Why? Simple, because the trail of the scheme’s origination begins with the White House officials brainstorming ideas of how to stop Tea Party groups from fighting back against the Obama agenda. That brainstorming led to IRS and DOJ officials creating the plan to use 501(c)(4) tax filing “schedule B’s” to create a list of people and groups.
That massive “Schedule B” list of people and groups was then given to the DOJ who then weaponized various agencies to target the people on the “secret list” for regulatory review, compliance checks and random audits. This is what the White House is trying to cover up. This is what the IRS is desperate to cover up. This is what the DOJ is intent on covering up.
WASHINGTON DC – The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.
Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations.
The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups.
TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article. (read more)
The IRS scandal is NOT about the IRS. Yes, the IRS did indeed target conservative groups; however, they were NOT the originating entity in the overall plan to create a list of targets.
The U.S. Department of Justice was the originating governmental agency who constructed the plan to make a target list and then weaponize various government agencies against those on the list.
And whose instructions would the DOJ be following?
As said, we stumbled onto the DOJ trail of evidence back in June 2014 when we reviewed one of very few disclosures given by Lois Lerner’s attorney William Taylor III. In a moment of clarity, which was not caught by the 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. These would have been “the opponents” President Obama outlined in the controversial “citizens united” Supreme Court decision.
For obvious reasons it is illegal to distribute that taxpayer 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 then claimed it was some form of miscommunication, merely a mistake. The DOJ claimed they did not expect to get the Schedule B information, and therefore never noticed it until the House investigation began.
However, Lois Lerner’s attorney, William Taylor, is clearly refuting such deniability. He said it was not a mistake, it was his client, Lois Lerner, fulfilling a specific request.
Hence, it became obvious, the House Oversight Committee is actually investigating only ONE aspect of the overall scheme. The larger scheme is actually within the investigating body, the DOJ itself and where they came up with the idea.
Which brings us back to the question we began with: