PK'S NOTE: I listened to the IRS hearing today. AMAZING. Insight to how to pass the buck, not take accountability and simply not know a blessed thing about the place you work and of which you are in charge. May update this post if anything breaks this afternoon.
‘I Have Not Done Anything Wrong’: IRS Official Invokes 5th Amendment Right
The Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the political targeting scandal
invoked her constitutional right not to answer lawmakers’ questions on
Wednesday, but defiantly asserted that she has done nothing wrong.
Lois Lerner leads the IRS office that
determines which organizations receive tax-exempt status, and was the
first to publicly disclose earlier this month that the IRS gave extra
scrutiny to conservative groups.
“I have not done anything wrong, I have
not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations
and I have not provided false information to this or any other
congressional committee,” Lerner told House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee members. “While I would very much like to answer the
committee’s questions today, I have been advised by my counsel to assert
my constitutional right not to testify or answer questions related to
the subject manner of this hearing.”
Lerner added that by asserting her
right not to testify, “I know that some people will assume I have done
something wrong. I have not. One of the basic functions of the Fifth
Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection
I am invoking today.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/22/i-have-not-done-anything-wrong-irs-official-invokes-5th-amendment-right/
PK'S NOTE: Excellent. See ya tomorrow, Lerner.
The California Republican said Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination was voided when she gave an opening statement this morning denying any wrongdoing and professing pride in her government service.
Lerner triggered the IRS scandal on May 10 when she acknowledged that the agency wrongly targeted conservative groups applying for a tax exemption. Her lawyer told the House committee earlier this week that she would exercise her Fifth Amendment.
She appeared before Issa’s committee this morning under the order of a subpoena and surprised many by reading a strong statement to the panel.
“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee.”
Issa dismissed her from the committee room once it became clear she wouldn’t answer questions.
Lerner’s decision to speak at all immediately triggered a dust-up among lawmakers who were confused about whether she gave up her Fifth Amendment protections when she made an opening statement.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former federal prosecutor, said Lerner lost her rights the minute she started proclaiming her innocence, and that lawmakers therefore were entitled to question her. But Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland said hearing rules were not like those of a courtroom.
During the incident, Issa did not flat-out say whether or not Lerner had indeed waived her rights but instead tried to coax her into staying by offering to narrow the scope of questions.
By the afternoon, Issa was taking a harder stand.
“The precedents are clear that this is not something you can turn on and turn off,” he told POLITICO. “She made testimony after she was sworn in, asserted her innocence in a number of areas, even answered questions asserting that a document was true … So she gave partial testimony and then tried to revoke that.”
He said he was not expecting that.
“I understand from her counsel that there was a plan to assert her Fifth Amendment rights,” he continued. “She went ahead and made a statement, so counsel let her effectively under the precedent, waive — so we now have someone who no longer has that ability.”
PK'S NOTE: Excellent. See ya tomorrow, Lerner.
Darrell Issa: Lois Lerner lost her rights
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said embattled IRS official Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights and will be hauled back to appear before his panel again.The California Republican said Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination was voided when she gave an opening statement this morning denying any wrongdoing and professing pride in her government service.
“When I asked her her questions from the very
beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any
statement,” Issa told POLITICO. “She chose not to do so — so she
waived.”
Lerner triggered the IRS scandal on May 10 when she acknowledged that the agency wrongly targeted conservative groups applying for a tax exemption. Her lawyer told the House committee earlier this week that she would exercise her Fifth Amendment.
She appeared before Issa’s committee this morning under the order of a subpoena and surprised many by reading a strong statement to the panel.
“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee.”
Issa dismissed her from the committee room once it became clear she wouldn’t answer questions.
Lerner’s decision to speak at all immediately triggered a dust-up among lawmakers who were confused about whether she gave up her Fifth Amendment protections when she made an opening statement.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former federal prosecutor, said Lerner lost her rights the minute she started proclaiming her innocence, and that lawmakers therefore were entitled to question her. But Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland said hearing rules were not like those of a courtroom.
During the incident, Issa did not flat-out say whether or not Lerner had indeed waived her rights but instead tried to coax her into staying by offering to narrow the scope of questions.
By the afternoon, Issa was taking a harder stand.
“The precedents are clear that this is not something you can turn on and turn off,” he told POLITICO. “She made testimony after she was sworn in, asserted her innocence in a number of areas, even answered questions asserting that a document was true … So she gave partial testimony and then tried to revoke that.”
He said he was not expecting that.
“I understand from her counsel that there was a plan to assert her Fifth Amendment rights,” he continued. “She went ahead and made a statement, so counsel let her effectively under the precedent, waive — so we now have someone who no longer has that ability.”
IRS's Lerner Had History of Harassment, Inappropriate Religious Inquiries at FEC
Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with
the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the
IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed
hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner
has been criticized for a number of untruths—including
the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at
an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly
acknowledged IRS misconduct.
Still, Lerner has her defenders in the government and the media. Shortly after the scandal broke, The Daily Beast published an article headlined "IRS Scandal’s Central Figure, Lois Lerner, Described as ‘Apolitical.’" Insisting Lerner, and the IRS more broadly, were not not politically motivated has been a central contention of those trying to minimize the impact of the scandal.
The trouble with this defense is that, prior to joining the IRS, Lerner's tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/irss-lerner-had-history-harassment-inappropriate-religious-inquiries-fec_725004.html?nopager=1
Even if the report wasn’t ready, Issa claims the IG had a statutory obligation to keep Congress updated on its findings as they were made. He didn’t. Why not?
But the election’s over, so it’s safe now.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/22/house-oversight-e-mails-irs-ig-report-was-originally-supposed-to-be-released-last-september/
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday attempted to
shift some blame for the Internal Revenue Service’s alleged targeting of
conservative organizations on the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United
ruling, which held that the government cannot limit political spending
by corporations, unions, and other groups.
