WASHINGTON DC – REPORT 1 – Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service’s director of exempt organizations, has been placed on administrative leave, according to a source in the agency’s Cincinnati office.

Lerner on Thursday afternoon sent an e-mail to employees in the exempt organizations division she oversees stating, “Due to the events of recent days, I am on administrative leave starting today. An announcement will be made shortly informing you who will be acting while I am on administrative leave. I know all of you will continue to support EO’s mission during these difficult times.” She concluded, “I thank you for all your hard work and dedication,” adding, “The work you do is important.”  (LINK)

WASHINGTON DC – REPORT 2 –  Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member of the tax writing Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that Lerner was placed on administrative leave after she refused a request from Danny Werfel, the newly installed acting IRS commissioner, to resign.

“My understanding is the new acting IRS commissioner asked for Ms. Lerner’s resignation, and she refused to resign,” Grassley said. “She was then put on administrative leave instead. From all accounts so far, the IRS acting commissioner was on solid ground to ask for her resignation.”  (LINK)

She couldn’t be fired?  

WASHINGTON DC – REPORT 3 – A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups as recently as April 2012, more than nine months after she first learned of the activity.

Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to 15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012. The letters, such as this one sent to the Ohio Liberty Council on March 16, 2012, informed the groups applying for tax-exempt status that the IRS was “unable to make a final determination on your exempt status without additional information,” and included a list of detailed questions of the kind that a Treasury inspector general’s audit found to be inappropriate. Some of the groups to which Lerner sent letters are still awaiting approval. […]

“One thing is clear: this correspondence shows [Lerner’s] direct involvement in the scheme,” wrote Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ACLJ. “Further, sending a letter from the top person in the IRS Exempt Organization division to a small Tea Party group also underscores the intimidation used in this targeting ploy.”  (LINK)