IRS targeted Tea Party and others--scandal grows

diehardbiker said:
Two words

Government corruption

Back to eat popcorn.
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You have deal with numerous corruption in your life - not limited to government only, so it does applies to corporation, families, private organization, etc.
 
Obama tries to regain political balance

Scandals could overwhelm 2nd-term agenda

WASHINGTON (CNN) -
President Barack Obama is counter-punching furiously to prevent a series of potential scandals from overwhelming his second-term agenda.

With a trio of moves, the suddenly beleaguered president fought back on Wednesday against Republican attacks that his administration defied accountability for controversies involving IRS targeting of conservative groups, the secret subpoena of journalists' phone records and erroneous talking points in the immediate aftermath of last year's Benghazi terrorist attack.

At a hastily scheduled televised statement, Obama announced the resignation of the acting Internal Revenue Service director over the political targeting, calling the agency's conduct "inexcusable" and declaring: "Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I'm angry about it."

An administration official said on Thursday that Obama would appoint a new acting IRS chief this week.

Earlier, the White House announced its support for strengthening protections of journalists and confidential sources even as Attorney General Eric Holder evaded questions at a congressional hearing about how his Justice Department obtained phone records of The Associated Press from 2012 as part of an investigation of classified leaks.

Moreover, the White House released more than 100 pages of emails sought by GOP critics about the talking points on the September attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Together, the actions by Obama and the White House were a swift counter-attack in the face of mounting questions and demands by Republican leaders, and some Democrats, over the controversies threatening to overwhelm his agenda less than four months into his second term.

A clearly coordinated campaign of GOP attacks, including accusations of criminal behavior in the IRS targeting case, sought to score political points against both the Obama administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, considered the leading potential Democratic presidential contender in 2016.

"These three events that have gotten so much attention over the last few days -- IRS, AP, Benghazi -- tend to confirm a lot of our worst fears about our government," GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said Thursday. "They tend to tell us what we don't want to believe, but that sometimes might be true; that your government's targeting you, that your government's spying on you, and that your government is lying to you."

On Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner asked "who's going to jail" over the IRS targeting, while all 45 GOP senators sent a letter to the White House demanding full compliance in congressional investigations of the controversy.

The letter called the scandal "yet another completely inexcusable attempt to chill the speech of political opponents and those who would question their government, consistent with a broader pattern of intimidation by arms of your administration to silence political dissent."

At the same time, top Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada strongly criticized the secret subpoena of AP phone records.

After days of such bludgeoning, Obama responded by announcing Wednesday night that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller had been forced to resign.

Miller was aware since a year ago, when he was deputy commissioner, that IRS employees were stonewalling requests from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, according to the agency.

However, Miller didn't tell Congress about it when he testified before an oversight committee in July -- despite being questioned on the issue. He was named acting commissioner in November.

In his brief statement, Obama said politics should never enter the work of the IRS, adding the agency must "operate with absolute integrity."

He pledged to work "hand in hand" with Congress as it investigates the matter and vowed new safeguards will be put in place at the IRS so that "this doesn't happen again."

Despite his resignation, Miller is expected to testify Friday at the first congressional hearing on the controversy, which will be held by the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.

Holder, who has ordered a criminal investigation into the situation, told legislators that investigators will look at the conduct of IRS offices nationwide.

"The facts will take us where ever they take us," he said, adding that possible charges could include lying to Congress about what happened.

According to a report by the IRS inspector general, the agency developed and followed a faulty policy to determine whether the applicants were engaged in political activities, which would disqualify the groups from receiving tax-exempt status.

The controversial move began in early 2010 and continued for more than 18 months, the report said, declaring that "the IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention."

IRS officials, according to the report, did not consult anyone beyond the agency about the development of the additional screening criteria. They believed that the criteria they came up with were a screening shortcut meant to help with the influx of applications, the report said.

The controversial actions began after the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case that greatly expanded the ability of corporations, unions and other organizations to participate in election spending, though not through direct contributions to candidates or parties.

After the ruling, the number of politically oriented groups seeking tax exempt status as social welfare organizations under section 501 (c) (4) of the federal tax code increased greatly at a time when the federal government, including the IRS, was dealing with austerity measures that reduced or stagnated personnel and resources.

However, the IRS watchdog found that the criteria used to flag potential political applications resulted in substantial delays and the request of unnecessary information from the groups.

The investigation by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration was initiated after congressional complaints began to surface in the media in 2012 that the IRS was targeting conservative groups and holding up applications.

Inefficient management

In a written response included in the report, the IRS commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division said there was no criminal behavior behind the actions of the agents, but rather inefficient management.

"We believe the front-line career employees that made the decisions acted out of a desire for efficiency and not out of any political and partisan viewpoint," the commissioner wrote.

Among the recommendations made by the Treasury inspector general: The IRS must better document reasons why applications are chosen for review, develop a process to track requests for assistance, develop and provide training to employees before each election cycle and immediately resolve outstanding cases.

The report also called on Treasury to develop guidelines to explain social welfare activity -- the primary factor in obtaining tax-exempt status.