Democrats alleged during a hearing on the IRS controversy that the rules governing political activity by 501(c)(4) organizations were unclear and claimed this led to the IRS singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny.
“I really do believe that we need clarity in our tax-exempt status,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.). “And we need that clarity as soon as possible.”
Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) said this was a case of the IRS not doing enough to crack down on political activity by outside organizations.
“Whereas Sen. Hatch has pointed out from his standpoint that this was government run amok, it also seems to me that this was government that was impotent and did not act,” Nelson said.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) called on the IRS to look into large 501(c)(4) groups that he believed were engaging in electioneering.
“What about Crossroads [GPS]? What about Priorities USA?” he said. “That’s where the abuse seems to be, in terms of dollars. … What have you done about those two organizations? And similar organizations?”
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what’s going on here,” he added. “Did somebody in the IRS think about this and try to do something?”
Baucus also wondered “to what extent” the conservative groups targeted by the IRS were involved in political activities.
“Have you been asking that question?” Baucus asked Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.
George said his office had no details to provide at the time.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) objected to the notion that Citizens United led to the targeting, noting that the IRS began singling out conservative groups before the agency saw an increase in non-profit applications.
“You can pick on Crossroads [GPS] all the time, but there were plenty of liberal groups on the other side,” Hatch said.
He argued that Democrats calling for a ban on political activity by 501(c)(4) groups have not supported a similar ban on political activity by labor unions.
“[It’s] beyond hypocritical not to call for a ban of 501(c)(5) labor groups political activity as well. But we all know that’s never going to happen here,” Hatch said.
Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller also testified during Tuesday’s hearing. It was Miller’s second round before Congress, after his testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee last Friday.
Both Miller and Shulman maintained that they had not lied to or misled the committee by failing to disclose their knowledge of the IRS targeting when asked about it last spring by senators.
“Now Mr. Miller that’s a lie by omission, there’s no question about that in my mind,” Hatch said. “Why did you mislead and my fellow senators but, most importantly, the American people by failing to tell us about the subject we were asking about?”
Miller said he had been truthful in his interactions with Congress, and did not believe the actions by IRS officials rose to the level of political targeting.
Miller also took responsibility for planting an associate in a question-and-answer session with IRS official Lois Lerner at an American Bar Association meeting. That associate then asked a question about the scandal in order to get ahead of the inspector general’s report on the politically motivated targeting.
George told Congress that the inspector’s general office is not finished with its reviews and indicated it may be taking a deeper look at whether the targeting was politically motivated.
“Suffice it to say this matter is not over as far as we are concerned,” he said.
George told the House Ways and Means Committee last Friday that groups applying for tax-exempt status were flagged for extra scrutiny by IRS officials if their names included words such as “Tea Party” or “patriot,” and if their issues included “government spending,” “government debt,” or “taxes.”
IRS leadership has maintained that rogue, lower-level employees at a Cincinnati, Ohio office were responsible for the inappropriate actions.
George said there was no evidence in its initial audit report of political motivation, but that assessment was based exclusively on interviews with IRS officials involved. He said an audit is less thorough than an investigation, and in this case did not include interviews with anyone outside of the IRS.
“Events subsequent to this [initial report] have now caused us to reassess how, and what, we’re going to look at,” George said.
http://freebeacon.com/democrats-blame-citizens-united-for-irs-failures/
Shapiro reported that Jonathan Capehart and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, and Josh Marshall of the left-wing website TalkingPointsMemo.com were attending a meeting together at the White House.
Coffee, Carney, or perhaps some "guidance"?
Naturally the tongues on Twitter wagged. Instapundit wondered, for instance, if the "Journ-O-List cavalry" had been called out to solve Obama's media problem.
Readers may recall the tale of the Journ-O-List, that secretive Internet listserv of lefty columnists and journalists who wrote notes to each other out of sight of the public in order to coordinate their coverage of the news.
But once Journ-O-List was made public, it even cost one journalist his job.
So, what was the meeting this month about? And why were no conservative journalists invited?
Shapiro had one final word to tamp down the firestorm he started. "For the record," he Tweeted, "Obama often does OTR sit-down sessions with columnists & reporters left, right & center. Nothing nefarious about it per se."
One reply he received was telling. "When was the last time 'Right' journalists were invited" to the White House? It's a good question.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/05/22/Liberal-Columnists-Quietly-Visiting-White-House
Still, Lerner has her defenders in the government and the media. Shortly after the scandal broke, The Daily Beast published an article headlined "IRS Scandal’s Central Figure, Lois Lerner, Described as ‘Apolitical.’" Insisting Lerner, and the IRS more broadly, were not not politically motivated has been a central contention of those trying to minimize the impact of the scandal.
The trouble with this defense is that, prior to joining the IRS, Lerner's tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.
Lerner was appointed head of the FEC's enforcement division in 1986
and stayed in that position until 2001. In the late 1990s, the FEC
launched an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately
costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and
countless hours in lost work. The investigation was notable because the
FEC alleged that the Christian Coalition was coordinating issue
advocacy expenditures with a number of candidates for office. Aside
from lacking proof this was happening, it was an open question whether
the FEC had the authority to bring these charges.
James Bopp Jr., who was lead counsel for the Christian Coalition at the time, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD the Christian Coalition investigation was egregious and uncalled for. "We felt we were being singled out, because when you handle a case with 81 depositions you have a pretty good argument you're getting special treatment. Eighty-one depositions! Eighty-one! From Ralph Reed's former part-time secretary to George H.W. Bush. It was mind blowing," he said.
