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IRS Official Waived Rights to 5th by Making Statement of Innocence, Headed Back to Testify

May 23, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

House Republicans are considering trying to haul back into the hearing room the embattled IRS official who refused to testify Wednesday, claiming she may have inadvertently waived her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent by delivering an opening statement.

Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division which oversaw the controversial targeting of conservative groups, caused confusion on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning when she — according to some lawmakers — tried to have it both ways. She pleaded the Fifth, saying she would refuse to answer questions from a House committee probing the IRS program. But before she did so, she delivered a defiant opening statement declaring she had done nothing wrong.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, questioned whether she had “effectively waived” her rights, but ultimately dismissed her from the hearing room. But Issa and others are now strongly considering trying to call her back.

“If you could do it the way she wants to do it, then every defendant would come, say ‘I didn’t rob the bank, and I’m not going to answer the prosecutor’s questions,'” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told Fox News. “So we’d all in life like to get out our version without having to answer anyone else’s questions. It’s just not fair. And I don’t think it’s legal.”

Issa made clear by the end of Wednesday’s hearing that he was strongly considering calling Lerner back.

“I must consider this, so although I excuse Ms. Lerner, subject to a recall, I am looking into the possibility of recalling her and insisting that she answer questions in light of a waiver,” Issa said.

He said for that reason, the hearing would stand in recess, but not be adjourned.

In her opening statement, Lerner asserted her innocence.

“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

Lerner is represented by lawyer William W. Taylor, who is noted for winning a dismissal of all charges against former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a high-profile sexual assault case.

It’s unclear whether Lerner can avoid another round of questioning by the committee.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on the committee who was as tough as any Republican on the IRS witnesses Wednesday, said he thought Lerner was still in her right to refuse to answer questions.

“I’d like to see (hearings) run like a federal court. Unfortunately, this is not a federal court and she does have a right,” Cummings said Wednesday. “And we have to adhere to that.”

Former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, who stayed to testify Wednesday, endured a tough round of questioning for the second day in a row. Lawmakers were visibly frustrated as he struggled to explain why he didn’t notify Congress after learning of the practice last year.

But lawmakers are itching to question Lerner, having aired a string of complaints about her own failure to notify Congress.

Lerner touched off the public controversy when, at an American Bar Association conference this month, she apologized for the IRS’ practice of targeting conservative organizations for additional scrutiny. It was the first time the agency acknowledged the practice.

She said she hadn’t revealed the information sooner, because she was never asked. But just two days before the ABA conference, Lerner was specifically asked about the investigation.

Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., who had asked her about it, later called her answer evasive.

“The bottom line is you cannot lie to Congress, and you cannot be evasive, you cannot try to mislead Congress,” he said.

Published May 23, 2013 / FoxNews.com

DOJ Seized Phone Records for Fox News Reporter, and Parents

May 23, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Newly uncovered court documents reveal the Justice Department seized records of several Fox News phone lines as part of a leak investigation — even listing a number that, according to one source, matches the home phone number of a reporter’s parents.

The seizure was ordered in addition to a court-approved search warrant for Fox News correspondent James Rosen’s personal emails. In the affidavit seeking that warrant, an FBI agent called Rosen a likely criminal “co-conspirator,” citing a wartime law called the Espionage Act.

Rosen was not charged, but his movements and conversations were tracked. A source close to the leak investigation confirmed to Fox News that the government obtained phone records for several numbers that match Fox News numbers out of the Washington bureau.

Further, the source confirmed to Fox News that one number listed matched the number for Rosen’s parents in Staten Island.

Rosen’s father, attorney Myron Rosen, told FoxNews.com he found the records seizure to be “downright ludicrous.”

“My son and his wife call us all the time, and we talk about grandchildren,” he said. “We don’t talk about nuclear proliferation.”

He continued: “The fact that they had our phone records, it shows how crazy they are, how desperate.”

The government began to push back Wednesday on some of the information circulating about the case. The office of U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr., who is prosecuting the case, stressed in a statement Wednesday that his office “did not wiretap the phones of any reporter or news organization” or “monitor or track the phone calls of any reporter’s parents.”

“We take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when grand jury subpoenas are issued for phone records of media organizations, and strive to strike the proper balance between the public’s interest in the free flow of information and the public’s interest in the protection of national security and the effective enforcement of our criminal laws,” the statement said.

Asked about the documents, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told Fox News earlier that he “can’t comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.”

The documents filed in October 2011 appear to show exchanges that match the specific locations of Fox News’ White House, Pentagon, State Department and other operations. The last four digits of each of the phone numbers listed are redacted in the government filing.

Among the numbers listed were several that start with the area code and exchange, 202-824 — which is an area code and exchange for the Fox News Washington bureau.

The phone information was included in a long list of numbers, email addresses and other details that prosecutors shared with defense attorneys shortly after the alleged leaker was indicted. The document said the government had already obtained a trove of material from the defendant, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, including his passport applications, State Department badge records, emails, computer and hard drive.

Click to read the documents.

Meanwhile, the White House Correspondents’ Association spoke out on incidents involving two news organizations. The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records from the Associated Press and obtained a search warrant for the personal emails of Fox News’ James Rosen. The information about the phone records was uncovered Tuesday.

In the latter case, an FBI agent also claimed in an affidavit that Rosen was possibly a criminal “co-conspirator.”

Though no charges were brought against Rosen, the White House Correspondents’ Association said no journalist should even face that threat for doing their job.

“Reporters should never be threatened with prosecution for the simple act of doing their jobs,” the WHCA said in a statement Tuesday. “The problem is that in two recent cases, one involving Fox News’ James Rosen and the other focused on the Associated Press, serious questions have been raised about whether our government has gotten far too aggressive in its monitoring of reporters’ movements, phone records, and even personal email.”

The statement went on: “We do not know all of the facts in these cases, so we will just say this in general: Our country was founded on the principle of freedom of the press and nothing is more sacred to our profession. So we stand in strong solidarity with our colleagues who have been scrutinized. And in terms of the administration, ultimately what will matter more in all of these cases is action not words.”

Earlier, Carney said President Obama believes reporters shouldn’t be prosecuted for doing their jobs. The association said it agreed.

The WHCA’s board is led by Fox News’ Ed Henry.

The statement comes after court documents showed the Justice Department obtained a portfolio of information about Rosen’s conversations and visits to the State Department. This included a search warrant for his personal emails.

In an affidavit, an FBI agent claimed there’s evidence the Fox News correspondent broke the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

Michael Clemente, Fox News’ executive vice president of news, defended Rosen in a statement issued Monday afternoon.

