A “Counter Sink” is a common method in manufacturing to allow the head of a screw, to sit below the surface of the surrounding material. This Politico interview is nothing but a veiled attempt to counter sink the head, Lois Lerner, below the controversy.

Politico interviews the primary corruptocrat within the IRS, Lois Lerner, for two hours. What they publish, as a result of that interview, is essentially the Wikipedia reference for the IRS scandal itself.

Fluff-N-Nutter.

Politico – […] Lois Lerner is toxic — and she knows it. But she refuses to recede into anonymity or beg for forgiveness for her role in the IRS tea party-targeting scandal. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Lerner said in her first press interview since the scandal broke 16 months ago. “I’m proud of my career and the job I did for this country.”

[…] “Regardless of whatever else happens, I know I did the best I could under the circumstances and am not sorry for anything I did,” the 63-year-old said.

Flanked by her husband and two personal attorneys Lois Lerner is interviewed by Politico. The first opportunity for a question was obviously a ‘swing and a miss’, wiffle.
If she did nothing wrong, then why exactly does she believe she is in the current position? What exactly are these “circumstances” she found herself in? Nah, those questions too deep or something.
Moving on…

[…] IRS Commissioner Steven Miller asked her to get ahead of a damning inspector general report due the following week. It detailed IRS agents giving heightened scrutiny to nonprofits using words like “tea party,” “patriot” and “limited government spending,” and asking the groups inappropriate questions about their donors and political affiliations. Lerner, then head of the division handling organizations claiming tax-exempt status, obliged and dropped what turned out to be a political bombshell at an American Bar Association conference, using a planted question to apologize for the treatment of right-leaning nonprofits from IRS “front-line people” in Cincinnati.

If she, and the group she was leading, did “nothing wrong”, then how exactly does she reconcile an inspector general report that she was then forced to “apologize for”? Second opportunity, and again, wiff. Politico leaves the dangling participle to settle itself. No question or context in that regard.

[…] Lerner said she is “not a political person,” has voted for candidates of both parties and that the only campaign contribution she ever made was $25 to a fellow law school student running for judge.

Not political ?
Yet, according to Lerner herself: “Conservatives are assholes“, and “heart of the whacko wing of the GOP“.
Obviously Politico can’t let that one go by without a challenge right?  I mean ya’ might want to jump on that meatball right down the middle of the plate – – Nah… thud, nuttin’.
Yawn.
Moving on…. a few buried paragraphs later:

[…]  Although she wouldn’t discuss these issues at the behest of her lawyers, Lerner said it is unrealistic to expect public servants not to have opinions: “What matters is that my personal opinions have never affected my work.”

Asshole conservatives are the whacko heart of the GOP (ie. Republican party) but those “personal opinions” would never have affected her work.
Gosh, no.  Move along.

[…]  She created a new approach to classifying potential problem areas, pulling together a team of 40 specialized agents to research emerging issues or suspect groups by scanning websites and court cases and reviewing tax forms to see whether the subjects merited a full audit.

While some saw it as a smart use of limited resources, others, including Owens, thought her projects were a “major contributing factor” to the massive backlog in applications that accumulated under Lerner’s rule. Nonprofits went from getting approval in a matter of weeks or months to multiple years.

The surveillance group also found itself in hot water with House Republicans who said conservatives composed 80 percent of those flagged for watch.

Oh, wait a minute,… here we go, a “surveillance group” that she constructed as a special project, as a manager;  constructed for a purpose that eventually she apologized for -in advance of the damning inspector general report-  surely Politico will jump on this one.
Hell, it’s right there – on a tee.
Whiff, well, actually, no swing…
Maybe next time.

[…]  Yet it’s also clear that she wasn’t the only one who made missteps — she’s just the only name leading headlines.

For example, it was advisers in the IRS chief counsel’s office who requested that agents seek more information on conservative groups’ 2010 campaign activity, even after the organizations were waiting for exempt status for more than a year, according to Democratic congressional reports.

And there you see the open door for Politico to clear the bases…. but they don’t.  They don’t even attempt to bunt.
The “chief counsel’s office”, was, as we have previously outlined, coordinating between the DOJ and the IRS.  Lois Lerner was giving her underlings instructions to comply with requests from the DOJ which flowed through the counsel’s office to her, then to her staff.
However, Politico just can’t bring themselves to connect-the-dots to their own reporting.  Yes, their own reporting on June 28th of 2014 when Politico revealed:

Taylor said Lerner didn’t know and sent them because Justice requested the documents: “She [understood] the donor information on Schedule B had been removed. In some cases, we later learned, it may not have been.” (link)

In a moment of clarity, which was not caught by the Politico interviewer, William Taylor responded to questioning by stating that his client, Lois Lerner, was merely responding to a request from the Department of Justice, when she sent confidential tax files to the DOJ.

Taylor said Lerner didn’t know and sent them because Justice requested the documents: “She [understood] the donor information on Schedule B had been removed. In some cases, we later learned, it may not have been.” (link)

Lois Lerner sent the DOJ 1.1 million pages of 501(c)(4) tax filing data. Including a very specific set of “33 Schedule B attachment files”. The Schedule B’s were specific to Large Conservative 501(c)(4) groups operating and organized to oppose the agenda of President Obama. The Schedule B’s include the donor lists of specific people and sub-groups attached to the 501(c)(4).
In essence the donor group or names of every person who supported the larger conservative group.
For obvious reasons it is illegal to distribute that data. It is primarily illegal because such information could be used to create a list of people in opposition to the executive branch; that is exactly what happened. Lois Lerner sent the data to the DOJ just before 2010 mid-terms.
The DOJ hid the connection for three years and did not admit the submission until 2013 when congress was about to find out through one of their IRS subpoenas. The DOJ said it was some form of miscommunication, merely a mistake. The DOJ claimed they did not expect to get the Schedule B information, and never noticed it until the House investigation began.
Thanks Politico for nothing.   You had 2 hours to make a difference.   You struck out.
Have a seat.