whembly wrote:
Did you not read the letters I posted about 4 posts up?

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Did you not read the letters I posted about 4 posts up?

Yes, I did. I don't see a legal problem.

It appears the IRS acted within the letter of law, and Lois Lerner is being used as scapegoat and means of generating political support in certain areas.

 whembly wrote:

I disagree with that premise, as you know.

 Ouze wrote:
This case will be Obama's Benghazi.

 whembly wrote:

@dogma, if you believe that the IRS were right within the laws, why did that admit they were wrong?

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

@dogma, if you believe that the IRS were right within the laws, why did that admit they were wrong?

The same reason an organization would agree to settlement of a lawsuit while maintaining innocence. They wanted to deal with the controversy and move on.

I mean, the IRS never claimed anything they did was illegal.

 whembly wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

@dogma, if you believe that the IRS were right within the laws, why did that admit they were wrong?

The same reason an organization would agree to settlement of a lawsuit while maintaining innocence. They wanted to deal with the controversy and move on.

I mean, the IRS never claimed anything they did was illegal.

Doing something that was wrong/improper doesn't necessarily mean that it's "illegal".

You being very pedantic with that statement.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

@dogma, if you believe that the IRS were right within the laws, why did that admit they were wrong?

The same reason an organization would agree to settlement of a lawsuit while maintaining innocence. They wanted to deal with the controversy and move on.

I mean, the IRS never claimed anything they did was illegal.

Doing something that was wrong/improper doesn't necessarily mean that it's "illegal".

You being very pedantic with that statement.

Except that the whole idea of this being a "scandal" is predicated upon the IRS having done something illegal.

 whembly wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

@dogma, if you believe that the IRS were right within the laws, why did that admit they were wrong?

The same reason an organization would agree to settlement of a lawsuit while maintaining innocence. They wanted to deal with the controversy and move on.

I mean, the IRS never claimed anything they did was illegal.

Doing something that was wrong/improper doesn't necessarily mean that it's "illegal".

You being very pedantic with that statement.

Except that the whole idea of this being a "scandal" is predicated upon the IRS having done something illegal.

Right... hence the investigation brah.

In IRS letter (PDF) published by Progress Texas online Thursday showed the liberal group was given 22 days to respond to a list of 21 questions. Some of the questions included up to nine sub-questions.

The questions resembled the list of 35 questions (PDF) sent to the Liberty Township Tea Party, which has complained of IRS harassment.

Though the line of questioning was generally the same, there were some key differences between the lists of questions.

The Liberty Township Tea Party was asked to provide copies of all its activity on Facebook and Twitter, while the Progress Texas was not. The Liberty Township Tea Party was asked for more specific information about the employment background of its officials, including copies of resumes, while Progress Texas was asked for more general information. The tea party group was also asked whether any of its officials had served on the board of another organization or planned to run for office.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Whatever, Whembly.

Keep on manufacturing that outrage! Rabble rabble rabble!

 whembly wrote:

Doing something that was wrong/improper doesn't necessarily mean that it's "illegal".

You being very pedantic with that statement.

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Doing something that was wrong/improper doesn't necessarily mean that it's "illegal".

You being very pedantic with that statement.

No, I'm being precise and I honestly do not see how you can support the punishment of people who upheld the law they were employed to enforce.

Absent the leaked donor list, it does not appear that anyone at the IRS did anything legally wrong.

This investigation has become a congressional witch hunt, thanks largely to people like you, designed to build political capital without actually addressing the fundamental problems with the tax code.

 whembly wrote:

You'd be okay with that?

 whembly wrote:

What do you mean, "you people"?

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

You'd be okay with that?

Yes, I said as much in the other IRS thread.

Though I'll also add that you're dodging the point about this investigation doing nothing to correct the problems with the tax code.

 whembly wrote:

What do you mean, "you people"?

People that latch onto one side of a scandal and push it stridently.

 whembly wrote:

The investigation is to figure out what really happened. That's kinda the point dogma.

 whembly wrote:

Okay... dogma, you keep believing that.

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

The investigation is to figure out what really happened. That's kinda the point dogma.

So you have no interest in correcting the problems with the tax code?

I mean, you're telling me that you have a problem with the IRS enforcing (and correcting) the tax code, but you don't seem to be interested in Congress correcting it. Really, you only seem interested in punishing IRS employees. As such you seem to prioritize vindiction over progress, at least in this case.

 whembly wrote:

Okay... dogma, you keep believing that.

I will! I believe it is congruous with reality.

 whembly wrote:

Of course I fething want it fixed.

 whembly wrote:

But in order to truly fix it, we need to know what happened and why.

 whembly wrote:

Yeah... in dogma's "world".

The Internal Revenue Service has agreed to turn over emails and other documents from Lois Lerner, a core player in the agency’s targeting controversy, the House Ways and Means Committee said Friday.