All told the FEC deposed 48 different people—and that doesn't begin to account for all the FEC's requests for information. Bopp further detailed the extent of the inquiry in testimony delivered before the congressional Committee on House Administration in 2003:
The Christian Coalition was ultimately absolved of any FEC wrongdoing in 1999, and Lerner was promoted to acting General Counsel at the FEC in 2001 before eventually moving on to the IRS. Bopp, who's all too familiar with the aggressive and inappropriate tenor she set leading the FEC's Enforcement Division, says he became concerned about what would happen as soon as Lerner joined the IRS. "When she left the FEC, I thought, 'Wow, this means the not for profit division is gearing up politically,'" he said. "It didn't bode well, because of the way [the FEC] approached cases."
James Bopp Jr., who was lead counsel for the Christian Coalition at the time, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD the Christian Coalition investigation was egregious and uncalled for. "We felt we were being singled out, because when you handle a case with 81 depositions you have a pretty good argument you're getting special treatment. Eighty-one depositions! Eighty-one! From Ralph Reed's former part-time secretary to George H.W. Bush. It was mind blowing," he said.
All told the FEC deposed 48 different people—and that doesn't begin to account for all the FEC's requests for information. Bopp further detailed the extent of the inquiry in testimony delivered before the congressional Committee on House Administration in 2003:
The FEC conducted a large amount of paper discovery during the administrative investigation and then served four massive discovery requests during the litigation stage that included 127 document requests, 32 interrogatories, and 1,813 requests for admission. Three of the interrogatories required the Coalition to explain each request for admission that it did not admit in full, for a total of 481 additional written answers that had to be provided. The Coalition was required to produce tens of thousands of pages of documents, many of them containing sensitive and proprietary information about finances and donor information. Each of the 49 state affiliates were asked to provide documents and many states were individually subpoenaed. In all, the Coalition searched both its offices and warehouse, where millions of pages of documents are stored, in order to produce over 100,000 pages of documents.
Furthermore, nearly every aspect of the Coalition’s activities has been examined by FEC attorneys from seeking information regarding its donors to information about its legislative lobbying. The Commission, in its never-ending quest to find the non-existent “smoking gun,” even served subpoenas upon the Coalition’s accountants, its fundraising and direct mail vendors, and The Christian Broadcasting Network.One of the most shocking things about the current IRS scandal is the revelation that the agency asked one religious pro-life group to detail the content of their prayers and asked clearly inappropriate questions about private religious activity. But under Lerner's watch, inappropriate religious inquiries were a hallmark of the FEC's interrogation of the Christian Coalition. According to Bopp's testimony:
FEC attorneys continued their intrusion into religious activities by prying into what occurs at Coalition staff prayer meetings, and even who attends the prayer meetings held at the Coalition. This line of questioning was pursued several times. Deponents were also asked to explain what the positions of “intercessory prayer” and “prayer warrior” entailed, what churches specific people belonged, and the church and its location at which a deponent met Dr. Reed.
One of the most shocking and startling examples of this irrelevant and intrusive questioning by F EC attorneys into private political associations of citizens occurred during the administrative depositions of three pastors from South Carolina. Each pastor, only one of whom had only the slightest connection with the Coalition, was asked not only about their federal, state and local political activities, including party affiliations, but about political activities that, as one FEC attorney described as “personal,” and outside of the jurisdiction of the FECA [Federal Election Campaign Act]. They were also continually asked about the associations and activities of the members of their congregations, and even other pastors.If that all sounds like it could simply be Bopp's jaundiced characterization of the FEC's inquiries, Bopp's testimony includes this transcript of the FEC's deposition of Lt. Col. Oliver North. An attorney for the FEC asks North about prayers between him and the Christian Coalition's Pat Robertson. Bopp and other attorneys are present for the questions, which leads to this testy exchange. The letter Q denotes the FEC's lawyer, the letter A denotes North's responses, and the letter O is used to represent attorneys representing North and the Christian Coalition:
Q: (reading from a letter from Oliver North to Pat Robertson) “‘Betsy and I thank you for your kind regards and prayers.’ The next paragraph is, ‘Please give our love to Dede and I hope to see you in the near future.’ Who is Dede?”
A: “That is Mrs. Robertson.”
Q: “What did you mean in paragraph 2, about thanking -you and your wife thanking Pat Robertson for kind regards?”
A: “Last time I checked in America, prayers were still legal. I am sure that Pat had said he was praying for my family and me in some correspondence or phone call.”
Q: “Would that be something that Pat Robertson was doing for you?”
A: “I hope a lot of people were praying for me, Holly.”
Q: “But you knew that Pat Robertson was?”
A: “Well, apparently at that time I was reflecting something that Pat had either, as I said, had told me or conveyed to me in some fashion, and it is my habit to thank people for things like that.”
Q: “During the time that you knew Pat Robertson, was it your impression that he had - he was praying for you?”
O: “I object. There is no allegation that praying creates a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act and there is no such allegation in the complaint. This is completely irrelevant and intrusive on the religious beliefs of this witness.”
O: “It is a very strange line of questioning. You have got to be kidding, really. What are you thinking of, to ask questions like that? I mean, really. I have been to some strange depositions, but I don't think I have ever had anybody inquire into somebody’s prayers. I think that is really just outrageous. And if you want to ask some questions regarding political activities, please do and then we can get over this very quickly. But if you want to ask abou somebody’s religious activities, that is outrageous.”
Q: “I am allowed to make-’’
O: “We are allowed not to answer and if you think the Commission is going to permit you to go forward with a question about somebody’s prayers, I just don't believe that. I just don't for a moment believe that. I find that the most outrageous line of questioning. I am going to instruct my witness not to answer.”
Q: “On what grounds?”
