Phony Scandal Update: IRS

[tpeichel]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...886421040.html
Congressional investigators this week released emails suggesting that staff at the Federal Election Commission have been engaged in their own conservative targeting, with help from the IRS's infamous Lois Lerner. This means more than just an expansion of the probe to the FEC. It's a new link to the Obama team.


In May this column noted that the targeting of conservatives started in 2008, when liberals began a coordinated campaign of siccing the federal government on political opponents. The Obama campaign helped pioneer this tactic.


In late summer of 2008, Obama lawyer Bob Bauer took issue with ads run against his boss by a 501(c)(4) conservative outfit called American Issues Project. Mr. Bauer filed a complaint with the FEC, called on the criminal division of the Justice Department to prosecute AIP, and demanded to see documents the group had filed with the IRS.


Thanks to Congress's newly released emails, we now know that FEC attorneys went to Ms. Lerner to pry out information about AIP—the organization the Obama campaign wanted targeted. An email from Feb. 3, 2009, shows an FEC attorney asking Ms. Lerner "whether the IRS had issued an exemption letter" to AIP, and requesting that she share "any information" on the group. Nine minutes after Ms. Lerner received this FEC email, she directed IRS attorneys to fulfill the request.






This matters because FEC staff didn't have permission from the Commission to conduct this inquiry. It matters because the IRS is prohibited from sharing confidential information, even with the FEC. What the IRS divulged is unclear. Congressional investigators are demanding to see all communications between the IRS and FEC since 2008, and given that Ms. Lerner came out of the FEC's office of the general counsel, that correspondence could prove illuminating.


It also matters because we now know FEC staff engaged in a multiyear effort to deliver to the Obama campaign its win against AIP. This past week, FEC Vice Chairman Don McGahn, joined by his two fellow Republican commissioners, wrote an extraordinary statement recounting the staff's behavior in the case.


When the FEC receives a complaint, it falls to the general counsel's office to first issue a report on the merits of the alleged campaign violations. The six-person commission then votes on whether there is a "reason to believe" a violation occurred. No formal investigations are to take place before that point.


The Obama team's complaint broadly claimed AIP was masquerading as a nonprofit, when it should have registered as a highly regulated political action committee. It was a ludicrous claim (see below), yet the FEC staff issued a report in April 2009 recommending the commission go after AIP, not long after its attorneys had been in touch with Ms. Lerner.


When the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC made most of the Obama complaint irrelevant, the staff withdrew its first report, then took 18 months to come up with a second rationale for why the commission should pursue AIP. All this time, FEC staff—Mr. McGahn recounts—were conducting an unauthorized investigation into AIP. The staff was also improperly withholding the results of its research from AIP.

When new issues made its second attempt moot, the general counsel's office went after the group with a third report. AIP's defense all along was that it spent the majority of its money from 2007 to 2010 on its "major" organizational "purpose" of educating and informing the public of conservative principles, and only a minority (less than one-third) on direct campaign expenditures. As such, it easily meets the tests for being a 501(c)(4).

[JustAlex]

The IRS "Scandal" is NOT a scandal.

Enough of this stupid story and the moronic tea party.

[tpeichel]

Funny, the Americans that are the Tea Party are the ones fighting against the Corporatists in the government that you claim to so despise.

[JustAlex]

lol.

Yeah those Tea Party members are fighting so hard against the Corporatists....that's why they support the rich and want to get rid of the entire tax system and replace it with their cartoony version of what they laughably believe would be a better ideal world where the rich pay nothing while the poor get poorer.

Seriously bro, give me a break with these "Scandals".

The ONLY scandal right now is NSA and it's horrible unconstitutional intrusion into our private lives.

The IRS did little to nothing wrong, Benghazi is nothing more than the GOP trying to make something small into something bigger than 9/11 (I'm not even joking about this, some CLOWNISH GOP member actually said that Benghazi was the bigger than 9/11).


The GOP is a huge joke.

The Tea Party is an even bigger joke (And I didn't think anything could be a bigger joke than the GOP).

The sooner these two "political" parties die out, the better.

[tpeichel]

The origins of the Tea Party were focused on corruption and government spending. Certainly it has been co-opted to focus on the more devisive issues like "guns, God, and gay" favored by the GOP. Make no mistake though, there is still a huge contingent of people in this country who think we should have a much smaller government and want to eradicate the corruption. Those are the true Tea Partiers.

[JustAlex]

The origins of the Tea Party were focused on corruption and government spending. Certainly it has been co-opted to focus on the more devisive issues like "guns, God, and gay" favored by the GOP. Make no mistake though, there is still a huge contingent of people in this country who think we should have a much smaller government and want to eradicate the corruption. Those are the true Tea Partiers.

The Tea Party is a joke and any valid points they make are drowned out by the gun totting, bible thumping, anti-gay, anti-minority, anti-tax, anti-science crowd.