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter,” Clemente said. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

In the case involving Rosen, a government adviser was accused of leaking information after a 2009 story was published online which said North Korea planned to respond to looming U.N. sanctions with another nuclear test.

Rosen said Monday that “as a reporter, I always honor the confidentiality of my dealings with all of my sources.”

The Department of Justice said in a statement that “leaks of classified information to the press can pose a serious risk of harm to our national security and it is important that we pursue these matters using appropriate law enforcement tools.”

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia also said the government, before seeking approval for the search warrant, “exhausted all reasonable non-media alternatives for collecting this evidence.”

Click for more from The New Yorker.

Published May 23, 2013 / FoxNews.com / Fox News’ Bret Baier and FoxNews.com’s Judson Berger contributed to this report.

IRS Official Who Refused to Testify Facing Scrutiny Over Scandal, Past

May 23, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The IRS official who refused to testify at a House hearing Wednesday has become a key focus of the congressional investigations into the IRS practice of singling out conservative groups.

Now under the protection of her lawyers and the Fifth Amendment, Lois Lerner is facing a maelstrom of controversy.

Members of Congress are calling her evasive, and question why she didn’t reveal the program sooner — plus her history at the Federal Elections Commission is coming under scrutiny.

Lerner touched off the public controversy when, at an American Bar Association conference earlier this month, she apologized for the IRS’ practice of targeting conservative organizations for additional scrutiny. It was the first time the agency acknowledged the practice.

“They used names like Tea Party or patriots … and they selected cases simply because the application had those names in the title,” she admitted.

She said she hadn’t revealed the information sooner, because she was never asked. But just two days before the ABA conference, Lerner was specifically asked about the investigation.

Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., asked her if she could “comment briefly on the status on the IRS investigation into these political not-for-profits.”

She said: “Well there’s a questionnaire that began this discussion and there’s also a questionnaire out there that is seeking info from 501 c3,4,5 organizations.”

Crowley later called her answer evasive.

“The bottom line is you cannot lie to Congress, and you cannot be evasive, you cannot try to mislead Congress,” he said.

In the 1990’s, Lerner also served as chief of enforcement at the Federal Elections Commission.

Under her direction, the FEC undertook the largest enforcement action in its history — suing the Christian Coalition for violating campaign laws. The Christian Coalition won, but in one deposition, FEC lawyers asked a defendant if televangelist Pat Robertson prayed for him.

James Bopp, the Christian Coalition’s lawyer, said he was “shocked and appalled” by that.

“Both political activity and religious activity are specifically protected by the First Amendment,” he said.

When Bopp learned years later that Lerner had been promoted to an IRS position, he became concerned.

“She was in effect being promoted for what she had done at the Federal Election Commission and now was going to be expected … to replicate that at the IRS and now we know that’s exactly what happened,” he said.

Lerner is represented by lawyer William W. Taylor, who is noted for winning a dismissal of all charges against former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a high-profile sexual assault case.

Lerner said at Wednesday’s hearing that she had done nothing wrong.

By Doug McKelway / Published May 23, 2013 / FoxNews.com

New Poll: Obama Ratings Dip, Voters Say Government ‘Out of Control’

May 22, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

After a week of revelations about government spying on reporters and the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives, most voters feel “like the federal government has gotten out of control and is threatening the basic civil liberties of Americans.”

At the same time, a new Fox News poll finds disapproval of President Obama’s job performance is above 50 percent for the first time in a year, his honesty rating is at a new low and half of voters already think he’s a lame-duck.

More than two-thirds of voters — 68 percent — feel the government is out of control and threatening their civil liberties. About one quarter disagree (26 percent).

Nearly half of Democrats (47 percent), as well as large numbers of independents (76 percent) and Republicans (87 percent) feel Uncle Sam is taking liberties with their liberties.

Those who identify with the Tea Party movement, one of the groups targeted by the IRS, are among those most likely to say things are out of control and civil liberties are being threatened: 92 percent of Tea Partiers feel that way.

Six in 10 Americans say the Justice Department “went too far” when it seized the phone records of reporters working at the Associated Press (AP) without prior notice. That’s almost twice as many as the 31 percent who think the actions were “justified” because the government was looking for leaks about a terrorist plot.

Most Republicans (77 percent) and a majority of independents (62 percent) feel the Justice Department went too far. Nearly half of Democrats agree (45 percent), while almost as many say the government was justified (44 percent).

The recent controversies have taken a toll on the president’s standing with voters.

Overall, 45 percent of voters approve of the job Obama’s doing, down from 47 percent last month. Just over half — 51 percent — disapprove of his performance, up from 45 percent last month. This is the first time disapproval of Obama has topped 50 percent since April 2012.

The increase in disapproval of Obama is driven mainly by independents (+ 7 percentage points) and Republicans (+8 points). Disapproval among Democrats remained mostly unchanged (15 percent).

The poll also finds more voters questioning Obama’s honesty. Some 49 percent think Obama is honest and trustworthy today. That’s down from 51 percent last July — and the first time in a Fox News poll that less than half of voters said Obama was honest. Obama’s highest honesty rating was 73 percent in April 2009, when he had been in office about 100 days.

A record number also now thinks Obama is not honest: 48 percent in the new poll, up from 46 percent last summer.

Nearly half of voters now consider Obama a lame-duck president. Less than a year into his second term, 49 percent of voters say Obama is a lame-duck, including 25 percent of Democrats.

Almost as many voters — 47 percent — say Obama still has the power to get things done.

Views on Obama’s leadership closely track his job performance rating. Forty-five percent rate his leadership skills positively: “excellent” (15 percent) or “good” (30 percent). Another 19 percent say “only fair.”

More than twice as many voters rate Obama’s leadership skills as “poor” (36 percent) as rate them as “excellent” (15 percent).

Many more voters disapprove (40 percent) than approve (28 percent) of the job Eric Holder is doing as attorney general. A third are unable to rate him (32 percent). Approval of Holder is down eight points from 36 percent in May 2010, when voters were last asked about his performance on a Fox News poll.

Holder is the head of the Justice Department. He has recused himself from the current AP investigation.

Which of the current Obama administration scandals is the most troublesome to voters? The largest number says the IRS targeting of conservative groups (32 percent), and that’s closely followed by Benghazi (27 percent). About one in five say the Justice Department seizing the phone records of reporters concerns them the most (21 percent).

