“No wonder the Department of Justice under Eric Holder [did] no serious investigation of the Obama IRS scandal,” Fitton claimed in an earlier statement. “These new documents dramatically show how the Justice Department is up to its neck in the IRS scandal and can’t be trusted to investigate crimes associated with the IRS abuses that targeted Obama’s critics,” he said. “Richard Nixon was impeached for less.” - New Documents Reveal What The IRS, DOJ, And FBI Had In Store For Obama Opponents
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“No wonder the Department of Justice under Eric Holder [did] no serious investigation of the Obama IRS scandal,” Fitton claimed in an earlier statement. “These new documents dramatically show how the Justice Department is up to its neck in the IRS scandal and can’t be trusted to investigate crimes associated with the IRS abuses that targeted Obama’s critics,” he said. “Richard Nixon was impeached for less.”
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New Documents Reveal What The IRS, DOJ, And FBI Had In Store For Obama Opponents
Documents obtained by the government accountability group Judicial Watch reveal that the Lois Lerner IRS scandal is worse than originally believed, extending beyond the walls of the agency into the Department of Justice.
Judicial Watch sued both the IRS and the DOJ when both failed to comply with FOIA requests. What the newly released documents confirm is that the Obama administration not only targeted tea party and other conservative organizations for increased scrutiny, improper questioning (including lists of donor names), and delayed approval for their applications in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential elections–but also sought ways to criminally prosecute them.
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To this end, an email reveals that Lois Lerner, then head of the IRS’ tax exempt organization unit, coordinated to have 21 discs containing 1.25 million pages of confidential tax information of these groups transmitted to the DOJ, for criminal investigation purposes.
According to a letter from then-House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, “This revelation likely means that the IRS – including possibly Lois Lerner – violated federal tax law by transmitting this information to the Justice Department.”
The DOJ apparently took the initiative to look into the criminal prosecution angle. Judicial Watchreports:
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the new IRS documents include a October 11, 2010 “DOJ Recap” memo sent by IRS Exempt Organizations Tax Law Specialist Siri Buller to Lerner and other top IRS officials explaining an October 8 meeting with representatives from the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and “one representative from the FBI” to discuss the possible criminal prosecution of nonprofit organizations for alleged political activity.”
“These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a press release. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
“No wonder the Department of Justice under Eric Holder [did] no serious investigation of the Obama IRS scandal,” Fitton claimed in an earlier statement. “These new documents dramatically show how the Justice Department is up to its neck in the IRS scandal and can’t be trusted to investigate crimes associated with the IRS abuses that targeted Obama’s critics,” he said. “Richard Nixon was impeached for less.”
Judicial Watch reports: “The DOJ documents also include a July 16, 2013, email from an undisclosed Justice Department official to a lawyer for IRS employees asking that the Obama administration get information from congressional witnesses before Congress does.”
One last issue. If any of your clients have documents they are providing to Congress that you can (or would like to) provide to us before their testimony, we would be pleased to receive them. We are…authorized and I can connect you with [the Treasury Department’s Inspector General] to confirm; we would like the unredacted documents…
“Following Judicial Watch’s lead, the House also found out about the IRS transmittal of the confidential taxpayer information to the FBI. Because of this public disclosure, the FBI was forced to return the 1.25 million pages to the IRS.”
When the IRS scandal originally broke in May, 2013, President Obama said: “I have now had the opportunity to review the Treasury Department watchdog’s report on its investigation of IRS personnel who improperly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. And the report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable. The federal government must conduct itself in a way that’s worthy of the public’s trust, and that’s especially true for the IRS.”
However, several months later in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, he said the notion that conservative groups were targeted is “absolutely wrong.” Rather, the IRS officials were confused about how to implement the law governing tax-exempt groups. “There were some bone-headed decisions,” Obama conceded. Asked whether corruption was in play, he responded: “…not even a smidgen of corruption.”
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Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS unit that decides whether to grant tax-exempt status to groups, listens during a House Oversight and Government... View Enlarged Image
Corruption: The latest batch of IRS documents to be publicly released shows a government conspiring to criminalize political opposition. Did we learn about this from an inquisitive news outlet? Unfortunately, no.