O: “We are not going to let you inquire about people’s religious beliefs or activities, period. If you want to ask about someone’s prayers-Jeez, I don't know what we are thinking of. But the answer is, no, people are not going to respond to questions about people’s prayers, no.”
Q: “Will you take that, at the first break, take it up- we will do whatever we have to do.”
O: “You do whatever you think you have to do to get them to answer questions about what people are praying about.”
Q: “I did not ask Mr. North what people were praying about I am allowed to inquire about the relationship between-’’
O: “Absolutely, but you have asked the question repeatedly. If you move on to a question other than about prayer, be my guest."
Q: “I have been asking you a series of questions about your relationship with Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition. . . . It is relevant to this inquiry what relationship you had with Pat Robertson andI have asked you whether Pat Robertson had indicated to you that he was praying for you.”
O: “If that is a question, I will further object. It is an intrusion upon the religious beliefs and activities of Dr. Robertson. And how that could - how the Federal Government can be asking about an individual’s personal religious practices in the context of an alleged investigation under the Federal Election Campaign Act, I am just at a complete loss to see the
relevance or potential relevance, and I consider that to be also intrusive.”
Q: “Was Pat Robertson praying for you in 1991?”
O: “Same objection.”
A: “I hope so. I hope he still is.”Asked what he remembers about this exchange, Bopp tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD he was "white hot," and notes that the transcription isn't entirely accurate becuase it actually excludes many of his objections.
The Christian Coalition was ultimately absolved of any FEC wrongdoing in 1999, and Lerner was promoted to acting General Counsel at the FEC in 2001 before eventually moving on to the IRS. Bopp, who's all too familiar with the aggressive and inappropriate tenor she set leading the FEC's Enforcement Division, says he became concerned about what would happen as soon as Lerner joined the IRS. "When she left the FEC, I thought, 'Wow, this means the not for profit division is gearing up politically,'" he said. "It didn't bode well, because of the way [the FEC] approached cases."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/irss-lerner-had-history-harassment-inappropriate-religious-inquiries-fec_725004.html?nopager=1
House Oversight e-mails: IRS IG report was originally supposed to be released … last September?
See for yourself. Issa’s committee was told last year that the report would be ready in September, two months before the election. Eight months later, the bomb finally dropped. Why? Did the IG initially underestimate the volume of malfeasance and how long it would take to dig it up? Or are there other, more cynical reasons?Even if the report wasn’t ready, Issa claims the IG had a statutory obligation to keep Congress updated on its findings as they were made. He didn’t. Why not?
Issa is referring to part of the Inspector General Act that requires watchdogs to report serious problems to Congress through the head of an agency within seven days. It’s known as the “seven-day rule” — but it’s often used sparingly.
The Oversight Committee asked the inspector general about conservative group targeting a number of times, and Issa read some of the emails in the hearing Wednesday.
George also raised concerns that incremental information provided to lawmakers would ultimately leak to the public.
“That is not fair to the people we are investigating,” George said.Issa himself said a few days ago that he knew last year “approximately” what would be in the report, but it’s one thing to think you know based on a leak and another for the IG to confirm it with an update. Here’s the real question: Why was George, the IG, reluctant to release “incremental information” when the IRS itself had concluded in May 2012 that its anti-conservative criteria for tax-exempt orgs were FUBAR? Didn’t his office specifically say they’d keep the committee updated? (“We would be happy to provide a status update to the Subcommittee staff and provide a copy of our interim and final reports on the matter when they are issued.”) More from Issa:
Issa responded that the White House is the source of plenty of leaks as well.
‘Just yesterday the committee interviewed Holly Paz, the director of exempt organizations, rulings and agreements, division of the IRS,’ Issa said. ‘While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General’s report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 – May 3 of 2012 – and found essentially the same thing that Mr. George found more than a year later.’
‘Think about it,’ he continued: ‘For more than a year, the IRS knew that it had inappropriately targeted groups of Americans based on their political beliefs, and without mentioning it, and in fact without honestly answering questions that were the result of this internal investigation.’We already knew that, more or less, from the results of the IG report itself. Check the timeline on page 13. The media starts picking up reports of tea-party complaints in February 2012, and soon thereafter the director of the exempt organizations puts a halt to IRS demands for more intrusive info from conservative groups. Three months later, in May, they hold a “workshop” providing guidance on tax-exempt groups to its analysts and approv more neutral criteria for scrutinizing applications. That’s probably why Issa’s committee had an inkling at the time — because the IRS itself already knew it had done wrong and was moving to undo it to some extent. And yet no one, including the IG, felt moved to confirm for the committee until this month that yes, “mistakes were made” and it was now safe to tell the public that.
But the election’s over, so it’s safe now.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/22/house-oversight-e-mails-irs-ig-report-was-originally-supposed-to-be-released-last-september/
Democrats Blame Citizens United for IRS Failures
Senators shift blame to Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance
Democrats alleged during a hearing on the IRS controversy that the rules governing political activity by 501(c)(4) organizations were unclear and claimed this led to the IRS singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny.
“I really do believe that we need clarity in our tax-exempt status,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.). “And we need that clarity as soon as possible.”
Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) said this was a case of the IRS not doing enough to crack down on political activity by outside organizations.
“Whereas Sen. Hatch has pointed out from his standpoint that this was government run amok, it also seems to me that this was government that was impotent and did not act,” Nelson said.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) called on the IRS to look into large 501(c)(4) groups that he believed were engaging in electioneering.
“What about Crossroads [GPS]? What about Priorities USA?” he said. “That’s where the abuse seems to be, in terms of dollars. … What have you done about those two organizations? And similar organizations?”
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what’s going on here,” he added. “Did somebody in the IRS think about this and try to do something?”
Baucus also wondered “to what extent” the conservative groups targeted by the IRS were involved in political activities.