Even if voters had known before the election what they know now about the Obama administration controversies, the consensus is he still would have won: 62 percent say Obama would have still won re-election, while 33 percent think Romney would have won.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,013 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from May 18 to May 20. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

By Dana Blanton / Published May 21, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Disgraced Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner Announces Bid for NYC Mayor

May 22, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner has announced he is running for mayor of New York City, almost two years after resigning over a Twitter scandal.

In a video released Tuesday night, Weiner announced his candidacy for the election in November 2013, with his wife, Huma Abedin, aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and their young son Jordan, by his side.

Sources tell the New York Post the video is authentic, but said it was supposed to be released later Wednesday. The video vanished from Weiner’s website and YouTube page early Wednesday.

The married Democrat resigned from Congress in 2011 after tweeting a lewd picture of himself and lying about his account being hacked. He later admitted trading inappropriate messages with several women.

Weiner touts his New York City roots in the video, describing how he grew up a “middle-class kid in Brooklyn.” He says he wants to work to make the middle-class lifestyle more attainable for more New Yorkers, and references some of his accomplishments from his time in Congress, such as getting help for Sept. 11 first responders.

“Look I made some big mistakes,” Weiner says in the video. “And I know I’ve let a lot of people down. But I’ve also learned some tough lessons. I’m running for mayor because I’ve been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance to work for you.”

The website also provided a link to Weiner’s “action plan” for the city.

“These ideas are diverse, but what binds them is the help they offer to the middle class and those struggling to make it there,” the introductions read. “Part of being a New Yorker is looking at problems and figuring out a better way. I put these ideas on the table to start the dialog for a better way for our great city.”

Weiner acknowledged he was considering a bid for mayor in a lengthy interview with the New York Times Magazine in April.

He told the magazine his committee has dropped more than $100,000 on polling and research, as was previously shown in campaign finance reports.

Weiner said his pollster was telling him he’d be the “underdog” in a race.

“I am a bit of a polarizing case,” Weiner said.

The Democrat is jumping into a crowded field for September’s primary. He’s arriving with some significant advantages, including a $4.8 million campaign war chest, the possibility of about $1.5 million more in public matching money, polls showing him ahead of all but one other Democrat — and no end of name recognition.

In seeking a second chance from the public, Weiner will have to overcome some voters’ misgivings. In a recent NBC New York-Marist Poll poll, half said they wouldn’t even consider him, though the survey also showed that more registered Democrats now have a favorable than unfavorable impression of him.

Weiner can expect opponents to hammer at his prior prevaricating, and he said in a recent interview on the RNN cable network that he couldn’t guarantee that no more pictures or people would emerge.

And while he might welcome attention to his policies rather than his past, they also have attracted some criticism. About a dozen young people recently demonstrated outside his Manhattan apartment building to denounce his proposal to make it easier to suspend disruptive public school students; “(hash)Weiner: You ask for a second chance in (hash)NYC2013 but deny students a second chance,” read one sign, using Twitter’s beloved hashtag marks.

Since leaving office, Weiner has put his government experience to work as a consultant for various companies.

His Democratic opponents include City Councilman Sal Albanese; Public Advocate Bill de Blasio; Comptroller John Liu; City Council Speaker Christine Quinn; the Rev. Erick Salgado, a pastor; and former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

Republican contenders include billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota and homelessness-aid organization head George McDonald. Former White House housing official Aldolfo Carrion Jr., a Democrat who recently dropped his party affiliation, is running on the Independence Party line and also interested in the Republican nomination.

Published May 22, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Poll: Majority Think White House Knew About IRS-Out of Control

May 21, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Voters are concerned about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative political groups for unfair treatment, and over half think the White House either knew it was happening or — worse yet — was actually behind the operation.

That’s according to a Fox News poll released Tuesday.

The IRS recently admitted it targeted tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when the groups sought tax-exempt status.

Most voters think the White House was involved in the IRS scandal in some way: 37 percent think the administration knew it was going on but didn’t initiate the policy, while another 29 percent believe the White House directed the IRS to go after those groups.

About a quarter (24 percent) says the White House had absolutely nothing to do with what the IRS was doing.

Almost all of those who identify with the Tea Party movement think the White House was involved: 58 percent think the administration intentionally had them targeted, and 31 percent believe that while the White House knew about the unfair treatment, it wasn’t behind it.

Confidence in the IRS has dropped significantly. The poll finds 42 percent of voters have “a great deal” (7 percent) or “some” (35 percent) confidence in the agency. That’s down from 62 percent who had at least some confidence in the IRS in May 2003 (the last time the Fox News poll asked Americans to rate the IRS).

Seventy-eight percent of voters are concerned that certain groups have been singled out, including 50 percent who are “very” concerned and 28 percent “somewhat” concerned.

Even more — 84 percent — are worried individual Americans could receive the same unfair treatment (61 percent “very” and 23 percent “somewhat” concerned).

The poll asked about three current Obama administration controversies. A 32-percent plurality says the IRS scandal is the worst, followed by Benghazi (27 percent) and the Justice Department seizing the phone records of reporters (21 percent).

Democrats (26 percent) and independents (28 percent) are more than twice as likely as Republicans (11 percent) to say the Justice Department controversy is the worst.

The IRS scandal tops the list for both Republicans (39 percent) and Democrats (28 percent). Still, Republicans are more likely to pick it as the most troubling by an 11-point margin.

By Dana Blanton / Published May 21, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Ex-IRS Chief to Testify Before Congress as Carney Admits White House Knew More

May 21, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Lawmakers will get their first opportunity to question the man who ran the IRS when agents were improperly targeting tea party groups Tuesday, as the timeline for when senior White House officials knew about the scandal seems to be shifting.

The lawmakers are expected to ask former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman why he didn’t tell Congress that agents had been singling out conservative political groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status — even after he was briefed on the matter.

Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, left the IRS in November when his five-year term ended. He is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into the matter.

The hearing comes after White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the president’s counsel was told on April 24 about the preliminary findings of an IRS audit that showed tax officials unfairly targeted Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Carney had previously said that White House counsel did not have any details about the IRS probe and was given a generic heads up that one was being conducted.

Senior legal counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was told about the audit on April 24, Carney said Monday. She then told Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff and other senior officials about the investigation.

“It was the judgment of counsel this is not a matter she should convey to the president,” Carney said. “Her opinion that this is not the kind of thing that requires notification to the president.”

“No one in this building intervened in an independent investigation or anything that could be seen that way,” he said, adding that the misconduct had stopped in 2012, “almost a year before we knew about it.”

