CJ Ciaramella @ The Washington Free Beacon:
The Internal Revenue Service denied the existence of any documents related to its policy of targeting Tea Party organizations in response to a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, even though such documents were later discovered by the IRS inspector general.
The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, a conservative nonprofit group, filed a FOIA request in 2010 through investigative journalist Lynn K. Walsh seeking all IRS documents related to the agencies tax-exempt division specifically mentioning the Tea Party.
IRS headquarters responded in 2011 that it “found no documents specifically responsive to your request.”
However, the May 14 inspector general report found that the “first Sensitive Case Report [identifying Tea Party groups] was prepared by the Technical Unit” in April of 2010.
The report’s timeline chronicles the existence of numerous 2010 emails, memoranda, and policies related to the targeting of conservative organizations.
According to the IG timeline, an email was sent on July 27, 2010 “updating the description of applications involving potential political campaign intervention and providing a coordinator contact for the cases.”
“The description was changed to read, ‘These cases involve various local organizations in the Tea Party movement [that] are applying for exemption under 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4).’”
The IRS determinations unit developed a “be on the lookout” listing on Aug. 12, 2010, “in order to replace the existing practice of sending separate e-mails to all Determinations Unit employees as to cases to watch for, potentially abusive cases, cases requiring processing by the team of specialists, and emerging issues.”
The language of the listing was identical to the July 27, 2010 email.
“Either IRS Headquarters was entirely incompetent in maintaining awareness of prominent policies and documents within the IRS, or it deliberately covered up the existence of anti-conservative IRS policies. Either is terrifying,” Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center, said in a statement. “Legal action is necessary to ensure that the IRS does not lie to taxpayers in this manner in the future.”
The 1851 Center was one of many conservative organizations targeted by the IRS. When the 1851 Center applied for tax-exempt status in May 2010, the IRS demanded the organization “explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.”
As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the IRS submitted inappropriate questions to numerous conservative groups, demanding information such as donor lists and reading materials.
The revelation, which confirmed nearly a year of suspicions among conservative groups and lawmakers, has been roundly denounced as a breach of core constitutional values.
Miller’s testimony brought back memories of, ”It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”
Sure it does.
He knew and used grammatical gamesmanship to not answer the questions truthfully.
A number of people have sought to explain the IRS targeting of Tea Party, patriot, and 9/12 group applications — as well as those from other conservative groups — for “specialist team” treatment (mainly delays and excessive and inappropriate questions) in 2010 by pointing to the Citizens United decision that year allowing for unlimited, undisclosed fundraising by such groups. That’s the explanation IRS official Lois Lerner gave a week ago when she first revealed that the agency had improperly handled a slew of applications — the political shorthand was a mistaken attempt to deal with a surge in applications.
But the facts show she lied.
Fiscal year 2009 total 501(c)(4) were 1,751.
Fiscal year 2010 total 501(c)(4) were ONLY 1,735.
16 fewer!
“Why is Lois G. Lerner still on the taxpayer’s payroll?”
Yes, it’s a cover-up.
Don’t worry…the NEW YORK TIMES has already determined this was all a mix-up. Apparently, one or two agents in Cincinnati got confused because the rules for which groups were to be asked about what…were just not very clear. Nothing to see here…so lets all move on.
The difference between Watergate and this scandal (BTW…the TIMES will only call it a “controversy”) is back in 1973-’74 we had a news media mostly made up of honest brokers. Today they are mostly ideological hacks determined to protect their socialist leader. The same media that refused to vet Obama the candidate…now refuses to look with any debt into these “controversies”. That’s where we are folks.
(Sigh)…all so sad.
@VoteOutIncumbents: the new york times is so liberal they flame.
The Twitter Universe has been talking about this.
Harry Reid also made the same claim (Video follows):
Interviewed by Jan Helfeld in 2008, this is how the conversation went:
So the IRS Chief, Leader of the Senate, and Rep. Becerra all claim that our system of government is a “voluntary” tax system. It’s clear that either the government has been lying, or these three need to better explain themselves in detail, otherwise some people might misconstrue what they say and decide that paying their taxes is optional.
Long before the extensive questionnaires and document requests levied on conservative applicants fell under the scrutiny of Congress, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, a Democrat appointed by George W. Bush who served through President Obama’s first term, “to examine the purpose and primary activities of several 501 (c)(4) organizations that appear to be in violation of the law.”
At the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the IRS scandal today, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) led the bandwagon of members on the panel who claimed the root cause of the problem was the Supreme Court’s Citizens United campaign finance decision in 2010.
“Applications for secret money political organizations increased by fourfold after that. This small group of people in the Cincinnati office screwed up. Nobody’s going to deny that. They simply screwed up,” McDermott said. “But the Congress, this committee messed up by not giving any clear criteria for what a real charitable organization is.”
“Even with the egregious actions that have been acknowledged by the IRS, there’s still an underlying problem here, and that’s 501(c)(4)s being engaged in politics,” said Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.). “After Citizens United, the IRS was flooded with applications… seeking 501(c)(4) status. And why was that? In large part because super-PACs must disclose their donors while 501(c)(4)s do not.”
So there’s the Demorats story line; if it wasn’t for Citizens United we wouldn’t be having these problems. Of course, there was no flooding of applications. Baucus, Schumer, Levin and Dodd all sent requests to the IRS to looking into “these” 501(c)3 & 4 applications. What they did not request was the IRS investigate 501(c)5 groups, i.e. UNIONS who are in constant violation of CWA vs. Beck.
Nah, there was nothing political about going after any organization that had “Tea Party, 9-12 or Patriot” in their names.