Katie Pavlich
Townhall
4/16/2014
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 was in contact with 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. [CAJ emphasis]
“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?”…
…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…
Read the complete article at Townhall.
Related: The IRS Tea Party Targeting Scandal May Have Just Gotten a Lot Worse
…“Not only do these e-mails further prove the coordination among the IRS, the Federal Election Commission, the Justice Department and committee Democrats to target conservatives, they also show that had our committee not requested the Inspector General’s investigation when we did, 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,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee…
Update: Katie Pavlich discusses newly released IRS emails that implicate DOJ prosecution of conservative groups (video)
Emails were released today that show how the DOJ and the IRS were beginning to work together to prosecute conservative groups who they suggest lied about political activity. The idea was born in a public hearing by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse who wanted to know if the DOJ was considering prosecutions of these groups that were being targeted who had lied. The DOJ then contacted the IRS to begin to get data on these groups. This culminated just 2 days before Lois Lerner apologized for targeting conservative groups.
Also, The Terrifying Implications of the IRS Abuse-DOJ Connection
Thank God for Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. His investigation of what turned out to be the IRS abuse scandal may well have saved the Constitution and the nation…
Update 2: The IRS Scandal Blows Wide Open
…Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) had chaired a hearing on Apr. 9, 2013 in which he discussed the abuse of the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt designation. During that hearing, he made his leftist agenda clear, insisting that “after the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money in elections in its disgraceful Citizens United decision, big donors like to use these non-profit entities to launder campaign spending and hide their identities.”
Whitehouse also asked witnesses from DOJ and IRS why they hadn’t prosecuted 501(c)(4) groups who have made false statements about their activities, or donors who have used shell companies to mask their donations to Super PACs. He urged both entities to “put together a criminal case showing a fairly straightforward false statement or a fairly [straightforward] shell corporation disclosure violation.”
In a March 27, 2013 email to a top staffer at the IRS, Lerner revealed the impetus behind that meeting…