Carney also said while Ruemmler knew the subject of the investigation and potential findings, they were not given a draft of the report and understood details could change.

Ahead of the hearing, the committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican, sent a letter to the IRS Monday, asking for an explanation. The letter included 41 separate requests for information. They gave the IRS until May 31 to respond.

The two senators said the IRS had not been forthcoming about the issue in the past.

“Targeting applicants for tax-exempt status using political labels threatens to undermine the public’s trust in the IRS,” Baucus and Hatch wrote. “Lack of candor in advising the Senate of this practice is equally troubling.”

For more than a year, from 2011 through the 2012 election, members of Congress repeatedly asked Shulman about complaints from tea party groups that they were being harassed by the IRS.

Shulman’s responses, usually relayed by a deputy, did not acknowledge that agents had ever targeted tea party groups for special scrutiny. At a congressional hearing March 22, 2012, Shulman was adamant in his denials.

“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman said at the House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.

The IRS has said Shulman did not know about the targeting at the time of the hearing.

The agency’s inspector general says he told Shulman on May 30, 2012, that his office was auditing the way applications for tax-exempt status were being handled, in part because of complaints from conservative groups. However, the inspector general, J. Russell George, said he did not reveal the results of his investigation.

George was also testifying at Tuesday’s hearing. So was Steven Miller, who took over as acting commissioner in November, when Shulman’s term expired. Last week, Obama forced Miller to resign.

George issued a report last week blaming ineffective management for allowing agents to inappropriately target conservative groups for more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 elections.

The agents were trying to determine whether the groups were engaged in political activity. Certain tax-exempt groups are allowed to engage in politics, but politics cannot be their primary mission. It is up to the IRS to make the determination, so agents are supposed to look for clues when reviewing applications for tax-exempt status.

In March 2010, agents starting singling out groups with “Tea Party” or “Patriots” on their applications. By August 2010, it was part of the written criteria for identifying groups that required more scrutiny, according to George’s report.

Agents did not flag similar progressive or liberal labels, though some liberal groups received additional scrutiny because their applications were singled out for other reasons, the report said.

Published May 21, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report

DOJ Official Who Retaliated Against ‘Furious’ Whistle-blower, Lied About Him

May 20, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The former U.S. Attorney for Arizona could be disbarred, after an investigation found he lied to the Justice Department about his role in trying to discredit the federal whistle-blower who exposed the botched gun-running scheme known as Fast and Furious.

An Office of Inspector General report showed that Dennis Burke — the former chief of staff for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed as U.S. Attorney for Arizona by President Obama in September 2009 — lied when asked if he leaked sensitive documents to the press meant to undermine the credibility of ATF whistle-blower John Dodson.

The IG report also said Burke likely leaked the memo in retaliation for Dodson’s whistle-blowing, and challenged the credibility of statements he made to congressional investigators. Dodson first went to Congress in 2010 after his own agency and the Justice Department refused to investigate his complaints that Operation Fast and Furious, an anti-gun-trafficking effort, was out of control.

“We also concluded that Burke’s disclosure of the Dodson memorandum was likely motivated by a desire to undermine Dodson’s public criticisms of Operation Fast and Furious. Although Burke denied to congressional investigators that he had any retaliatory motive for his actions, we found substantial evidence to the contrary,” the IG report, released Monday, said.

Dodson appeared before Congress in June 2011. At the time, the Department of Justice denied his claim that the federal government approved a plan to knowingly assist criminals in smuggling thousands of guns to the Mexican drug cartels.

Dodson’s credibility was crucial since nearly everyone above him denied the allegation. The report found that Burke leaked information that sought to undermine Dodson’s story to a Fox News producer.

“The report brings into question, yet again, the treatment that whistle-blowers receive from this administration,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Monday. “Instead of examining the allegations that came forward, the Justice Department almost immediately began to attack the credibility and good name of a dedicated federal agent upset with what he was ordered to do.”

Burke used his private email account to leak the information to a friend in Washington who then hand-delivered the information to the Fox producer. The IG said in its report it used an “administrative subpoena” to identify the personal email of relevant Department employees to confirm the leak.

Once contacted by IG staff, Burke admitted he was the source. The IG’s office had asked 150 Justice Department employees to affirm they were not the leak.

But the report said he gave misleading information to congressional investigators. Asked about the issue by congressional investigators, Burke said: “I was under the impression that (the Dodson memo) had gone to the Hill and that I was basically giving (the Fox producer) a time advantage.”

He also allegedly misled his own superior in Washington, Assistant Attorney General James Cole.

At the time, Cole had seen a New York Times story about Fast and Furious. In it, the paper published a picture which showed the document had been faxed from the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona. When confronted, the report said Burke told Cole, “I don’t think we have a fax machine.”

The IG report claims Burke was “admonished by Deputy Attorney General Cole for lying to him … and had been put on notice such disclosures should not occur.”

After speaking with Burke, Cole wrote “another horrible incident of bad judgment.” The following day, Aug. 13, Burke resigned.

Fox News tried unsuccessfully to contact Burke, who recently formed a security and lobbying firm with former Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano’s Chief of Staff Noah Kroloff.

The Office of Inspector General is an investigative arm that monitors the Justice Department. It tried to interview Burke, but he resigned.

The IG said Burke violated numerous federal and professional rules of conduct and it would forward a copy of its report to the Arizona State Bar Association for disciplinary conduct.

By William La Jeunesse / Published May 20, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Second Immigration Officer Union Opposses Senate Immigration Bill

May 20, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON – The leader of a union representing 12,000 federal immigration officers said Monday his group is joining a growing list of similar organizations opposed to the sweeping immigration bill crafted by the Gang of Eight lawmakers and under consideration in Congress.

Kenneth Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, said his union was never consulted by the group of bipartisan lawmakers writing the bill, which he claims was written with special interests in mind and fails to address “some of the most serious concerns the USCIS Council has about the current system.”

The union represents officers of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for processing visas and other immigration papers.

Palinkas says the bill doesn’t address the pressure he claims is put on adjudication officers to rubber stamp applications instead of conducting diligent case reviews. He says it fails to fix the “insurmountable bureaucracy” which often prevents USCIS officers from contacting and coordinating with ICE agents in cases that should have their involvement, and doesn’t do enough to address the problem of student visa overstays.

“We are the very backbone of our nation’s immigration system and will be at the center of implementing any immigration reform,” Palinkas said in a statement obtained by FoxNews.com.

