Author Topic: BREAKING: New Emails Show Lois Lerner Contacted DOJ About Prosecuting Tax Exempt Groups  (Read 1228 times)

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Offline happyg

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Katie Pavlich

According to new IRS emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch, former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner contacted the Department of Justice in May 2013 about whether tax exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for "lying" about political activity.

"I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ ... He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who "lied" on their 1024s --saying they weren't planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS," Lerner wrote in a May 8, 2013 email to former Nikole C. Flax, who was former-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller's chief of staff.

"I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?" Flax responded on May 9, 2013.


After this email exchange, Lerner handed things off to Senior Technical Adviser and Attorney Nancy Marks, who was in charge of setting up a meeting with DOJ.

Just a few short days later on May 10, 2013, Lerner admitted and apologized for the inappropriate targeting of conservative tea party groups during an American Bar Association Conference after answering a planted question. Further according to Judicial Watch, "In an email to an aide responding to a request for information from a Washington Post reporter, Lerner admits that she “can’t confirm that there was anyone on the other side of the political spectrum” who had been targeted by the IRS. She then adds that “The one with the names used were only know [sic] because they have been very loud in the press.”

In other words, only conservative groups were being looked at for criminal prosecution.

Last week news broke that Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings' staff was in contact with Lerner about the conservative group True the Vote, despite denying any contact occurred. In this specific instance of Lerner discussing possible criminal prosecution of tax-exempt groups through DOJ, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse seems to have been the person to get the ball rolling.

On April 9, 2013 during a Senate Judiciary Hearing, just one month before the targeting scandal broke, Whitehouse asked witnesses from DOJ and the IRS why groups that had possibly "made false statements" about their political activities had not been prosecuted. On March 27, 2013, just days before the hearing took place, Lerner described the purpose for the hearing to IRS staff in an email.

 "As I mentioned yesterday -- there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn't feel so comfortable doing the stuff," she wrote. "So, don't be fooled about how this is being articulated – it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity."

Lerner later acknowledged pursuing prosecutions of these groups would not fit well with the law.

“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The IRS emails show Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal. No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents.”

This post has been updated.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/04/16/breaking-new-emails-show-lois-lerner-contacted-doj-about-prosecuting-tax-exempt-groups-n1825292

Offline Relic

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Lerner and the IRS are victims. Didn't you get the memo?

Offline mystery-ak

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This is really damaging news...but will they do anything about it?
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Offline Relic

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This is really damaging news...but will they do anything about it?

NOTHING

Offline happyg

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Lois and Holder were going to bring false charges against conservatives and prosecute them. Where is Issa on this? Or anyone in congress. Holder needs impeached and prison time. Lerner needs a long time in prison. We have a totalitarian rogue government getting away with anything it pleases.

Offline mystery-ak

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They are all on Easter vaca on Cap Hill...
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Offline EC

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Issa is a paper tiger. Where are the real patriots - and I am talking both sides of the aisle. There is the odd honest Democrat. They are pretty odd, but they are honest.
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Offline flowers

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This is really damaging news...but will they do anything about it?
Sure the left will find a way to keep on destroying tea party type and congress will......................................CRICKETS. most in congress hate tea party types. they have no problem with this event.


Offline happyg

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Is it?  Is there an outcry from the American public?  Not from the politically motivated, but from ordinary people who don't really pay much attention to politics.

Yes, it is damaging news. There is not an outcry from the public because they don't know about it, yet. This is a revelation and congress is on an Easter break. The MSM won't report it, unless as an aside.

Offline Chieftain

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I think it is e-mails like this and many others that are why Lois Lerner has not been offered immunity for anything.  She is in this up to her eyeballs and she could well be the direct contact between IRS and the Administration.  When that happens, the fit really will hit the shan......

Developing.....


Offline happyg

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I think it is e-mails like this and many others that are why Lois Lerner has not been offered immunity for anything.  She is in this up to her eyeballs and she could well be the direct contact between IRS and the Administration.  When that happens, the fit really will hit the shan......

Developing.....

 :amen: When someone high up like Lerner and the DOJ set innocent people up for a fall, that is a huge crime. For anyone to falsely accuse anyone of a crime when you know otherwise is a punishable crime.

Offline Chieftain

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:amen: When someone high up like Lerner and the DOJ set innocent people up for a fall, that is a huge crime. For anyone to falsely accuse anyone of a crime when you know otherwise is a punishable crime.

Deliberately using the Federal system to go after citizens for political reasons.

