There is no longer any question about the overt corruption that is the IRS and it’s worse than you thought. The newly released Lois Lerner emails are the smoking gun.
During his testimony, he pointed to emails sent by former IRS official Lois Lerner that appear to contradict the administration’s assertions that the targeting was not a coordinated effort from Washington.
The emails were released by the House Ways and Means Committee as part of its probe of the IRS scandal.
Sekulow explained that the emails show Lerner in contact with the IRS’ chief counsel and other top lawyers at least a year before the scandal became public. He said that Lerner wrote about coming up with new rules to restrict non-profit groups.
“They wanted to do it ‘off-plan,’ which means off the books so it’s not on the public calendar. And all of that was taking place while the targeting was going on,” he explained. Sekulow says the emails disprove the Obama administration’s story about the targeting originating in a remote office among lower level IRS agents.
Sekulow believes the email is a “smoking gun” in his plaintiffs’ case against the IRS.
“Legally, the IRS has been caught red-handed and the American people and certainly our plaintiffs are not taking it lying down,” said Sekulow. He believes a special prosecutor must be called on to investigate, since the head of the current probe has been found to be a big Obama campaign donor.
“When you see these emails and you understand what’s in them, you realize the highest level of the IRS was conspiring with Lois Lerner at least a year before this scandal broke. And what they’ve attempted to do now is just cover their tracks.”
Cleta Mitchell, an attorney representing some targeted conservative groups testified at the IRS hearings and listed the real crimes that have been committed:
“This scandal is not over,” said Washington Attorney Cleta Mitchell, who’s representing about a dozen of the targeted tea party groups. She rattled off a number of criminal offenses that have been committed in what she called, “this very ugly episode”:
“The lying has not stopped. There are lies upon lies in this ugly episode. The Commissioner of the IRS lied to Congress in March 2012 when he said there was absolutely no targeting, Mitchell declared, making sure to note that, “lying to Congress is a crime.”
She continued, “the Department of Justice refuses to investigate who it was that was responsible for releasing confidential tax information of Koch Industries to the president’s Economic Advisor who in turn , released it to the press.”“Or who released the National Organization of Marriage’s tax return? I represent NOM – we sued the IRS to try to get to the bottom of why our confidential tax information was made available to our political opponents. Where’s the FBI in investigating?….That is a criminal offense!”
“It is a criminal offense also for the IRS to release the confidential donors of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Republican governor’s Public Policy Council.”
Conservative organizations, whose donor information was released by the IRS… That’s a criminal offense! Who’s investigating that? And finally the lies…again – it is a felony to lie to a federal agency.”
Yes, the IRS investigations are a sham. They’re entirely phony.
When you read of the sheer harassment conservative groups have subjected to it makes your blood boil.
“Since that filing in 2010, my private businesses, my nonprofit organizations, my family and I have been subjected to more than 15 instances of audit or inquiry by federal agencies,” she added.
Engelbrecht’s personal and business tax returns were audited in 2011 – “each audit going back for a number of years.” Her business was inspected by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2012 when neither she nor her husband was present. She said she was later fined over $20,000 even though “the agency wrote that it found nothing serious or significant.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms audited her business in 2012 and 2013, and the FBI contacted her non-profit group six times since 2010 in an attempt to “cull through membership manifests in conjunction with domestic terrorism cases,” she claimed.
“They eventually dropped all matters and have now redacted nearly all my files,” Engelbrecht said.
“All of these incursions into my affairs began after filing applications for tax-exemption. There is no other remarkable event. There’s no other reason to explain how for decades I went unnoticed, but now find myself on the receiving end of interagency coordination into and against all facets of my life, both personal and private,” she said.
The BATF? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
What’s really interesting is that Engelbrecht and her husband were harassed directly by Elijah Cummings himself.
Engelbrecht said shortly after founding and leading True to Vote and King Street Patriots, she was visited by law enforcement agencies and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), even though outside of filing their tax returns, she and her husband never dealt with any government agency in nearly two decades of running their small business.
Since when is it the job of democrat Congressmen to intimidate individuals and then defame them?
“Three times, Representative Elijah Cummings sent letters to True the Vote, demanding much of the same information that the IRS had requested. Hours after sending letters, he would appear on cable news and publicly defame me and my organization. Such tactics are unacceptable,” she claimed.
You’ll want to watch this too
Cummings accused Engelbrecht of well- take a guess.
Obama promised to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal and to that end appointed an Obama donor and political supporter. The Justice Department then refused to allow the Obama donor-investigator to testify before a House committee.
Barack Obama claims there is not a “smidgen” of corruption. How he could know that is interesting to many, including Congressman Trey Gowdy:
“How can the president say there’s not a smidgen of criminality when Lois Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment and 41 witnesses haven’t been interviewed including the two that are here right now?”
This scandal is not over. It’s not old news. It’s just heating up and it has the potential to take this regime down. This is, as George Will said, the equivalent of Watergate. It’s certainly more important than a traffic jam in Jersey. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together.
The time for a Special Counsel has come. It’s obvious that the IRS is hopelessly corrupt. It is Barack Obama’s personal Gestapo. This can be forged into a weapon for the GOP. They can promise that this abuse will be halted. In 1981 Ronald Reagan fired all air traffic controllers.
Promise to fire every single IRS employee and start over.
Can’t lose.
The legitimacy of the IRS depends on its being trustworthy, and it has forfeited that trust completely. GOP candidates, promise us you’ll do this for America. Restore our faith in government. Free us of this tyranny.
Image courtesy mojosteve
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.