Treepers, it’s important to remember the reality faced within the IRS scandal.  It is a painful reality, but one that must be faced.

The Democrats have no concerns with the IRS being used as a tool to crush the grassroots Tea Party, that’s a no brainer. However, it’s also important to remember, as we have continued to outline, there is no basis to think the GOP has any more of an issue with it than the Democrats.

The entire political establishment, who thrive on the status quo, are at risk from grassroots efforts to disrupt their place -and control- at the trough. Pat Caddell outlined this accurately before (watch this video):

The establishment class have goals coordinated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Tom Donahue. ObamaCare, Amnesty and Common Core are all part of their goals.

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(Via Sharyl Attkisson)  The news came late in the day on Friday the 13th.

According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS reports having “lost” former IRS manager Lois Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS employees sent between January of 2009 and April of 2011 due to a ‘computer crash.’

In light of the disclosure, these are some of the logical requests that should be made of the IRS:

• Please provide a timeline of the crash and documentation covering when it was first discovered and by whom; when, how and by whom it was learned that materials were lost; the official documentation reporting the crash and federal data loss; documentation reflecting all attempts to recover the materials; and the remediation records documenting the fix. This material should include the names of all officials and technicians involved, as well as all internal communications about the matter.
• Please provide all documents and emails that refer to the crash from the time that it happened through the IRS’ disclosure to Congress Friday that it had occurred.
• Please provide the documents that show the computer crash and lost data were appropriately reported to the required entities including any contractor servicing the IRS. If the incident was not reported, please explain why.
• Please provide a list summarizing what other data was irretrievably lost in the computer crash. If the loss involved any personal data, was the loss disclosed to those impacted? If not, why?

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FLASHBACK IRS SMIDGENS – […] Acting Commissioner Steven Miller, who turned in his resignation last week [May 2013], repeated the apology he made to a House committee for mistakes and poor customer service and took responsibility for the events that brought the scandal to light 11 days ago. It was his idea, he said, to have Lois Lerner, the IRS official who heads the Exempt Organizations Division, plant a question at a meeting of tax lawyers in Washington to ask her whether the IRS targets conservative groups. Her affirmative answer opened the political floodgates.

Why did he think it was a good idea to have a government employee secretly plant a question? “Obviously the whole thing was an incredibly bad idea,” Miller said. “I thought mistakenly we should get in front and apologize, then reach out to the Hill—we were wrong.” (more…)

This is getting interesting – Jason Chaffetz responds to IRS claim of “lost emails” with prior congressional testimony specifically about that issue:

FRIDAY FEDERAL NEWS DUMP –  Well, they didn’t lose all of them, just the important ones – you know, the early emails between Lerner and various Democrats in office requesting her to take action and the construction of a plan of action – just those.

(Via Washington Times) The IRS has told Congress that it has lost some of former employee Lois G. Lerner’s emails, including some covering communications with Democrats in Congress and with other parts of the government, the House’s top tax-law writer said Friday.

Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he was stunned that it took more than a year into the investigation for the IRS to inform Congress that it didn’t have those emails.

The agency blamed a computer crash for the mishap. (more…)

President Barack Obama has actually done what President Richard Nixon only wished he could have !

The key part of this report is that when Darryl Issa found out about the data transmission, the DOJ immediately stated they were informed by the IRS the data-file contained legally protected taxpayer information and should not have been sent to them. Funny how the DOJ defend themselves ONLY AFTER congress finds out about the issue.

WASHINGTON DC – Internal Revenue Service officials sent the Federal Bureau of Investigation a “massive” database listing of tax exempt organizations just a few weeks before the November 2012 elections, House investigators announced Monday.

Oversight and Government Reform chairmen Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, say they recently obtained an email from Lois G. Lerner, the former head of the IRS tax exempt division, to a Justice Department official asking how to format the list of tax exempt groups for delivery to the FBI.

Issa, who heads the oversight committee and Jordan, who chairs a subcommittee, said in a statement on Monday sent a new letter to the IRS, demanding more information about the data sent to the FBI. (more…)

NEW YORK – Did Chuck Schumer try to use the IRS to sidestep the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling — and stick a dagger in the heart of conservative groups?

That’s the gist of a complaint filed this week with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.

In Citizens United, the court held that bans on independent political expenditures by corporations, associations and labor unions are bans on speech.

The Center for Competitive Politics is asking that Schumer and nine other Democratic senators be investigated for trying to use the IRS to suppress the free speech of political opponents. (more…)

President Obama proclaimed there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.   The truth begs to differ…. in a very substantial way.

Last week (May 9th) the IRS finally agreed to send the House Ways and Means Committee all of the Lois Lerner emails.   Now we know why.    Yesterday, as a result of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch the IRS was forced to turn over those emails.   It should be noted, the scope of the emails turned over by court order to Judicial Watch are far more extensive than the IRS turned over to the House Investigating Committee.

Previously in April, the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting a criminal charge against Lois Lerner.  The newly released documents provide even more evidence that warrant DOJ action.

Released by Judicial Watch – (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a new batch of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents revealing that its handling of Tea Party applications was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC.  The documents also show extensive pressure on the IRS by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations.

The IRS’ emails by Lois Lerner detail her misleading explanations to investigators about the targeting of Tea Party organizations.

The documents came in response to an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)).

One key email string from July 2012 confirms that IRS Tea Party scrutiny was directed from Washington, DC. On July 6, 2010, Holly Paz (the former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance) asks IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky “to let Cindy and Sharon know how we have been handling Tea Party applications in the last few months.”  Cindy Thomas is the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati and Sharon Camarillo was a Senior Manager in their Los Angeles office. Grodnitzky, a top lawyer in the Exempt Organization Technical unit (EOT) in Washington, DC, responds: (more…)

On the heels of the latest revelation that 10% of Tea Party donors have suffered through IRS audits – The following was posted yesterday on the home page for the House Ways and Means Committee:

Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) announced that one year into the investigation of the IRS targeting and abusing conservative groups, the agency has agreed to turn over all Lois Lerner emails to the Committee. Lerner is a central figure in the investigation and served as Director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS.

“While it is good that we are finally getting these emails, it should never have taken this long. The agency is finally doing what is right and hopefully this is the last of the delays. It is almost a year to the day since Lois Lerner ‘apologized’ for the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, and we need to get to the bottom of this. These documents are critical to an investigation that is holding the IRS accountable and ensuring the constitutional rights of these groups are never trampled on again. The Committee will thoroughly review the Lerner documents and follow them wherever they may lead.”   (more)

House also approved H.Res. 565, requesting appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate #IRStargeting, 250-168 w/26 Dems voting yes.

— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 7, 2014

WASHINGTON DC – The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

The House voted 231-187 for a resolution holding Lerner in contempt.

Lerner’s case will now be sent to the Justice Department, which then must decide whether to essentially prosecute Lerner in the case.

House GOP leaders have said Lerner’s testimony is important to fully investigate the scandal, in which IRS agents singled out Tea Party nonprofit applications for extra scrutiny. (more…)

Apparently Mr. Gowdy feels the same way most of us do. Ms. Lerner may have had the ‘right’ to remain silent, but as soon as she opened her mouth she lost her ‘ability’.
This is a good watch.