In the case of subpoenaed phone records, Holder said Wednesday that his decision to remove himself from the Justice Department investigation into a leak that led it to the surreptitious move left him unable to respond to questions about it.

"I don't know what happened there with the intersection between the AP and the Justice Department," Holder told the House Judiciary Committee. "I was recused from the case."

At the White House, though, officials told CNN that the administration asked for the reintroduction of federal shield legislation that could affect the way the Justice Department conducts investigations into leaks of secret government information.

Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York previously introduced the proposed shield law that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2009 but never advanced.

Federal shield legislation would protect journalists from revealing their sources and beef up protections for reporters and their sources caught up in such probes.

According to AP, the investigation into its records appears related to a story revealing that the CIA had thwarted an al-Qaida plot to blow up a U.S.-bound jetliner in May 2012, around the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The seized phone records covered a two-month period beginning in May 2012 and included more than 20 AP lines, including personal phones and AP phone numbers in New York; Hartford, Connecticut; and Washington.

"A shield law would keep lazy prosecutors from going after reporters' notes and phone records and compel them to actually conduct investigations that do not step all over the First Amendment," Teri Hayt, the First Amendment chairwoman of the Associated Press Media Editors, said in a statement issued before the White House announcement.

In the past decade, Congress has come close to passing a federal shield law. But support for the measure shrank during the WikiLeaks scandal in which thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables were released.

Obama has pledged transparency and openness since taking office, but legal analysts contend his administration's actions suggest otherwise.

For example, the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917, to target suspected leakers in six cases, twice the number undertaken by all previous administrations combined.

In an example of Washington politics, many Republicans now criticizing the crackdown on AP have been the loudest advocates for stronger federal action against classified leaks.

The biggest pushback by Obama and the White House has been against a relentless Republican effort to vilify the administration's response to the Benghazi attack last Sept. 11, particularly talking points used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in the days that followed that erroneously contended the assault resulted from a demonstration over an anti-Islam film.

Republicans, who accuse the administration of failing bolster security prior to the attack and botching the response to it, contend the talking points amounted to misleading the public for political gain less than two months before the November election by removing references to a planned terrorist assault.

On Wednesday, the White House released more than 100 pages of emails in a bid to quell critics who say Obama and his aides played politics with national security.

The emails detail the complex back and forth between the CIA, State Department, and the White House in developing the unclassified talking points used by Rice.

Obama has called Republican concentration on the talking points a political "side show," and senior administration officials contend the e-mails demonstrate the process of developing the talking points was not focused on politics but rather on events.

The White House and its allies in Congress have made the case that any confusion and conflicting information in the early hours and days after the attacks stemmed from the "fog of war" -- not any deliberate effort to mislead the American people about the source of the attacks.

For instance, some of the emails expressed caution about what should be said publicly during an FBI investigation, while others focused on the strength of intelligence at the time.

The emails indicate the CIA was likely the lead organization in developing the talking points with the State Department recommending significant changes.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee which is investigating the matter, told CNN's "Situtation Room" that his staff wants to digest the emails. He stressed that they were a selected set of documents as released and the committee is still seeking a range of other information.

However, a letter to Issa by the co-chairmen of an independent review of the Benghazi attack expressed irritation over his portrayal of the panel's work and requested a public hearing at which they can testify.

"The public deserves to hear your questions and our answers," wrote former U.S. ambassador, Thomas Pickering and retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who led the Accountability Review Board convened by Clinton to investigate the attack.

Eight months after their report cited "systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies" at the State Department," Issa continues to be a leading critic of the accountability board, calling its review "a failure" and asking for further investigations into the Obama administration's response during the attack and its aftermath.

Obama tries to regain political balance | 2012 Election Results - Home
 
I cheer at the thought that tea party and patriot groups are having special scrutiny by IRS. These groups move a lot money in compaign contributions in ways that are hard to track. They could easily be moneylaundering operations by foreign special interests. The legislators squawking up a storm are elected with the help of campaign contributions.
It is a huge racket.
These groups in the tea party and patriot groups formed rapidly and began moving millions of dollars. Just like so called non profit churches moving large amounts of money for elections. It is one big phony racket.
 
goodonya said:
I cheer at the thought that tea party and patriot groups are having special scrutiny by IRS. These groups move a lot money in compaign contributions in ways that are hard to track. They could easily be moneylaundering operations by foreign special interests. The legislators squawking up a storm are elected with the help of campaign contributions.
It is a huge racket.
These groups in the tea party and patriot groups formed rapidly and began moving millions of dollars. Just like so called non profit churches moving large amounts of money for elections. It is one big phony racket.
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Without disclosure, I'm skeptical about political organization's activities and you are correct about some of them could conduct the illegal action and cover up.

There is reason that I detest Tea Party because I don't agree with their philosophy, however they have rights to form the group and speak out against our government, also they have freedom of speech. I don't think any of Tea Parties conduct any illegal activities and they are doing pretty legal. I'm more concerned about corporation than Tea Parties because the corporations have many scandal, evil and nasty activities.

I went through Tea Party protest in DC and they were friendly, but I didn't share my political belief with them and was just curious about their protest.
 