“Have you been asking that question?” Baucus asked Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.
George said his office had no details to provide at the time.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) objected to the notion that Citizens United led to the targeting, noting that the IRS began singling out conservative groups before the agency saw an increase in non-profit applications.
“You can pick on Crossroads [GPS] all the time, but there were plenty of liberal groups on the other side,” Hatch said.
He argued that Democrats calling for a ban on political activity by 501(c)(4) groups have not supported a similar ban on political activity by labor unions.
“[It’s] beyond hypocritical not to call for a ban of 501(c)(5) labor groups political activity as well. But we all know that’s never going to happen here,” Hatch said.
Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller also testified during Tuesday’s hearing. It was Miller’s second round before Congress, after his testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee last Friday.
Both Miller and Shulman maintained that they had not lied to or misled the committee by failing to disclose their knowledge of the IRS targeting when asked about it last spring by senators.
“Now Mr. Miller that’s a lie by omission, there’s no question about that in my mind,” Hatch said. “Why did you mislead and my fellow senators but, most importantly, the American people by failing to tell us about the subject we were asking about?”
Miller said he had been truthful in his interactions with Congress, and did not believe the actions by IRS officials rose to the level of political targeting.
Miller also took responsibility for planting an associate in a question-and-answer session with IRS official Lois Lerner at an American Bar Association meeting. That associate then asked a question about the scandal in order to get ahead of the inspector general’s report on the politically motivated targeting.
George told Congress that the inspector’s general office is not finished with its reviews and indicated it may be taking a deeper look at whether the targeting was politically motivated.
“Suffice it to say this matter is not over as far as we are concerned,” he said.
George told the House Ways and Means Committee last Friday that groups applying for tax-exempt status were flagged for extra scrutiny by IRS officials if their names included words such as “Tea Party” or “patriot,” and if their issues included “government spending,” “government debt,” or “taxes.”
IRS leadership has maintained that rogue, lower-level employees at a Cincinnati, Ohio office were responsible for the inappropriate actions.
George said there was no evidence in its initial audit report of political motivation, but that assessment was based exclusively on interviews with IRS officials involved. He said an audit is less thorough than an investigation, and in this case did not include interviews with anyone outside of the IRS.
“Events subsequent to this [initial report] have now caused us to reassess how, and what, we’re going to look at,” George said.
http://freebeacon.com/democrats-blame-citizens-united-for-irs-failures/
Liberal Columnists Quietly Gather at White House
NPR's Ari Shapiro posted an interesting Tweet on May 21. He discovered that a cadre of well-known lefty columnists and journalists visited the White House together, three of whom he mentioned by name.Shapiro reported that Jonathan Capehart and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, and Josh Marshall of the left-wing website TalkingPointsMemo.com were attending a meeting together at the White House.
Coffee, Carney, or perhaps some "guidance"?
Naturally the tongues on Twitter wagged. Instapundit wondered, for instance, if the "Journ-O-List cavalry" had been called out to solve Obama's media problem.
Readers may recall the tale of the Journ-O-List, that secretive Internet listserv of lefty columnists and journalists who wrote notes to each other out of sight of the public in order to coordinate their coverage of the news.
But once Journ-O-List was made public, it even cost one journalist his job.
So, what was the meeting this month about? And why were no conservative journalists invited?
Shapiro had one final word to tamp down the firestorm he started. "For the record," he Tweeted, "Obama often does OTR sit-down sessions with columnists & reporters left, right & center. Nothing nefarious about it per se."
One reply he received was telling. "When was the last time 'Right' journalists were invited" to the White House? It's a good question.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/05/22/Liberal-Columnists-Quietly-Visiting-White-House
WH: Those Who Bring Up Admin Scandals Might As Well Be Birthers
White House Spokesman Jay Carney became a little defensive when he was asked by CBS' Major Garrett if the recent scandals were "partisan fishing expeditions" on Tuesday. After Carney asserted that Benghazi, IRS targeting, and Department of Justice seizure of AP records all had partisan elements, Carney was asked if the HHS Secretary fundraising for Obama (which is in a gray area of the law, at best) was a "partisan fishing expedition." "We could go down the list," Carney responded. "We could say, 'What about the President's birth certificate?'" "I'm not asking that," Garrett shot back.http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/05/22/WH-Those-Who-Bring-Up-Admin-Scandals-Might-As-Well-Be-Birthers
The IRS storyline after the Senate hearing yesterday
In
the Senate Finance Committee hearing, we can see that the Democratic
story is going to be that the law was too vague and put too much of a
burden on IRS discretion on what constituted political activity for a
tax exempt organization. This story is not getting much traction as it
turns out that the law is 50 years old.
Several Democratic senators are
positioning themselves as being hard on the IRS by being disappointed
with the IRS because it had not clarified this allegedly vague law on
what constitutes a 501 (c) (4). It's a bit irritating to watch this
line of argument, but the Republicans are pushing back well on this and
the age of the law is going to make this story a nonstarter.
The
first IRS story is that this was "terrible customer service" in the
immortal words of the acting Commissioner Steven Miller. Nobody is
buying that, even the Democrats.
The second IRS story is that there was a flood of applications for 501 (c) (4) status because of the Feb 10 Citizens United
Supreme Court decision. It's not clear if the numbers support this
claim. Applications for tax exempt status doubled from 1,500 in 2010 to
over 3,000 in 2012, but the exact timing of that increase is not
clear. The IRS tried to imply that it was overwhelmed by this increase
in tax exempt applications and that was the reason for the delay in
approval of conservative groups. This has pretty much fallen apart
because it is contradicted by the Inspector General who concludes both
in testimony and in writing that conservative groups were targeted.