Thanks to a band of lawyers called Judicial Watch, and no thanks at all to the mainstream press, we are learning about a shady October 2010 meeting between former IRS official Lois Lerner, Justice Department officials and the FBI. It was at this gathering of minds, says Judicial Watch, that the parties planned "for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity."
Records unearthed by Judicial Watch also document the IRS transferring confidential tax returns from 113,000 nonprofit social welfare groups to the FBI "as part of its prosecution effort."
They also show "the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress."
This scandal has come quite a way since it was first confirmed nearly 800 days ago that IRS was targeting for added scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Harassing conservative and Tea Party organizations and holding up their paperwork are one level of misconduct.
But planning to send people to prison because they have different political views seems criminal itself.
It's unlikely anyone in this government will be convicted and sentenced for meeting to talk about charging interest groups with crimes. But there remains the fact that while Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chaired the House Oversight Committee, he sent a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen telling him that Lerner might have violated federal tax law when she transmitted those tax returns to the Justice Department.
At the very least, we should see a proper investigation into this charge.
Meanwhile, as Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton says, these new documents "show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal."
From what Fitton has seen, he believes "the FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama's opponents" in prison before his re-election.
What would we do without Judicial Watch and its Freedom of Information Act lawsuits?
Clearly, the media haven't been terribly curious about the scandal. But that's no surprise, since Obama has been their darling since early 2008 and they will do whatever is necessary to protect him, including looking the other way at scandals that might hurt him.
Though the Republicans appear curious, we really haven't seen much from them despite their control of the House since 2011 and the Senate since January. Had the party roles been reversed, the Democrats would have turned Washington upside down long ago.
We don't truly expect anyone to spend time in a federal pen over any part of this growing scandal. Politics will override justice. But wouldn't it be nice if official Washington did its job for a change and at least made some people uncomfortable?
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Newly released documents show Department of Justice officials, Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials were discussing prosecuting nonprofit organizations for allegedly engaging in illegal political activity.
An official “DOJ Recap” document obtained by the group Judicial Watch details an Oct. 8, 2010 meeting between DOJ, IRS and FBI officials, including Lois Lerner, where the administration employees discussed “several possible theories to bring criminal charges under FEC law” against groups “posing” as tax exempt nonprofits.
“The section’s attorneys expressed concern that certain section 501(c) organizations are actually political committees ‘posing’ as if they are not subject to FEC law, and therefore may be subject to criminal liability,” reads the memo from IRS Exempt Organizations Tax Law Specialist Siri Buller to top IRS officials.
Lerner, who was forced out of the IRS in 2013 amid a scandal that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, and her top aide Judy Kindell, explained to DOJ and FBI officials that “although we do not believe that organizations which are subject to a civil audit subsequently receive any type of immunity from a criminal investigation, she will refer them to individuals from [Criminal Investigations] who can better answer that question.”
“[Lerner] explained that we are legally required to separate the civil and criminal aspects of any examination and that while we do not have EO law experts in CI, our FIU agents are experienced in coordinating with CI,” according to the memo. “The attorneys asked whether a change in the law is necessary, and whether a three-way partnership among DOJ, the FEC, and the IRS is possible to prevent prohibited activity by these organizations.”
Judicial Watch says another document shows that just prior to the October 2010 meeting the IRS began giving the FBI confidential taxpayer information on nonprofits. The document obtained by Judicial Watch says the IRS gave the FBI some 21 disks with 1.25 million pages of taxpayer records.
“These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
These new documents come after a previous release of IRS documents by Judicial Watch that showed Lerner communicating with the DOJ in May 2013 about whether to follow a suggestion madeby Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse earlier that year to prosecute nonprofits that seemingly made false statements about their political activities.
“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.” Lerner wrote in a May 8, 2013 email to the chief of staff for Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller.
“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.
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So the Obama IRS wasn’t just persecuting right-leaning nonprofits — it was out to prosecute them, too. And with the help of the Obama Department of Justice and FBI.