This month, the National ICE Council, which represents more than 7,000 agents, sent a letter to Congress sharply criticizing the legislation and saying it will not support it. There are three major unions that represent the country’s immigration officers and agents.

Members of the Senate’s Gang of Eight spent last week marking up the bill in the Judiciary Committee. On Tuesday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio seemed to show signs of strain within the group after senators rejected a Republican proposal to require a biometric entry and exit system at ports of entry in the U.S.

President Obama has been cautiously optimistic about the Senate’s strategy of a bipartisan approach.

On Thursday, House negotiators also told reporters that they had reached a tentative agreement of their own but did not disclose details.

Published May 20, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Obama Adviser Attempts to Spin Scandals

May 19, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON – A top White House adviser staked out a defiant defense Sunday on a series of scandals that have hit the Obama administration, going so far as to say it was an “irrelevant fact” where the president was the night of the Benghazi terror attacks and saying the Obama administration wouldn’t cooperate in “partisan fishing expeditions” over IRS officials targeting Tea Party groups.

Dan Pfeiffer went on five Sunday talk shows where he tried to reverse the damage done to the Obama administration this week by a series of scandals. On “Fox News Sunday” he tried to hammer home that the president only heard that the IRS unfairly targeted Tea Party groups “when it came out in the news.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who also appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” suggested there was a written policy to target political groups opposing the president but when pressed for proof, he was unable to provide details.

On ABC, Pfeiffer said the law governing the targeting of conservative groups was “irrelevant.”

“You don’t really mean the law is irrelevant do you?” host George Stephanopoulos asked.

Pfeiffer clarified his statement, “What I mean is that whether it’s legal, or illegal is — is not important to the fact that it — that, the conduct as a matter. The Department of Justice said they’re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again regardless of how that turns out.”

Earlier this week, a Treasury Department inspector general report revealed that Tea Party and other groups that had been critical of Obama received extra scrutiny when applying for a tax-exempt status from the government. According to the report, IRS agents had not flagged similar liberal or progressive groups.

The incident was traced back to an Ohio IRS office that had singled out conservative groups and held up their applications or demanded information from them like donor information, which is illegal. Many groups would not or could not provide the confidential information and as a result had to suspend their applications.

Pfeiffer also took the bold step of demanding Republicans owe Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, an apology for alleging she played a part in formulating the White House’s response to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed four Americans.

Pfeiffer said that the release of more than 100 pages of Benghazi emails and notes show “beyond a shadow of the doubt” that accusations she tried to change the narrative of what happened in the attacks were false.

“And, frankly, I think that many of the Republicans who have been talking about this, now that they have seen the emails, owe Ambassador Rice an apology for the things they said about her in the wake of the attack,” he said.

He claimed on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the issue of who changed the initial talking points on the attack is “largely irrelevant.” The Benghazi emails though did show top State Department officials involved in trying to water down the administration’s initial storyline to remove references to prior security incidents and warnings.

Another scandal hitting the White House this week involved the seizure of two months worth of telephone records of journalists at four Associated Press bureaus including Washington and New York.

AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt criticized the move Sunday, saying the Justice Department’s secret subpoenas sent a strong and negative message to sources and made them less willing to talk to AP journalists.

Pruitt said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” it was not only unconstitutional but also damaging to the ideal of a free press in the country.

“It will hurt,” he said. “We’re already seeing some impact. Officials are saying they’re reluctant to talk.”

The Justice Department disclosed the seizure of two months of phone records in a letter the AP received May 10. The letter didn’t say why the organization was targeted. Last week, Pruitt had said in a statement on the AP website that it was difficult to defend its actions since it was not told by the government what it did or what prompted the subpoenas.

Prosecutors later said they were looking into government leaks on a foiled Al Qaeda plot in Yemen before it was made public last year. Justice officials also alleged the AP’s story would have put Americans at risk, a claim the AP strongly refuted.

Published May 19, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Second Court Invalidates Obama Appointments to Labor Board

May 17, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

A national labor board which has long been accused of making union-friendly decisions was dealt another blow Thursday, after a second federal appeals court found President Obama exceeded his power when he bypassed the Senate to appoint its members.

The ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia once again threatened to upend the National Labor Relations Board’s decisions. And it has the potential to stall the board entirely, as well as challenge other federal agencies that have similar appointees.

For now, the Obama administration has tried to disregard the court decisions — it has already appealed a similar ruling, from a Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to the Supreme Court.

In the 2-1 decision from the Philadelphia court, judges said Obama had no constitutional authority to install attorney Craig Becker to the labor board in 2010 while the Senate was adjourned for two weeks.

This is what’s known as a recess appointment. But the court said that under the Constitution recess appointments can be made only between sessions of the Senate, not any time the Senate is away on a break.

“If the Senate refused to confirm a president’s nominees, then the president could circumvent the Senate’s constitutional role simply by waiting until senators go home for the evening,” Judge D. Brooks Smith wrote in a 102-page decision.

The administration argues that such an interpretation would invalidate hundreds of recess appointments made by presidents over more than 100 years.

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, emboldened by the decision, said Thursday that the ruling challenges Obama’s “unprecedented power grab.”

“It’s time for the unlawfully appointed nominees to step down,” he said.

Both rulings have threatened to throw the labor board, the Consumer Financial Protection Board and other federal agencies with recess appointees into chaos. If they stand, hundreds of decisions by these agencies could be thrown out.

Obama has made 32 recess appointments during his presidency, nearly all of which would be considered invalid under the interpretation of these courts. The rulings could also threaten the recess appointments of previous presidents. President George W. Bush made 141 such appointments in eight years.

The ruling, incidentally, came as a Senate panel considered a slate of five nominees for full terms on the labor board. Senate Republicans said Thursday they would oppose two of the nominees — Sharon Block and Richard Griffin — because they currently sit on the board as recess appointments.

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, senior Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would not consider Block and Griffin because they refused to step down from the board after the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that they were unconstitutionally appointed. Block and Griffin said they wanted to abide by their oath to serve their country and argued that appeals courts have reached different conclusions about recess powers.

Democrats on the panel accused Republicans of obstructionism because the GOP and its allies in the business community have been unhappy with some of the union-friendly decisions issued by the board during Obama’s administration. Unions warn that unless the nominees are confirmed soon, the board will be unable to function. It only has three members now, and the term of board chairman Mark Pearce expires in August.

A lengthy dissent came from Judge Joseph Greenaway Jr., who was appointed by Obama and joined the court in 2010. Greenaway said that under the majority’s decision, the recess appointment power “is essentially neutered and the president’s ability to make recess appointments would be eviscerated.”

