.
You give Holder an awful lot of credit. The officials from previous administrations who faced criminal charges typically weren’t prosecuted by the Attorney General. For example, Bert Lance was tried on bank fraud charges in Georgia.
The IRS caved in and will hand Issa all of Lois Lerner’s emails. I guess they’ve decided to try and make her the sacrificial lamb.
Prediction: the IRS “scandal” will live on on the right, whether or not anything incriminating is found in Lerner’s emails.
Yes, it is really hard to find a paper trail. What isn’t hard to find are examples of IRS political persecution or Democrats who are calling for more of it.
They say “All” emails. Use of outside emails for dirty dealings is a known practice.
“Use of outside emails for dirty dealings is a known practice.”
Yes I hope someone is on that case searching out any outside addresses she may have used.
dn-guy’s usual brilliant comment to any criticism of Obama: “BUUSSSHHH!!!!”
And you guys think he’s an idiot!
You guys are wasting your time debating Baghdad Jim. You’d have more success debating the guy on the bus who argues that the CIA working with Martians were responsible for the Dick York/Dick Sargent switch on BEWITCHED. Jim’s a statist (although he objects to being called any variation of “State-shtupper” even though he would obviously bear the State’s children if it were biologically possible). Anything that Dear Leader and his thugocracy does to expand and enhance the power of the State he’s almost certainly going to be for (until, of course, his ox gets gored).
Ya, Jim’s position is that Tea Party and other conservative groups and individuals deserved it. He doesn’t think using the IRS this way is wrong.
Jim’s position is that Tea Party and other conservative groups and individuals deserved it.
I think they deserve fair enforcement of the law, just like liberal groups and any other groups. But fair enforcement isn’t the same thing as no enforcement.
“I think they deserve fair enforcement of the law”
We are not seeing fair enforcement of the law. Targeting of Tea Party groups was supposed to have ended when the report was finished in 2012 but it continued through the election and is still going on. The targeting of individuals hasn’t even been investigated by the IRS and is also ongoing.
What we are witnessing is the rampant abuse of power to persecute political dissidents. Something Democrats a few years ago would have been against but their inner Stalin has come out and they want Obama to go even further. It is pretty disgusting. I thought Democrats were pretty low with all their racist stereotypes and dehumanizing attacks but they always surprise me with new lows.
Targeting of Tea Party groups was supposed to have ended when the report was finished in 2012 but it continued through the election and is still going on.
The biased selection of groups for special scrutiny — the targeting — has ended. Processing of Tea Party group 501c4 applications continues, as does processing of applications from left-leaning groups.
The targeting of individuals hasn’t even been investigated by the IRS and is also ongoing.
There’s no good evidence that any “targeting of individuals” even occurred.
What we are witnessing is the rampant abuse of power to persecute political dissidents.
You can’t even prove that a single “dissident” has been persecuted for political reasons.
Dick York. Dick Sargent. York. Sargent. Sergeant York. Wake up, sheeple!
There was only one Larry Hagman!
Guys, guys (whatever became of Andrea and where did she go)?
President George W Bush commuted the perjury sentence of “Scooter” Libby; there was no pardon. Mr. Libby worked for Vice President Cheney, and this difference is more than a simple distinction — Vice President Cheney gave a recent interview that he is somewhat “put out” by President Bush for not offering a pardon.
Whatever the merits of the case and the grounds for conviction, commuting the sentence pointedly does not overturn the jury verdict. Mr. Libby carries this conviction on his record will all of the shame and burden this entails. Mr. Bush commuted the sentence, which is an exercise of executive authority to show mercy regarding the punishment for a criminal conviction that is very much still there.
It is also important to point out the Scooter was not the source of the leak about Plame. His perjury charge stemmed from a reporter changing his testimony.
No, his perjury charge stemmed from him lying to federal investigators and a grand jury about his conversations with a journalist, telling them that he’d never talked to a journalist about Valerie Plame. Evidently he thought the journalist (the NYT’s Judith Miller) would keep quiet about their conversations, but Miller — after serving time on contempt of court charges — ultimately testified, and her testimony proved that Libby had committed perjury.
Karl Rove lied to investigators and the grand jury as well, but he then returned to the grand jury and reversed his initial testimony, admitting to talking to a journalist (Time’s Matt Cooper) about Plame. In light of the reversal the prosecutor decided not to charge him for the earlier lies. Libby stuck to his false story, and was charged and convicted.
Someday, but not in lifetime, whoever peoples this land in the future may want to be free. On that day, the IRS, along with most of the regulatory agencies, will be abolished.
Someday, but not in lifetime, whoever peoples this land in the future may want to be free. On that day, the IRS, along with most of the regulatory agencies, will be abolished.