Via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the watchdog group Judicial Watch just got evidence of the plot. A “DOJ Recap” on an Oct. 8, 2010, meeting tells how officials from the three agencies discussed “several possible theories to bring criminal charges under FEC law” against groups “posing” as tax-exempt nonprofits.
As part of the project, the IRS handed the FBI 21 computer disks with 1.23 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit 501(c)(4) groups — nearly every 501(c)(4). This, though federal law generally bans the IRS from sharing such data.
The evidence shows “that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” noted Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his re-election. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information.”
The IRS scandal surfaced years ago — and for all the administration talk of a full investigation, this huge news is only surfacing now, and only thanks to Judicial Watch.
The news of FBI and Justice involvement in the IRS scandal makes the need for some special prosecutor to probe this mess even more obvious.
After all, as Judicial Watch’s Fitton asks: “How can the Justice Department and the FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
Emmet G. Sullivan, United States district judge for the District of Columbia, ordered the IRS last week to begin producing every Monday nearly 1,800 newly recovered Lois Lerner emails. On Monday, the IRS defied the order.
The developments come in the wake of Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit seeking documents about the Obama IRS’ targeting and harassment of conservative non profits (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service
Thanks to Judicial Watch’s litigation, the IRS was forced to admit that Lerner’s emails were supposedly missing and, then, that the emails were on IRS back-up systems.
Judge Sullivan ruled on the matter on July 1, 2015, and on Monday July 6, 2015, the IRS failed to produce a single email.
Via Judicial Watch:
The IRS also failed to provide Judicial Watch a status of the Lois Lerner email production issues, as also ordered by Judge Sullivan.The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) recovered the emails from IRS back-up tapes. TIGTA was able to locate the Lois Lerner back-up tapes within one day of requesting them from the IRS.A report released today by TIGTA on the Lois Lerner email controversy confirms that the IRS failure to timely search its back-up tapes resulted in 24,000 Lois Lerner emails being destroyed. The TIGTA report also confirms that IRS Commissioner John Koskinen delayed informing Congress (and the courts) for months about Lois Lerner’s email issue. (Judge Sullivan ordered the IRS to produce the TIGTA report to chambers the next day for in camera review at the July 1 hearing.)
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton is calling for the resignations of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and IRS Chief Counsel William J. Wilkins.
And Judge Sullivan is not one to be trifled with. He once sicced a special prosecutor on the DOJ for its corrupt prosecution of United States Senator Ted Stevens.
As Sidney Powell noted in the NY Observer last year, “Sullivan held federal prosecutors in contempt, dismissed an unjust indictment against a United States Senator, and publicly excoriated the Department of Justice.”
In the Stevens case, Judge Sullivan publicly upbraided the government lawyers before an overflow courtroom, “In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case. . . . When the government does not meet its obligations to turn over evidence, the system falters.”Judge Sullivan was taking the extraordinary step of appointing a special prosecutor. He chose highly respected DC attorney Henry Schuelke III to investigate the prosecutors for possible criminal charges. The judge ordered the department to preserve all of its files, electronic correspondence—everything—and cooperate fully in the investigation, including providing Schuelke access to investigative files and all witnesses.
The IRS is skating on thin ice.
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· ·
Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with the leaders of emerging powers in the Russian city of Ufa for a summit widely seen as an attempt by Moscow to show it is not isolated despite its standoff with the West over the conflict in Ukraine.
The leaders of the BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa -- adopted a declaration expressing "deep concern" about the deadly conflict in eastern Ukraine pitting government forces against pro-Russian separatists.
The document called on both sides to abide by a cease-fire signed in February by Ukraine, Russia, the rebels, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Ukraine and the West, however, have accused Moscow of continued support for the separatist fighters.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) meets with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rohani, during a meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Ufa, Russia, on July 9.
The Iranian nuclear issue was also on the agenda of the summit, which takes place as negotiators from Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States are working in Vienna to strike a deal to curb Tehran's controversial nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
BRICS nations voiced confidence that the Vienna talks will result in a deal.
