MARCH 15, 2014 IRS Scandal Linked to Obama Says House Report IS THIS A SURPRISE? Would good Democrats want this done to them? SPOTLIGHT Evidence produced that Lois Lerner followed White House lead A link between President Obama’s criticism of the United Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case and subsequent steps taken by IRS official Lois Lerner to discriminate against conservative groups has been found by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigating the IRS scandal WND reported. A 141-page report released last Tuesday by the Republican-majority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee stated that in the wake of the 2012 Supreme Court case Lerner was responding to political pressure when she cracked down on conservative organizations. Twice Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions when she came before the committee. FAX BLAST SPECIAL: Impeach Obama NOW! In the report questions were raised whether or not the political pressure came from the White House. The report said, “It’s not the job of the IRS to overrule the Supreme Court, and it’s not the job of the IRS to crush political movements its leaders dislike,” the report said. “Her deep involvement in this scheme raises even more questions about who else was involved – including at the White House.” It also said that Lerner “led efforts to scrutinize conservative groups while working to maintain a veneer of objective enforcement.” Lerner following Obama’s lead? The House report states that statements made by President Obama during his 2010 mid-term election speeches attacked the Citizens United Supreme Court decision are linked with emails and speeches Lerner subsequently wrote where she stated her intent to administer the IRS tax-exempt division in a partisan manner. On Jan. 23, 2010, President Obama declared the Citizens United “ruling strikes at our democracy itself” and “opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy.” It was less than a week later when the president publicly criticized the decision. The criticism came during his State of the Union address. In that address Obama said: “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections,” he said. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people.” According to the report over the next few months Obama continued his public tirade against the Supreme Court decision. He also continued on his rant citing so-called “secret money” in politics and the emerging of grassroots groups in the conservative sector. Then in a White House Rose Garden speech in July 2010, President Obama proclaimed: “Because of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year in the Citizens United case, big corporations … can buy millions of dollars worth of TV ads – and worst of all, they don’t even have to reveal who’s actually paying for the ads. He continued, saying “these shadow groups are already forming and building war chests of tens of millions of dollars to influence the fall elections.” A similar statement was made again at an August 2010 campaign event. “Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country,” said Obama. “And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don’t know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank. You don’t know if it’s a insurance [sic] company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it’s good for their bottom line, even if it’s not good for the American people.” Obama’s tirade continued into September 2010 at yet another campaign event where the president stated: “Right now, all across this country, special interests are running millions of dollars of attack ads against Democratic candidates. And the reason for this is last year’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which basically says that special interests can gather up millions of dollars – they are now allowed to spend as much as they want without limit, and they don’t have to ever reveal who’s paying for these ads.” Lerner: the IRS officials ‘need to have a plan’ According to the House committee report, Lerner wrote emails following Obama’s 2010 speeches where she argued that IRS officials “need to have a plan” to handle the applications from certain tax-exempt groups.” However, Lerner carefully crafted her words with language suggesting she wanted to cover her partisan goals. Lerner wrote, “We need to be cautious so it isn’t a per se political project.” Furthermore the report noted that Lerner spoke at an event sponsored by Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy on October 19, 2010. In her speech at that event Lerner referenced the political pressure the IRS faced to “fix the problem” of 501(c)(4) groups engaging in political activity. Here is what Lerner said: “What happened last year was the Supreme Court – the law kept getting chipped away, chipped away in the federal election arena. The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year old precedent that basically corporations couldn’t give directly to political campaigns. And everyone is up in arms because they don’t like it. The Federal Election Commission can’t do anything about it.” She continued saying, “They want the IRS to fix the problem. The IRS laws are not set up to fix the problem: (c)(4)s can do straight political activity. They can go out and pay for an ad that says, “Vote for Joe Blow.” That’s something they can do as long as their primary activity is their (c)(4) activity, which is social welfare.” Lerner said, “everybody is screaming at us right now: ‘Fix it now before the election. Can’t you see how much these people are spending?’” Then she stated that until she looks at the IRS Form 990s she would not know “whether they have done more than their primary activity as political or not.” “So I can’t do anything right now,” Lerner said. Although the House Oversight Committee did not have documentation proving Lerner was given a direct order by the White House to discriminate against conservatives, the report did demonstrate that in early 2011 Lerner and other senior IRS officials established a “multi-tier review” process. That process has directly resulted in lengthy delays for conservative organization submitting tax-exempt applications. Lerner implemented those procedures in order to delay and even deny tax-exempt applications by conservative groups in an all-out effort to help Democrats to win elections, stressed the report. The report stated: “Even without her full testimony, and despite the fact that the IRS has still not turned over many of her e-mails, a political agenda to crack down on tax-exempt organizations comes into focus,” the report concluded. “Lerner believed the political participation of tax-exempt organizations harmed Democratic candidates, she believed something needed to be done, and she directed action from her unit at the IRS.” Lerner has been given the opportunity by the committee to continue to testify the report said although unless she is given immunity the committee is not optimistic it will happen. “Many questions remain, including the identities of others at the IRS and elsewhere who may have known about key events and decisions she undertook,” the report noted in the final paragraph. “Americans, and particularly those Americans who faced mistreatment at the hands of the IRS, deserve the full documented truth that both Lois Lerner and the IRS have withheld with them.” ‘I am tired of this’ WND reported that at last week’s committee hearing Issa adjourned the meeting after asking only seven questions. Lerner, for the second time, asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege not to incriminate herself. On June 28, 2013, the House Oversight Committee voted that Lerner had waived her Fifth Amendment privilege when she made a voluntary opening statement that asserted her self-proclaimed innocence at a May 22 hearing. Before the committee hearing last week, Lerner said the only way she would testify was in exchange for immunity. She agreed to testify openly at the latest hearing in a number of emails that were exchanged between Lerner’s attorneys and committee staff but she requested a one-week delay for the March 5 hearing. At the hearing adjournment last week Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., objected with an angry tirade at which point Issa cut his mic off. Angrily Cummings pressed, “I am a member of the House of Representatives and I am tired of this.” Cummings continued to read his statement into a closed microphone after Issa gaveled the hearing to a close. As the hearing room emptied and Cummings continued to speak, Lerner sat at the witness table listening. WND reported back on January 12 that the IRS proposed new rules that would effectively limit conservative 501(c)4 conservative groups from participating in the mid-term elections as they did in 2010. At that time Republicans took majority control of the House. WND reported that at the CPAC annual conference of conservatives last week leading Washington-based attorney Cleta Mitchell said that Lerner was questioned by the Department of Justice at some point during the previous six months. However, under the leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, the department has declined to launch criminal prosecutions against Lerner and other IRS officials who have been implicated in the IRS targeting scandal. Mitchell represents multiple grass-roots organizations who claim they were subjected to IRS targeting.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 14:16:40 +0000
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