Miller aid in testimony today that it is not Illegal for the IRS to target groups. :crazy:

It was great to see that both sides were upset by this. Some of the rants were epic.
 
Linkage to the health care law came through Sarah Hall Ingram, a longtime I.R.S. official who has headed the agency’s program to carry out the Affordable Care Act since December 2010. Before that, she led the I.R.S.’s tax-exempt and government-entities division, which contained the political targeting effort.

“This is an audit, and it’s helpful,” Representative Tim Griffin, Republican of Arkansas, said of the investigation of I.R.S. targeting by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, “but it’s the tip of the iceberg.”

But the inspector general made clear that effort did not reach the attention of high-level I.R.S. officials until 2011 at the earliest.

The inspector general gave Republicans some fodder Friday when he divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly after,” he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

The disclosure last summer came as part of a routine briefing of the investigations that the inspector general would be conducting in the coming year, and he did not tell the officials of his conclusions that the targeting had been improper, he said.

Treasury officials stressed they did not know the results until March 2013, when the inspector presented a draft.

“Treasury strongly supports the independent oversight of its three inspectors general, and it does not interfere in ongoing I.G. audits,” the department said in a statement Friday evening.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/us/politics/irs-scandal-congressional-hearings.html

Wow.
 
:shock:
In the wake of one of the worst abuses of government power in recent history, many are rushing to frame the Internal Revenue Service scandal as simply an attack on conservative activists. That view risks creating a partisan political football and misses a fundamentally scarier abuse that exceeds the scandals of Watergate or any other prior government abuse.

The IRS has admitted that since May 2010 it targeted grassroots-conservative organizations that had applied for tax-exempt status, unfairly subjecting them to rigorous scrutiny due to their political leanings.
Such groups were told they were required to comply with IRS requests, no matter how absurd, in order to obtain non-profit status. Some were ask to provide book reports, names of family members, family members’ political affiliations, lists of donors and more. A report issued by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration this week begins to highlight the extent of misbehavior.
The fact remains that for years the IRS used its power to discourage and intimidate Americans.
Following the admission, many have accused the IRS of misusing and misrepresenting its power for political advantage, and it’s true that silencing – or at least handcuffing – conservatives in the run-up to the 2012 election could very well have made an impact.
But this abuse extends far beyond the last or next election and strikes at the very core of the people’s relationship with their government.

The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote that, “A bedrock principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purposes.”
In her apology, Lois G. Lerner, IRS director of exempt organization, insisted that the extra scrutiny was not politically motivated. The narrow focus on partisanship as the primary point of controversy is dangerous. This is not first and foremost a partisan issue.

It doesn’t matter whom the IRS was targeting or what specific beliefs they held: the fact remains that for years the agency used its power to discourage and intimidate Americans from speaking out against what they viewed as bad policies, stifling the First Amendment right of every citizen to hold government accountable.
The president says he was not aware of the problem. If so, then the state of our freedom is far worse than any of us has imagined – the gray suits are in place and already taking over.

Pundits have compared the current scandal to Watergate, but this one, frankly, is worse.
When the abuses of Watergate – which included misuse of the IRS to launch audits against Nixon’s enemies - were discovered, they stopped and the perpetrators were brought to justice.
We don’t yet know just how high the knowledge of the IRS practice reached, but it’s already clear that a broad element of the agency – including those with the power to stop it – knew about this blatant violation of basic constitutional rights for years and did nothing to stop it.

Despite Ms. Lerner’s statements to the contrary, it’s clear the IRS has been using its power for years to discourage and intimidate Americans from participating in their right to hold government accountable.

This abuse of power and “unequal treatment under the law” is truly chilling, and must not be brushed away with apologies or toothless inspector-generals’ reports.
It demands a rigorous congressional investigation and severe punishment of the power-drunk bureaucrats who carried it out.
No government agency must be allowed to abuse its powers so blatantly and get away with it. The freedom Americans hold so dearly is at stake.
We must demand that government account for its actions.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) rightly captured the problem in a written statement when he said, “this shameful abuse of power transcend partisan differences. This should not be dismissed as just another conflict between left and right; it is a conflict between the federal government and the American people.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) noted, “What’s just as concerning is the expansive role this agency is charged to take in enforcing ObamaCare. An agency that has admitted to engaging in such corrupt, political activities has no place assessing or monitoring Americans’ personal health information.”
Finally, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said, “The First Amendment cannot and should not be renegotiated depending on which party holds power… I am determined to hold the IRS accountable for these unjust acts.”

We, the people, must demand that congressional leaders and the Obama administration get to the bottom of this issue and remove not just the responsible parties but the threat to our freedoms.

The IRS’s actions are the stuff of Third World juntas, not the greatest constitutional republic in human history.
It is unacceptable for a government agency use its power to intimidate American citizens into silence. FreedomWorks has been warning of this for years.
We must stop this abuse of government over the governed and ensure this never happens again to any segment of the American population, regardless of their political leanings.


Read more: Watergate 2.0 -- why the IRS scandal is far worse | Fox News
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