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) threatened last month to subpoena those documents after criticizing the IRS for failing to comply with his request.
“This is a significant step forward and will help us complete our investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups,” Camp said in a statement.

The announcement comes just days after Lerner, the IRS official who first acknowledged the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups in May, for the second time invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination before the House Oversight Committee.

But instead of Lerner’s return dominating headlines, as Republicans had hoped, a quarrel between that panel’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), and its top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), received most of the attention.

Democrats have stressed that the IRS has already turned over more than 500,000 pages worth of documents and say none of them show any link between the agency’s actions and the White House.

New IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has pledged to do whatever he can to help Congress finish off its investigation of his agency.

Republicans have increasingly acknowledged that Lerner is likely central to their investigation. Lerner’s lawyer, Bill Taylor, has maintained that Congress is unlikely to ever hear her testimony, placing even more importance on Lerner’s emails and documents.

Camp has requested all of Lerner’s emails since 2009 and complained the IRS had only turned over Lerner’s emails that dealt with determining whether a group was eligible for tax-exempt status.

Republicans have also been sharply critical of new proposed federal rules governing those groups, and are interested in any role Lerner might have played in seeking new regulations.

“From the few Lerner documents we have received, we know that Washington, D.C., orchestrated the targeting of groups applying for tax-exempt status, surveillance of existing tax-exempt groups and formed the proposed 501(c)(4) rules designed to push conservative groups out of the public forum,” Camp said Friday.

“The remaining documents are key to determining the level of wrong doing and deception committed by this agency.”

 Kanluwen wrote:
When the "request" is for basically 'anything that might kinda/sorta have relevance maybe?', that's a fishing expedition.

It's a favored tactic of Republicans, at all levels of government.

 Breotan wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
When the "request" is for basically 'anything that might kinda/sorta have relevance maybe?', that's a fishing expedition.

It's a favored tactic of Republicans, at all levels of government.

Because Democrats never do this? Seriously?

 whembly wrote:
Not sure if they'll find anything as it took them over 8 months since the initial request... lots of time to subvert, erm shred evidence...

On May 12, 2013, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released a report that found that the Exempt Organizations (EO) division of the IRS inappropriately targeted “Tea Party” and other conservative applicants for tax-exempt status and subjected them to heightened scrutiny.3 This additional scrutiny resulted in extended delays that, in most cases, sidelined applicants during the 2012 election cycle, in spite of their Constitutional right to participate. Meanwhile, the majority of liberal and left-leaning 501(c)(4) applicants won approval.4

Documents and information obtained by the Committee since the release of the TIGTA report show that Lois G. Lerner, the now-retired Director of IRS Exempt Organizations (EO), was extensively involved in targeting conservative-oriented tax-exempt applicants for inappropriate scrutiny. This report details her role in the targeting of conservative-oriented organizations, which would later result in some level of increased scrutiny of applicants from across the political spectrum. It also outlines her obstruction of the Committee’s investigation.

Prior to joining the IRS, Lerner was the Associate General Counsel and Head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).5 During her tenure at the FEC, she also engaged in questionable tactics to target conservative groups seeking to expand their political involvement, often subjecting them to heightened scrutiny.6 Her political ideology was evident to her FEC colleagues. She brazenly subjected Republican groups to rigorous investigations. Similar Democratic groups did not receive the same scrutiny.7

The Committee’s investigation of Lerner’s role in the IRS’s targeting of tax-exempt organizations found that she led efforts to scrutinize conservative groups while working to maintain a veneer of objective enforcement. Following the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the IRS faced pressure from voices on the left to heighten scrutiny of applicants for tax-exempt status. IRS EO employees in Cincinnati identified the first Tea Party applicants and promptly forwarded these applications to IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C. for further guidance. Officials in Washington, D.C. directed IRS employees in Cincinnati to isolate Tea Party applicants even though the IRS had not developed a process for approving their applications.

While IRS employees were screening applications, documents show that Lerner and other senior officials contemplated concerns about the “hugely influential Koch brothers,” and that Lerner advised her IRS colleagues that her unit should “do a c4 project next year” focusing on existing organizations.8 Lerner even showed her recognition that such an effort would approach dangerous ground and would have to be engineered as not a “per se political project.”9 Underscoring a political bias against the lawful activity of such groups, Lerner referenced the political pressure on the IRS to “fix the problem” of 501(c)(4) groups engaging in political speech at an event sponsored by Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.10

Lerner not only proposed ways for the IRS to scrutinize groups with 501(c)(4) status, but also helped implement and manage hurdles that hindered and delayed the approval of groups applying for 501(c)(4) status. In early 2011, Lerner directed the manager of the IRS’s EO Technical Unit to subject Tea Party cases to a “multi-tier review” system.11 She characterized these Tea Party cases as “very dangerous,” and believed that the Chief Counsel’s office should “be in on” the review process.12 Lerner was extensively involved in handling the Tea Party cases—from directing the review process to receiving periodic status updates.13 Other IRS employees would later testify that the level of scrutiny Lerner ordered for the Tea Party cases was unprecedented.14

Eventually, Lerner became uncomfortable with the burgeoning number of conservative organizations facing immensely heightened scrutiny from a purportedly apolitical agency. Consistent with her past concerns that scrutiny could not be “per se political,” she ordered the implementation of a new screening method. Without doing anything to inform applicants that they had been subject to inappropriate treatment, this sleight of hand added a level of deniability for the IRS that officials would eventually use to dismiss accusations of political motivations – she broadened the spectrum of groups that would be scrutinized going forward.