Various Democratic questions and the two IRS Commissioners tried to come back to the Citizens United
decision, implying that it was not legitimate and that it unleashed an
avalanche of presumably unworthy conservative groups who wanted to keep
their donors anonymous. Senator Toomey drove a stake through this line
of argument by noting that the Federalist Papers were written anonymously.
So, what happened? Probably the Citizens United decision did result
in a significant increase in applications for 501 (c) (4). But, what
really happened was the Tea Party phenomenon came out of the woodwork in
2009, Points 2. and 3. in the table above. The conservative base was
radicalized by the extreme nature of the Obama administration and was
catalyzed by Rick Santelli's rant on CNBC in Feb 2009. Everybody, but
particularly the Democrats underestimated the Tea Party which gave the
Republicans control of the House in 2010, derailing the Obama express.
So,
what was the problem for the Democrats in 2012? That the Tea Party
would strike again! Compounded by the fact that for some reason, the
Tea Party had not shown up in polls. Thus, it was a stealth bomber.
The Obama campaign could not calculate its activity or its effect.
Alas,
as we know, in 2012, the Tea Party did not show up at the polls. While
we will never know the specific reason for that, we know what the IRS
can signal to the White House from its targeting and thus shutting down Tea Party tax exempt organizations...
Mission accomplished.
DOJ Monitored Phone Lines of Five Fox News Reporters, Fox News Executives and Family Members of Reporters
Last night on Fox News' Special Report, anchor Bret Baier revealed that the Department of Justice not only secretly monitored the phone lines of Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen, but of his parents as well.On Hannity, host Sean Hannity revealed that five Fox News reporters were targeted by the Justice Department and that Fox News' phones lines at the White House, Pentagon, and lines belonging to Fox News executives were also monitored.
Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is prosecuting the case, has seized records associated with two phone numbers at the White House, at least five numbers associated with Fox News, and one that has the same area code and exchange as Rosen’s personal-cell-phone number (the last four numbers are redacted).Anchor Greta Van Susteran took to Twitter to express her frustration with the secret monitoring, saying friends and family won't call or email anymore out a of a fear of being watched.
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that, as part of the investigation of the Kim leak, Obama’s Department of Justice seized e-mails from Rosen’s personal Gmail account. In the search warrant for that request, the government described Rosen as “an aider, and abettor, and / or co-conspirator” in violating the Espionage Act, noting that the crime can be punished by ten years in prison. Rosen was not indicted in the case, but the suggestion in a government document that a reporter could be guilty of espionage for engaging in routine reporting is unprecedented and has alarmed many journalists and civil libertarians.
The document uncovered today suggests the government seized “call detail” records from Rosen’s work and cell phones, which would show whom he called, who called him, how long they spoke, and the times of the calls. The document suggests that the government was seeking only the subscriber records for the two White House numbers targeted, information that a government source said would include the name of the official who used the specific line.
"Now that the word is out that Obama Admin seizes Fox phone records, my friends won't call me at work and since the Obama admin also seizes personal cell and email, my friends wont' call or email," Van Susteran tweeted.
The news of more Fox News' monitoring comes weeks after the Associated Press revealed the Justice Department had secretly monitored 20 personal and private phone lines used by AP reporters and editors. In addition, CBS News Investigative Reporter Sharyl Attkisson said yesterday that her work and personal computers had been compromised.
Again, you can bet this isn't the end of this. Attorneys from news organizations all over the place are filing requests in order to see if their reporters have been secretly monitored.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/05/22/doj-monitored-phones-lines-of-five-fox-news-reporters-fox-news-executives-and-family-members-of-reporters-n1603273
Jon Stewart Is Criticizing Obama Too Late
Sure of himself, holier than thou, without a dent in his smooth fabrications, Jon Stewart has come out of his firm gait to gallop onto the other side of the debate, to run with the Obama doubters. It didn't bother him that Obama drove us more than sixteen trillion dollars into debt, that he didn't stop massive unemployment, that he was the match that burned in cities throughout the Middle East, and that he was responsible for standing down when we should have been standing up in Benghazi.No, while Obama was burning down Rome, Stewart just looked the other way and cracked his anti-conservative jokes like he was chewing on the jawbreakers of reason. He now admits "that President Obama could have acted like Richard Nixon, but if he wasn't directly involved, it's still bad, because that makes him Mr. Magoo."
Well, if that's true, then that makes Jon Stewart Joey Tribbiani from Friends. He is a buffoon who insists that Obama is right year in, year out -- that he is FDR reincarnated. After four years of our president weakening our economy and our military, Stewart now decides that it's time to jump aboard on the Fox News anti-Obama bandwagon.
But Fox News has earned its viewpoint by suffering the criticism of liberals for years in order to point out Obama's failures. Stewart has taken no risks. He has played up to his liberal audiences and earned nothing but popular applause by praising Obama. He has not really earned the right to criticize Obama just to capture the audience when it is moving in the other direction.
Stewart thinks he can still play the political humor game despite his failures. Stewart is now going after the Obama administration for its trifecta of scandals -- Benghazi, the IRS, and the DOJ and the Associated Press. And once again he feels like a hero. No matter which side he is on, he casts himself as the protagonist. He uses information to create positive images of himself. He is a narcissist who uses politics for self-aggrandizement.
Now the evidence that Obama is a failure is too great for even Stewart to ignore it. Like a stand-up comic, he senses when the audience is turning against him. He runs with the pack. He sides with Fox like he is open-minded instead of incredibly dense to have backed an obvious naïve community organizer in the first place.
Obama never belonged in office. The joke was that he was a snide remark. His incompetence was whispered of in the locker rooms.
Obama was a colossal mistake, and while the marching bands played in various stadiums, Jon Stewart was the baton twirler who led the band.
