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Out of the spot light, House IRS investigators have been grinding out the work. WSJ Editors comment.
Congress’s investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives has been continuing out of the Syria headlines, and it’s turning up news. Emails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee between former Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner and her staff raise doubts about IRS claims that the targeting wasn’t politically motivated and that low-level employees in Cincinnati masterminded the operation.
In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff—including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz—that a Tea Party matter is “very dangerous,” and is something “Counsel and [Lerner adviser] Judy Kindell need to be in on.” Ms. Lerner adds, “Cincy should probably NOT have these cases.”
That’s a different tune than the IRS sang in May when former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said the agency’s overzealous enforcement was the work of two “rogue” employees in Cincinnati. When the story broke, Ms. Lerner suggested that her office had been unaware of the pattern of targeting until she read about it in the newspaper. “So it was pretty much we started seeing information in the press that raised questions for us, and we went back and took a look,” she said in May. …
Carol Platt Liebau has more.
… Perhaps one of the most sinister statements in the newly-released Lerner emails is the following: After receiving an article about Democrats complaining about anonymous donors financing attack ads against them, Lerner wrote, “”Perhaps the (Federal Election Commission) will save the day.”
Hm. So is it a coincidence, as reported here on Townhall, that Lois Lerner colluded with a lawyer from the FEC to try to influence the record before the FEC — at least twice — and illegally sharing confidential information? The answer has always been obvious; now it is increasingly so.
The more the facts in the IRS targeting scandal emerges, the more obvious it becomes that this was a partisan operation, in which law-abiding Americans were discriminated against based only on their political views. …
In City Journal, Steve Malanga asks “Who will audit the auditors?”
The Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups has revived old fears about the agency’s vast taxing and auditing powers, so easy to abuse. But the IRS isn’t alone in holding those powers. Across the country, states and municipalities have endowed thousands of revenue and audit bureaucracies with similar capabilities. Critics complain that officials use these entities to harass enemies and help allies. The evidence makes clear just how well-founded those concerns are—especially since these agencies typically receive far less scrutiny than the IRS does.
Under the administration of Democratic governor Bill Richardson, New Mexico’s labor department sparked controversy in 2006 for auditing the state’s Republican Party. The audit, launched shortly after the party criticized the governor harshly, was meant to examine whether it was complying with state laws on employment taxes. After initially claiming that a computer had randomly chosen the GOP for scrutiny, the state admitted that an employee of the labor department had selected the party. Under fire from state newspapers, the Richardson administration turned the audit over to a private firm. The controversy faded after the firm found the Republican Party “squeaky clean,” as the Santa Fe New Mexican put it, though the paper noted that the audit was “more harassment than just due vigilance on the labor department’s part.” …
While the IRS was harassing tea party groups, they were assisting obama voters. Investor’s Business Daily with the story.
At the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats.
This raw exercise in political favoritism has not been reported in the context of the still-smoldering IRS scandal, in which the agency in 2012 audited big GOP donors and blocked Tea Party groups trying to obtain tax-exempt status as part of what House investigators suspect was an effort to re-elect the president.
But that same year, top officials with both the IRS and Justice Department — including the IRS commissioner and attorney general — met in Washington with several dozen prominent black church ministers representing millions of voters to brief them on how to get their flocks out to vote without breaking federal tax laws.
The “summit” on energizing the black vote in houses of worship was hosted by the Democrat-controlled Congressional Black Caucus inside the U.S. Capitol on May 30, 2012.
The Daily Caller has an example of how the IRS may have been recruited by greens to audit a land owner.
The Inspector General of the U.S. Treasury Department is investigating whether an environmental group pressured the Internal Revenue Service into auditing a Virginia farmer and tea partier, according to attorneys, policy analysts and other sources familiar with the case.
But the investigation has not discouraged IRS auditors, who are expanding their audit of Martha Boneta in what has become a high-profile dispute over property rights.
Boneta told The Daily Caller in an interview that she has been asked to submit “reams and reams” of new information in addition to the original audit request.
Boneta said that she and her legal representatives recently met with a special agent of the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Information (TIGTA) “on two separate days, for almost five hours.”
While Boneta would not comment on the details of the meeting, she did say the “close coordination and collusion” between the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) and the FauquierCounty government in Virginia could become central to the ongoing investigation. The meetings with the special agent took place earlier this summer and with witnesses as recently as this past week. …
And to top off the day, World News Daily has a story on how the IRS is beating up veterans.
The Internal Revenue Service, which has been caught harassing conservative organizations with demands for personal ideological details, such as the content of prayers, now is doing the same to veterans’ groups.
Louis J. Celli Jr., director of the National Legislative Division at the American Legion, spoke exclusively with WND about the developing problem.
He said that officials at American Legion headquarters have been getting calls from a number of the group’s outposts complaining of IRS agents who, during the course of their inspections, were demanding personal information.
The information, Celli said, includes birth dates and Social Security numbers of members.
Celli said one outpost in Texas, where officials were unable to comply immediately with the requirements, was fined $12,000, or $1,000 for each of 12 days it failed to produce the documents the IRS demanded.
Celli lamented that such actions mean the American Legion will have less money for many of the veteran-related programs it sponsors. …
The Blaze has some good news about citizens fighting back against traffic cameras.
Citizens across the country have grumbled about speed cameras, but someone in Wicomico County, Maryland appears to be making a physical — and political — point.
A photo posted on the blog SBY News shows a traffic camera that’s been spray-painted over the lens and tagged with the year 1776, the year the U.S. declared independence.
“Good for them!” blog publisher Joe Albero wrote.
Some commenting on the post seem to agree. Here are a few:
Everytime I drive past one, I secretly wish someone would do that. I would gladly donate to their bail if they get caught.
I love it then the top it off 1776 nice touch
Next, surveillance cameras for the surveillance cameras. …