Congress could stop this in a heartbeat, and have done so before.  Back in the eighties, the IRS was spending money to conduct what they called "compliance audits" of innocent tax payers who were guilty of simply filing a tax return.  IRS was selecting up to 10% if all returns filed and giving them the good old IRS anal exam, and of course they always found money owing.  You can take one set of tax documents and give them to four different CPAs who will come up with four completely different tax returns.

Congress acted and defunded IRS, forcing them to abandon those audits and laying of a bunch of the examiners it took to conduct them.  It takes direct action to fix something like that, and it will take direct action to hold Lois Lerner accountable.  I think she will be, eventually, if Obama doesn't pardon her before he leaves office....

 :smokin:

Offline happyg

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It's amazing what this administration is capable of. I wonder who will be the John Dean and will spill the beans on a lot of this crap? It sounds like Lerner is a good candidate. If so, forget about an Obama pardon.

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We will never again be a truly FREE people for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and the IRS!

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Offline mountaineer

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Republican response, such as it is, described in this recently-posted FOX News story:
Quote
IRS emails indicate Tea Party groups could have faced 'criminal' charges, Republicans say
Published April 17, 2014


Republicans say newly released emails show that if the IRS' targeting of Tea Party groups hadn't been stopped, those organizations could have faced "trumped up criminal charges" -- since ex-IRS official Lois Lerner and the Justice Department were apparently coordinating just days before the scandal was exposed.

The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch and first reported by TownHall.com, showed correspondence between Lerner and others at the IRS regarding the Justice Department's interest in investigating "political" groups. Based on the emails, the IRS seemed to be on board.

House Republicans claimed after the emails were published that they were further proof of coordination among various agencies to target conservatives.

"The release of new documents underscores the political nature of IRS Tea Party targeting and the extent to which supposed apolitical officials took direction from elected Democrats," House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in a statement.  "These e-mails are part of an overwhelming body of evidence that political pressure from prominent Democrats led to the targeting of Americans for their political beliefs."

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said that if the targeting hadn't been stopped, "Eric Holder's politicized Justice Department would likely have been leveling trumped up criminal charges against Tea Party groups to intimidate them from exercising their Constitutional rights."

At the least, the emails were another indication the targeting may have stretched deeper into the Obama administration. Lerner, the director of the agency’s Exempt Organizations division before retiring last year, initially said the targeting was limited to agents working in the IRS’ Cincinnati field office.

However, a series of inspector general and congressional probes since the scandal broke last year appear to show the targeting of mostly conservative-leaning groups seeking tax-exempt status was orchestrated in Washington.

In a May 2013 email, Lerner responded to a Justice Department inquiry about whether tax-exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for lying about political activity.

"I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ,” Lerner reportedly wrote to the office of Steven Miller, the agency’s acting director at the time. “He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who 'lied' on their 1024s -- saying they weren't planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures.

“DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS."

Nikole C. Flax, Miller’s chief of staff, responded: "I think we should do it -- also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?"

The administration at the highest level denied the targeting, from 2010 through the 2012 presidential election cycle, was illegal or politically motivated.

President Obama told Fox News in February there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in connection with the targeting.

And last week, emails obtained by the GOP-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform show the office of the committee's top-ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, contacted the IRS in January 2013 about True the Vote, one of the conservative groups that was targeted.

A Lerner staffer in response sent the group’s related 990 IRS forms to Cummings and his staff.

In another email, Lerner discussed with agency staffers the purpose of an upcoming, April 9 2013, hearing that also suggests the targeting went beyond the IRS.

“There are several groups of folks from the [Federal Election Commission] world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are)," she wrote.

“One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn't feel so comfortable doing the stuff. So, don't be fooled about how this is being articulated -- it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity."
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We will never again be a truly FREE people for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and the IRS!

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Yep! And I'm going to keep right on playing that note until the problem is fixed or I'm no longer breathing so you might as well get used to it my friend!

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« Last Edit: April 17, 2014, 04:35:11 pm by Bigun »
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Online Bigun

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If the public isn't aware of it, or doesn't react to it, then by definition it doesn't do any damage.  Since the media won't report on it, or will trivialize it, then it hasn't done any damage, by definition.

Total BS from beginning to end! It does real damage to the Republic whether or not ANYONE ever recognizes the fact!
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline happyg

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If the public isn't aware of it, or doesn't react to it, then by definition it doesn't do any damage.  Since the media won't report on it, or will trivialize it, then it hasn't done any damage, by definition.

I said the public doesn't know about it, YET. This is a revelation that was brought to our attention while congress is on spring break. The MSM won't bring it out, but Fox will, and so will conservative sites and radio stations, along with posting on FB and Twitter. So, by definition, this will cause some damage, but not as immediate as we'd like.