Having misled us for four years, it's time for Jon Stewart to drop out of the game. He said enough wrong to hamper his credibility. He can save his humor for jokes about his wife or parties in the Catskills.
Trayvon Martin's Final Hour
On the rainy night of February 26, 2012, neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed seventeen-year-old named Trayvon Martin. Three months later, a regular at the Conservative Treehouse blog known as Diwataman discovered the raw video of Martin's visit to the 7-11 that fateful night and initiated arguably the best bit of blogging detective work since the busting of Dan Rather's Air National Guard scam eight years earlier."I think Trayvon may know these three guys," Diwataman commented in reference to a trio of hooded young men who entered the store almost immediately after Martin left. For a variety of good reasons, Diwataman labeled the guys "the three stooges," and the name stuck. What Diwataman discovered quickly is that the blogger "noneyobusiness" had already come to the same conclusion. Together, they and other "Treepers" from the Treehouse -- "People help each other out," says Diwataman -- reconstructed Martin's final hour in a way that was wildly at odds with the scenario advanced by the major media but much closer to the truth. In all versions, the iconic bag of Skittles is at the heart of the story.
On March 7, 2012, in the first national news story on the case, Reuters led with the Skittles angle: "Trayvon Martin was shot dead after he took a break from watching NBA All-Star game television coverage to walk 10 minutes to a convenience store to buy snacks including Skittles candy requested by his 13-year-old brother, Chad." Reuters attributed this information to Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump. "What do the police find in his pocket? Skittles," Crump told Reuters. "A can of Arizona ice tea in his jacket pocket and Skittles in his front pocket for his brother Chad."
Much of this information was wrong. The game had yet to start. Chad was fourteen. He was not Martin's brother, but the son of his father's girlfriend, Brandy Green. And the drink Martin was carrying was not ice tea -- more on this later.
The Skittles talking point was largely accurate, however, and it resonated. Two days later, the Christian Post elevated Martin's mission to the purely altruistic. "Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin simply wanted to get Skittles for his younger brother, Chad," read the opening sentence in the March 9 article. In the weeks that followed just about every media piece done on the shooting mentioned the Skittles, often as a symbol of Martin's youth, innocence, and compassion.
On April 2, Geraldo Rivera's brother Craig interviewed Chad Green and his mother Brandy for a segment of Geraldo at Large. The Riveras treated the Greens gingerly. A week earlier, Geraldo had offended Trayvon Nation, including his own son Gabriel, by blaming Martin's hoodie for the young man's demise. "I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies," Geraldo said on Fox & Friends. He had been walking it back ever since.
Although Chad was far from fully grown, his voice had matured and deepened. Polite and soft-spoken, he described Martin as "nice to hang around with" and added a little nuance to the narrative. Martin did not go to the store just to get him Skittles. He went to the store because "he was bored" and "wanted something to snack on." Brandy Green said much the same thing to a local TV reporter the day after the shooting. "[Trayon] just came down here. He was bored. So he walked to the store." At the time Brandy did not know about the Skittles and did not mention them. A month later, Chad and the rest of the world knew about the Skittles. According to Chad, as he was leaving Martin asked him what he wanted, and Chad said "Skittles."
According to Chad, Martin never came back, and he heard nothing of the altercation or the shooting. The latter assertion rings true. The former is questionable. Again, as Brandy told the local reporter, "[Trayvon] was on his way back home. I'm living down here. He was sitting on the porch and this man killed him." If Martin had reached Brandy's porch only Chad would have known.
A 7-11 security camera captured Martin outside the store walking east to west at 6:22 that evening (all times rounded to the minute). The Green townhome was roughly a mile away. This suggests that Martin left Green's about 6:05, almost an hour before the start of the NBA All-Star game, and walked north and west to the 7-11. Inside the store, Martin grabbed an Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail from a row of glass-fronted refrigerators. The Skittles he picked up from a row of shelves perpendicular to the cash register. He then approached the clerk and put some bills and coins on the counter to pay for the snacks. At this point, he pulled out a couple more bills and appeared to negotiate unsuccessfully for something behind where the clerk was standing. Upon leaving at 6:25 Martin kept the bills visibly in his hand.
Ninety seconds later, at 6:26, the three stooges entered. The clerk must have seen them before as he did not seem alarmed by their appearance. All three had their heads covered with hats, wraps, sunglasses, and/or hoodies as to be unrecognizable on a security camera. The head cover on one of them allowed just a little peep-hole for his eyes. Two of the three appeared to be black, and the third either white or Hispanic or, like Zimmerman, a "White Hispanic." Diwataman dubbed the white guy "Curly" as at one point he took off his knit cap and shook out his long curly dark hair.
Of note, Curly walked into the store with a couple of bills visible in his hand, likely the bills Martin exited with. Curly took the bills to the counter and bought two cheap cigars, or "blunts" as they are known on the street. The Urban Dictionary defines a "blunt" as a "cigar hollowed out and filled with marijuana." Its virtue is that it can be smoked in public "somewhat inconspicuously." The clerk kept the cigars behind the counter. (source: Court filings)
Curly then went into his wallet for more money and bought another blunt, probably for himself. He left the store at 6:28 while his buddy -- Moe?--was still checking out. Fifty seconds later, at 6:29, the security camera picked up Martin walking back east toward the Retreat at Twin Lakes. He was turning as he walked as though he were making some parting comments to an unseen party. That party was almost assuredly Curly who had just as assuredly bought Martin a blunt or two. Too young to have bought them on his own, Martin had no other good reason to wait nearly five minutes outside the store. Earlier that morning, Martin had waited outside that same 7-11 while his cousin bought a blunt, a "Black and Mild" that sold for about a dollar. The cousin gave this account to the Sanford PD but did not say (page 9)for whom he bought the blunt.