The case was brought by New Vista, a New Jersey nursing and rehabilitative care center that argued its nurses were supervisors who were not allowed to form a union. The labor board ruled in favor of the union and New Vista appealed. The company argued that the board did not have enough validly appointed members to reach a decision because Becker was not a valid appointee.

The labor board has five seats and needs at least three sitting members to conduct business. At the time of the New Vista ruling, it had the minimum of three, but one member was Becker, the recess appointee.

Becker is no longer on the NLRB, but the current board also has only three members, two of whom are Obama recess appointees. More than a hundred companies have appealed NLRB decisions this year arguing that the board does not have enough validly appointed members to conduct business.

Published May 16, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Conservative Hispanic Groups Targeted In IRS Scandal

May 17, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The Internal Revenue Service scandal involving the apparently unjustified targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups has also hit home with the Hispanic community.

George Rodriguez, former president of the San Antonio Tea Party, said that when the organization applied for non-profit status, leaders were intimidated by IRS workers with excessive paperwork and meddling questions.

“They asked us all sorts of things that were out of the norm,” Rodriguez, now head of the conservative South Texas Alliance, told Fox News Latino. “We knew these questions were not the norm and we had our suspicions about them.”

SUMMARY

The complaint from the San Antonio group is just one of many nationwide leveled against the federal agency, which surfaced last Friday when Lois G. Lerner director of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division, let slip that low-level IRS staffers had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups with words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their names.

The public slip started a furor among conservative groups and pundits and forced U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to announce that the Justice Department would open a criminal investigation into the matter.

Rodriguez said the group received a questionnaire from the IRS with “well over 50 questions,” including inquiries into who the group met with, where they held their meetings, who was in attendance and what the subject of their internal emails were.

“They should have been worried about the numbers, not who we were meeting with,” he added. “It was flat-out dirty politics.”

The complaint from the San Antonio group is one of many nationwide leveled against the embattled federal agency, in the escalating case that surfaced last week when Lois G. Lerner, director of the IRS’ exempt-organizations division, let slip that low-level IRS staffers had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups with words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their names.

Republicans have pressed the Obama administration for heads to roll. On Wednesday, Obama asked for and received the resignation of the agency’s acting commissioner, Steve Miller.

The scandal sparked a furor among conservative groups and pundits, forcing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to announce that the Justice Department would open a criminal investigation into the matter.

Holder followed the announcement by adding Wednesday that the FBI’s criminal investigation could include charges of civil rights violations, false statements and potential violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in some partisan political activities.

“I can assure you and the American people that we will take a dispassionate view of this,” Holder said. “This will not be about parties, this will not be about ideological persuasions. Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable.”

The revelations also spurred calls for investigations into the practices of the administration of President Barack Obama and allegations of a potential cover-up operation.

“It’s an abuse of power and it smells of Watergate,” said Bob Quasius, the president of the conservative Latino group Café con Leche, referring to the political scandal that led to the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

“I think it goes to the top levels of his administration,” Quasius added. “If it doesn’t directly connect to him it at least connects to someone close to him.”

So far, however, there has been no evidence directly linking the Obama administration to the IRS mess-up. For its part, the administration has tried to portray the scandal as something done independently of the federal government in Washington by the IRS field office in Cincinnati.

The federal government enacted strict measures following the Watergate scandal to keep the executive branch of government away from the IRS, making it very difficult for the president to interfere in the agency’s affairs.

Of the 296 applications for nonprofit status the inspector general reviewed, the San Antonio Tea Party was one of the 108 that were approved. Of the others, 28 were withdrawn by the applicants and 160 were still open.

Despite the approval of the group’s application, which Rodriguez said required the help of the American Center for Law and Justice, he still believes that the hoops it had to jump through were indicative of the “shenanigans” that were going on in the IRS.

“We understand we need to show we’re a nonprofit,” Rodriguez said. “But these questions were way beyond what the norm is and were way out of line.”

By Andrew O’Reilly / Published May 16, 2013 / Fox News Latino

ICE: Hundreds of Illegal Immigrants With Criminal Records Released

May 16, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

People are taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol near Falfurrias, Texas

Hundreds of illegal immigrants with criminal records were released earlier this year as the Obama administration prepared for budget cuts, according to newly released data that challenged claims the program involved “low-risk” individuals.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement released the figures to two top senators, after a three-month delay and under the threat of congressional subpoenas.

Of the 2,226 detainees that were released in February, the department revealed, “622 have been identified as having some type of criminal conviction.”

A statement from Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., who received the stats, said 32 of them had multiple felony convictions. The department then “re-apprehended” 24 of those, the senators said, after realizing the “seriousness” of their crimes.

McCain called for those responsible to be punished.

“ICE’s reprehensible actions put Arizona at risk by setting free into our communities hundreds of detainees who were guilty of criminal offenses,” he said. “The ICE officials responsible for this must face disciplinary action and must take all actions necessary to ensure that this never happens again.”

At the time, ICE officials defended the decision as one made in order to stay within budget — as a prior budget resolution expired and the sequester was set to kick in.

Those detainees released were still said to face deportation and be under supervision. But administration officials downplayed the threat they might pose after leaving the local immigration jails.

In late February, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said: “As ICE made clear yesterday, the agency released these low-risk, non-criminal detainees under a less expensive form of monitoring to ensure detention levels stayed within ICE’s overall budget.”

But according to McCain and Levin, some of those released had lengthy rap sheets.

One of them released in Phoenix had a second-degree robbery conviction and convictions for prostitution and solicitation for lewd conduct.

Another had been convicted of an “extreme” case of driving under the influence, harassment, and causing criminal damage to property. And yet another had prior convictions for carrying a gun, felony possession of drugs, burglary, vandalism and trespassing.

In the letter to the senators, a Department of Homeland Security official said detainees “without a criminal history were prioritized.”

Nelson Peacock, assistant secretary for legislative affairs, said ICE focused on those that “posed no significant threat to public safety.” He said 1,604 of those released had no known criminal convictions and reiterated that the agency faced a 7 percent budget cut which required “significant reductions.”

In a statement Thursday, ICE said “these decisions were made on a case-by-case basis, by career law enforcement officials in the field, in order to ensure that ICE maintained sufficient resources to detain serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety through the end of the continuing resolution.”

Fox News’ Doug McKelway contributed to this report.