Their declaration said a nuclear agreement with Iran "is meant to restore full confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."
Close Iran ally Russia has long insisted that Tehran's nuclear program poses no threat despite Western concerns Iran is using it as a cover to build a nuclear-weapons capability.
Putin praised Iran as Russia's "traditional and reliable partner" on July 9 during talks with Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who attended the BRICS summit.
Iran has previously expressed interest in joining BRICS.
Speaking at a briefing following the summit, Putin said BRICS nations stood united in countering terrorism, battling drug trafficking, piracy, and what he called the "revival of Nazi ideology" -- a veiled jab at the pro-Western leadership that came to power in Ukraine following protests that toppled Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych last year.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine's new leaders of Nazi sympathies.
The BRICS declaration urged the international community to avoid what it described as "political approaches" in fighting terrorism. It gave no further details.
Another item on the Ufa summit's agenda was the New Development Bank, which BRICS plans to establish in Shanghai, China.
Putin said the bank will be launched next year with a capital of $100 billion and will carry out "large-scale development projects" in BRICS countries.
BRICS has said the bank's first president will be from India and its first chairman of the board of directors will be from Brazil. A Russian representative is slated to be the first chairman of its board of governors.
Putin said Russia has called for closer economic coordination between BRICS members.
"The partners have supported our proposal on stepping up mutual trade and exchanges of capital investment," he said.
Moscow has deepened its ties with BRICS since being hit by Western sanctions over its annexation of Crimea and its support for separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking in Ufa on July 9, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said none of Russia's BRICS partners had voiced opposition to Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014.
An overwhelming vote by the UN General Assembly produced a resolution last year that affirmed Crimea's status as part of Ukraine.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, TASS, Interfax
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Government & Politics
By Nate Jackson · Jul. 9, 2015
There was “not even a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS, Barack Obama told us in February 2014, though he conceded “there were some bone-headed decisions.” That was a bald-faced lie at the time, and new information only reinforces that conclusion.
While the mainstream media turns a blind eye and deaf ear, Judicial Watch has continued digging for information regarding IRS targeting of Tea Party and Patriot groups leading up to (and almost surely aiding in) Obama’s re-election in 2012. And they discovered some serious collusion that sounds more like something out of Soviet Russia or Red China than here in the U.S.
“Judicial Watch … released new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents that include an official ‘DOJ Recap’ report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.”
In other words, imprisoning political opponents.
Remember when the IRS initially blamed the whole fiasco on a couple of low-level employees in Cincinnati? Good times.
The documents reveal numerous conversations between the three agencies, including Lois Lerner, about creative ways to charge and jail conservatives for the “crime” of political activity opposing Obama. To do so, the DOJ and FBI needed to illegally obtain taxpayer information from the IRS. So the IRS sent the FBI more than one million pages of taxpayer information on 113,000 non-profit groups.
And they wonder why people don’t trust the NSA’s mass metadata collection.
The conversations that began at least in 2010 continued for three years. In fact, two days before Lerner “apologized” and outed the whole conspiracy, she wrote an email to the acting IRS commissioner’s chief of staff detailing ongoing discussions with DOJ officials.
“These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
The answer to that last, albeit rhetorical, question is that they can’t and they aren’t. Any “investigation” by the DOJ or FBI will no doubt exonerate anyone of importance in the Obama administration. If any guilt is unavoidable, it will be hung around the necks of those rascals in Cincinnati or some other unfortunate scapegoat. All while Lerner continues to enjoy her comfortable retirement, and Obama himself remains untouched.
On top of the serious breach of law and abuse of power in targeting Obama’s political opponents, the agencies' carefully crafted stonewall blocked the timely release of information. As with Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Benghazi cover-up, the slow bleed of information leaves the public tired of hearing “old news” and makes it all the more certain the perpetrators won’t face real accountability, much less justice.
Finally, we’re reminded of a commencement speech Obama delivered in 2009 at Arizona State University, after university officials declined to give Obama an honorary doctorate. Obama “joked” that “[university president Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.” Clearly, that wasn’t much of a joke.
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