When Congress asked Lerner about a shift in criteria, she flatly denied it along with allegations about disparate treatment.15 Even as targeting continued, Lerner engaged in a surreptitious discussion about an “off-plan” effort to restrict the right of existing 501(c)(4) applicants to participate in the political process through new regulations made outside established protocols for disclosing new regulatory action.16 E-mails obtained by the Committee show she and other seemingly like-minded IRS employees even discussed how, if an aggrieved Tea Party applicant were to file suit, the IRS might get the chance to showcase the scrutiny it had applied to conservative applicants.17 IRS officials seemed to envision a potential lawsuit as an expedient vehicle for bypassing federal laws that protect the anonymity of applicants denied tax exempt status.18 Lerner surmised that Tea Party groups would indeed opt for litigation because, in her mind, they were “itching for a Constitutional challenge.”19

Through e-mails, documents, and the testimony of other IRS officials, the Committee has learned a great deal about Lois Lerner’s role in the IRS targeting scandal since the Committee first issued a subpoena for her testimony. She was keenly aware of acute political pressure to crack down on conservative-leaning organizations. Not only did she seek to convey her agreement with this sentiment publicly, she went so far as to engage in a wholly inappropriate effort to circumvent federal prohibitions in order to publicize her efforts to crack down on a particular Tea Party applicant. She created unprecedented roadblocks for Tea Party organizations, worked surreptitiously to advance new Obama Administration regulations that curtail the activities of existing 501(c)(4) organizations – all the while attempting to maintain an appearance that her efforts did not appear, in her own words, “per se political.”

Lerner’s testimony remains critical to the Committee’s investigation. E-mails dated shortly before the public disclosure of the targeting scandal show Lerner engaging with higher ranking officials behind the scenes in an attempt to spin the imminent release of the TIGTA report.20 Documents and testimony provided by the IRS point to her as the instigator of the IRS’s efforts to crack down on 501(c)(4) organizations and the singularly most relevant official in the IRS targeting scandal. Her unwillingness to testify deprives Congress the opportunity to have her explain her conduct, hear her response to personal criticisms levied by her IRS coworkers, and provide vital context regarding the actions of other IRS officials. In a recent interview, President Obama broadly asserted that there is not even a “smidgeon of corruption” in the IRS targeting scandal.21 15 Briefing by IRS staff to Committee staff (Feb. 24, 2012); see Letter from Darrell Issa & Jim Jordan, H. Comm. on
Oversight & Gov’t Reform, to Lois Lerner, IRS (May 14, 2013). If this is true, Lois Lerner should be willing to return to Congress to testify about her actions. The public needs a full accounting of what occurred and who was involved. Through its investigation, the Committee seeks to ensure that government officials are never in a position to abuse the public trust by depriving Americans of their Constitutional right to participate in our democracy, regardless of their political beliefs. This is the only way to restore confidence in the IRS.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
So it seems that there is merit to the accusations against her, and that she has previous form

— Lerner, in emails to other IRS officials, wrote about ways to highlight the agency's scrutiny of Tea Party applicants, despite secrecy laws, by provoking groups to challenge IRS rulings in a court case.

— She called for a Washington, D.C.-based, “multi-tier review” for Tea Party groups applying for tax exempt status. “A D.C. IRS employee said this level of scrutiny had no precedent,” the report notes.

— Lerner references “the fabulously rich and hugely influential” Koch brothers, who are GOP donors, in asserting that the agency needed to cautiously conduct a “project” scrutinizing groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax exempt status. The code references the tax exempt category conservative and Tea Party groups were requesting from the IRS.

— Lerner broke IRS rules by using her personal email account to handle protected taxpayer information.

— Lerner expressed concern that the Supreme Court ruling leading to the increase of 501(c)(4) tax-exempt groups would hurt Democratic senators seeking re-election in 2012. The IRS was expected to fix the problem, Lerner wrote.

“The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year old precedent that basically corporations couldn't give directly to political campaigns,” Lerner wrote. “And everyone is up in arms because they don't like it. The Federal Election Commission can't do anything about it. They want the IRS to fix the problem.”

 whembly wrote:

Read the whole thing... they even argues why they believe she waived her 5th.