Federalist Press Celebrates 1 Year, 150,000+ visitors

May 15, 2013 By Editor 1 Comment

Federalist Press online news service and political commentary celebrates its first year online today, May 15, 2013.

Federalist Press celebrated its 150,000th online visitor just a few days ago, marking a major milestone for the young online news service.

We thank all of our loyal readers who have contributed, commented and supported us in this service, and made our success possible.

Federalist Press looks forward to another banner year, and pledges itself to bringing you the most important news and analysis available.

Thank you!

PUBLIUS

Democratic Sen. Levin Pressured IRS to Investigate Conservative Nonprofits

May 15, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., repeatedly pressed the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-exempt status of specific conservative nonprofit organizations in letters to then-IRS commissioner Doug Shulman and director Lois Lerner in 2012.

Levin said he was concerned nonprofit organizations were abusing their tax-exempt status and engaging in partisan politics and requested information from the IRS on 12 organizations.

“Organizations are using Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(4) to gain tax exempt status while engaging in partisan political campaigns,” wrote Levin in one letter on July 27, 2012. “Making the problem worse is that the IRS knows there is a problem because of the public nature of the activity but has failed to address it.”

He asked whether the 12 organizations “applied for [tax-exempt status]; and if so … received the described exemption for political activity from the IRS.”

Levin’s list contained nine conservative groups, including Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform, and Americans for Prosperity. It also included two liberal groups and one centrist group.

The IRS officials were reportedly already aware that the agency had been targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny during the time Levin was corresponding with Shulman and Lerner.

Published May 15, 2013 / Washington Free Beacon

White House Doing Damage Control as Scandals Pile Up

May 14, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The White House was in damage control mode Tuesday morning as an escalating series of potential scandals raised questions about whether officials abused their authority — all while threatening to undermine President Obama’s second-term ambitions.

The latest controversy to hit the headlines was the allegation that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists. The AP went public with the charge Monday, and quickly earned sympathy from lawmakers on both sides who widely agreed that the record grab appeared to be unnecessarily intrusive.

House Speaker John Boehner’s office said “they better have a damned good explanation.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said he’s “very troubled” by the allegations.

Attorney General Eric Holder is sure to come under heavy questioning on the matter when he appears on Capitol Hill for a hearing Wednesday, and could face questions during an unrelated press conference Tuesday afternoon.

The AP allegations amounted to the second controversy that raised concerns from members of both parties and could not be easily dismissed by the administration as a partisan attack. The other was the acknowledgement Friday by the IRS that it inappropriately singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for scrutiny.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a Tea Party-aligned lawmaker, said those responsible should be fired.

“Anybody who was aware of, and approved of targeting people for their political beliefs and speech, needs to be fired, never in this position again, and made an example of,” he told Fox News on Tuesday.

Those two controversies came on top of a revived clamor in Washington over the Benghazi terror attack. Three whistle-blowers brought the issue back to the fore with their dramatic testimony last week. Further, newly published email excerpts show that a top State Department official pressed the intelligence community to water down its initial story line on the attack in the days before a top diplomat went on television to explain the attack to the public.

And amid that controversy, FoxNews.com and other news organizations reported that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been reaching out to private-sector executives seeking donations for nonprofit organizations that help enroll people in ObamaCare.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has already launched a probe into the solicitations. Republicans on the committee voiced concern that the department could be soliciting donations from firms that are also doing business with HHS.

Together, the scandals threaten to distract from Obama’s second-term agenda. He recently suffered a defeat on gun control, but was hoping to align with influential Capitol Hill Republicans to push for an immigration overhaul in the coming weeks.

Obama, in a press conference on Monday, downplayed the scandals. He called Benghazi a political “sideshow” driven by partisan motives. As for the IRS, he made clear that he found the alleged conduct to be unacceptable and would not tolerate it.

But the administration has distanced itself from that controversy, attributing it to the actions of low-level staffers. The White House also distanced itself from the AP phone record grab, referring questions to the Justice Department.

Published May 14, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Twin Scandals Sap Obama Credibility

May 13, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

“…statements in the [group’s] case file criticize how the country is being run.”

— One of the criteria used by IRS investigators to target small-government groups for special scrutiny, according to an agency audit provided to congressional investigators.

Team Obama has always known how to make the most of critics in order to make the least of criticism.

The best recipes for Lame Duck Soup call for a healthy scoop of scandal. Obama just got himself a double helping.

During the 2008 campaign, it was “Stop the Smears,” an Obama effort to single out those who made claims about the candidate’s nativity, faith or personal conduct, rounding up the most slanderous and paranoiac claims, publicizing and then refuting them.

Then when more credible individuals would get near the subject, the campaign could strike back. Recall Hillary Clinton back in March 2008 on CBS strenuously defending then-Sen. Barack Obama against claims that he was a Muslim but then leaving the door open just a bit by saying, “As far as I know.”

Obamaland went on the attack over those five words, and Clinton paid dearly.

And so it went in office. The best example was how much attention was paid to the small number of people focused on the idea that President Obama was born someplace other than Hawaii. They even had coffee mugs made with the president’s birth certificate.

For weeks, as John Boehner or Mitch McConnell went out to talk about tax policy or spending, they would have to face questions about the president’s birth certificate. Before the GOPers could talk about their problems with Keynesian economics, righteous reporters would make Republicans first discuss Kenya.

There was also the effort to elevate Rush Limbaugh as the de facto spokesman for the Republican Party, with the White House press secretary demanding that reporters inquire of Republican office holders whether they agreed with the conservative radio host who had said he hoped Obama would fail because the new president’s agenda was so destructive. The reporters did just that and much squirming was the result.

Or how about the White House encouraging supporters to collect claims made online about what would become Obama’s 2010 health law? As the implementation of the law has shown, there was much reasonable cause for concern with the legislation. But that’s not what the White House was hunting for. Team Obama wanted the grainiest sediment from the bottom of the can of mixed nuts.

Obama favors a similar technique in policy speeches, having built enough straw men over the years for every pumpkin patch in history.

This approach has helped the president keep his personal approval ratings above those of his individual policies and allowed he and his political team to depict critics, even legitimate ones, as racist, xenophobic, kooky and stupid. The president’s credibility and reasonableness have been enhanced and his detractors have been delegitimized – enough so that Obama won what once looked like an improbable second term.

So what happens when that stops working? We’re about to find out.

Obama used the same playbook when defending himself against claims of ineptitude and cover-up concerning a September raid by Islamist militants on a U.S. diplomatic outpost. What might have been a disaster for the president was turned around in a neat bit of political jujitsu with the help of Candy Crowley and a tentative challenger.