If his own communications were to be believed, Martin's drug use did not stop with marijuana. In July 2011 Martin began subscribing to the daily video log of a character named Andy Milonakis, whose life seems dedicated to drug use, specifically a concoction known by various street names including "purple lean" or "purple drank." The Urban Dictionary describes purple drank as "a mixture of Promethazine/Codeine cough syrup and Sprite, with a few jolly ranchers and/or skittles thrown in." In May 2012, the Treehouse screen-captured a revealing Facebook exchange from June 2011 between Martin and a character called "Mackenzie DumbRyte Baksh:
MARTIN: unow a connect for codine?
MACKENZIE: why nigga
MARTIN: to make some more
MACKENZIE: u tawkin bout the pill codeine
MARTIN: no the liquid its meds. I had it b4
MACKENZIE: hell naw u could just use some robitussin nd soda to make some fire ass lean
MARTIN: codine is a higher dose of dxm
MACKENZIE: I feel u but need a prescription to get it
Martin obviously had some familiarity with this world. The reader will have noted too that a soft drink like Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail and some Skittles would get the user two-thirds of the way to some "fire ass lean." On the night of the shooting, the Sanford PD incorrectly identified Martin's drink of choice as "Arizona brand name tea." They did not do so on purpose, and the media followed their lead. But the media continued to refer to the drink as tea long after they should have known better. This was due in part to sloppiness, in part to racial sensitivity about the word "watermelon," and in part to the drug implications of a fruity soft drink.
Although the video quality of Martin outside the store was far from clear, a distinctive black and white button on his hoodie made it possible to identify him with some certainty. Even in the dark and the rain Zimmerman noticed it and told the dispatcher, "He's got a button on his shirt." The button memorialized one "Cory Craig Johnson," a cousin of Martin with a long rap sheet and a short life span. He died at age thirty-six in 2007 of unknown causes. When Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, appeared on a videotaped interview with the Miami Herald on March 16, she visibly froze when the host said to her, "I'm aware [Trayvon] was wearing a button that night." After glancing uncomfortably at Martin's aunt, Stephanie Sands, Sybrina said abruptly, "That's a family member." Unaware she was treading on unwelcome ground, the host kept asking about the button before Sybrina switched topics to Trayvon's love of his grandmother.
At roughly 7:05 Zimmerman spotted Martin at 1460 Retreat View Circle at the northeast corner of the Retreat at Twin Lakes, very near the pedestrian shortcut that Martin likely took into the gated community. This spot was no more than ten or twelve minutes away from the 7-11. This left some twenty-five minutes in Martin's last hour unaccounted for, more than enough time for Martin to smoke at least one of the blunts that he openly favored. He liked his marijuana. Upon Martin's death, several of his friends posted images on Twitter of rolled blunts as a memorial, and his autopsy revealed traces of tetrahyrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive agent in marijuana, in his blood and urine.
Martin left the store with the ear buds from his cell phone firmly planted. He did a lot of phoning that day. He had been on one call continuously from 5:09 to 6:30. He would either make or receive a half-dozen more calls in the remaining forty-five minutes of his life, most of that time with the mystery girlfriend Dee Dee. Truthfully or otherwise, she would try to provide something of an alibi for the missing minutes. The relevant part of her interview with state prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda went as follows:
DeeDee: It started raining.
DLR: It started raining, and did [Martin] go somewhere?
DeeDee: Yeah, he ran to the, um, mail thing.
DLR: Like, I'm sorry, what?
DeeDee: Like a mail, like a shed.
DLR: Like a mail -- like a shed, like a mail area?
DeeDee: Yeah, yeah.
DLR: Like a covered area, because it was raining?
DeeDee Yeah.
DLR: So did he tell you he was already inside, like, the gated place?
DeeDee: Yeah. He ran in there.
De la Rionda was leading Dee Dee to account for the time gap in a more innocuous way. Her retelling suggested that Martin had stopped at the mail shed to get out of the rain and waited there until it abated. Her memory of the mail shed, however, seemed much too convenient. Would Martin have specified his location that precisely and, if so, would she really have remembered it? Neither possibility was likely.
More critically, Zimmerman spotted Martin at the shortcut into the community about thirty-five minutes after he left the 7-11. When he led the Sanford PD on his walk-through the day after the shooting, Zimmerman had no reason to lie about the timeline. In his retelling, Martin never stopped for shelter. He would be dead about twelve minutes after Zimmerman saw him. To reinforce the boy-in-the-rain narrative, both Dee Dee and Crump insisted that Martin put his hood up because it started raining. In fact, Martin had the hood up in the store and when he left it.
Dee Dee made at least one other claim that was suspect. As she told Crump and ABC's Matt Gutman in her initial phone interview in March 2012, "Then somebody pushed Trayvon because the headset just fell." The police, however, found Martin's phone buds in his pocket. He apparently took them off before the encounter. He took the button off as well. The police found that in his pocket. The police did not find the blunts. Martin had ample time to go back to the Greens' porch, stash whatever was left of them, pocket the button and the ear buds, and return to seek out Zimmerman.
In no realistic scenario could Zimmerman have run Martin down and "confronted" him as the prosecutors charged. He was four inches shorter than Martin and fifty pounds heavier. If that were not enough, Martin had a forty-second head start. Although both Zimmerman and Dee Dee said Martin was running from Zimmerman, Martin could have easily made it back to Green's unscathed even if just walking.
Zimmerman did leave his truck to keep an eye on Martin but consented to the dispatcher's request that he not follow Martin. He was heading back to this truck when Martin confronted him. No other explanation makes sense -- except to the Florida prosecutors and the nation's media. The trial begins next month and, despite the evidence, there is no guarantee good sense and justice will prevail.
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