The line held for a long time, with the administration able to dismiss critics on the subject as obsessed conspiracy theorists or politically motivated phonies. But the evidence of hiding the facts from the public eventually became so great that Team Obama has had to begin a long, painful backward march.

When an official is found to have scrubbed talking points about the attack expressly to deny Republicans the opportunity to criticize the administration, it becomes clear that Obama was wrong when he said his administration was being forthcoming. It also opens the door to the next round of questioning about whether Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were willfully misinformed or willfully spreading misinformation. Neither is good.

With reporters plenty embarrassed by having been badly burned by Team Obama on the Benghazi attacks, a new scandal comes into view: the deliberate targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.

The agency tried to get out ahead of the scandal by going public just before congressional investigators released their findings. The timing, though, is even worse for the White House.

A government agency going after groups that oppose the president’s agenda and, most disconcertingly, support constitutional principles, would never be a good thing for an administration. But having the admission come at the exact moment the administration’s credibility is badly damaged for misleading the public on another subject is dire.

Just a few months ago, claims of a Benghazi cover up and the government hassling and intimidating the president’s critics were dismissed as kooky. Now both have been revealed to be true, leaving the president’s team unable to use the old jujitsu and retreat to the old-school techniques of compartmentalization (“isolated incident in a single agency”) and insulation (“the president did not order…”).

The best recipes for Lame Duck Soup call for a healthy scoop of scandal. Obama just got himself a double helping.

By Chris Stirewalt / Power Play / Published May 13, 2013 / FoxNews.com

IRS Targeting Went Beyond Tea Party

May 13, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

An IRS campaign to apply additional scrutiny to conservative groups went beyond targeting “Tea Party” and “patriot” groups to include those focused on government spending, the Constitution and several other broad areas.

The additional guidelines created by the agency were part of a timeline, obtained by Fox News, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which is looking into the controversial IRS practice. IRS officials apologized Friday for the scrutiny, but new information suggests senior leaders were apprised of the effort as early as 2011 despite public denials from the top.

Republican lawmakers have vowed to investigate and hold hearings, calling the revelations deeply troubling.

“The conclusion that the IRS came to is that they did have agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups,” Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers told “Fox News Sunday.” “I don’t care if you’re a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine. It needs to have a full investigation.”

The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.”

By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform.

Taken together, the findings of the IG and the initial admissions by the IRS Friday are fueling complaints from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Evidence that the IRS was flagging such groups in 2011 was included in a draft inspector general’s report obtained Saturday by Fox News and other news organizations and expected to be released in full later this week.

That information seemingly contradicts public statements by IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who told congressional investigators in March 2011 that specific groups were not being targeted.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins on Sunday also called the IRS activities chilling and said she was disappointed that President Obama had not condemned the actions.

“This is truly outrageous and it contributes to the profound distrust that the American people have in government,” Collins told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It is absolutely chilling that the IRS was singling out conservative groups for extra review. And I think that it’s very disappointing that the president hasn’t personally condemned this.”

At about the same time, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney released a statement saying: “If the inspector general finds that there were any rules broken or that conduct of government officials did not meet the standards required of them, the president expects that swift and appropriate steps will be taken to address any misconduct.”

Michigan Republican Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Friday his committee will hold a hearing on the issue.

The IRS said Friday that it was sorry for what it called the “inappropriate” targeting of the conservative groups during the 2012 elections.

Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias.

But on June 29, 2011, Lerner found out that such groups were being targeted, according to the inspector general’s report.

She was told at a meeting that groups with “Tea Party,” “Patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report states.

The 9/12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck.

Collins also said she does not believe the activity was limited to “a couple of rogue IRS employees.”

“After all,” she added, “groups with `progressive’ in their names were not targeted similarly.”

Published May 13, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Carney Overwhlemed with 46 Questions on Benghazi, IRS Scandals

May 12, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Most people are happy to declare “Thank God it’s Friday.” On Friday May 10, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was not one of them. Carney got a “case of the Mondays” a few days early as the Obama administration’s lies about Benghazi and potentially criminal acts at the IRS all caught up with them at once.

ABC Senior White House correspondent Jonathan Karl started the day off revealing that the famous Benghazi talking points were “dramatically edited by the administration” a total of 12 different times. Those changes included the removal of all references to Al Qaeda initially approved by the CIA.

That public relations disaster was followed by another later in the day. The IRS admitted that conservatives had been right all along and that right-wing groups had indeed been targeted by the IRS. In true Nixonian language, the IRS admitted “mistakes were made,” but denied they were political, convincing absolutely no one.

Fridays, famously called “take out the trash day” in the lefty TV show “West Wing,” are supposed to be days when the administration hides news. On May 10, the trash bin was overflowing and even the press noticed. Carney couldn’t dump garbage fast enough. He fielded at least 38 questions on Benghazi and another eight on the possible crimes at the IRS.

Throughout, he dodged, weaved and blamed – especially blamed. He blamed former President George W. Bush, the CIA, the IRS, Congress, Mitt Romney and, of course, Republicans. “Congress” got blamed 28 times and Republicans got mentioned 20 times by Carney as he tried to spin his way out of trouble.

He began by reminding the press that the White House did “have a background briefing” earlier for 14 news organizations. That meeting, held following these types of PR disasters, had to be spinning like a carnival ride. And the spinning had just gotten started.

The IRS questions were easier since even Carney admitted he wasn’t in the know. He stressed “two things” to pass the buck – that the IRS was an “independent enforcement agency” and “the individual who was running the IRS at the time was actually an appointee from the previous administration.” In other words, blame Bush. I think he learned that one from his boss.

When it came to Benghazi, Carney claimed the White House made a “non-substantive factual correction” to the talking points. He continued: “I must say that all of this information was provided months ago to members of Congress,” adding sarcastically, “which they have leaked now to reporters.” This, after the White House just had a background meeting with 14 different news organizations so they could leak, er, give background information

At several points, Carney embraced his inner Candy Crowley and claimed, inaccurately, that Obama had called the attack “an act of terror” during his Rose Garden speech. (Kudos to Tim Carney for that catch.) However, that’s completely untrue. Even CBS News admitted in 2012 that the transcript “shows that the president did refer to ‘acts of terror’ – but not specifically in reference to the Libya attack. Instead, he made a broader statement about American defiance.” The Team Obama shorthand has created a fictional narrative that is largely accepted by the media.

During the briefing, question after question pounded Carney on his previous comments that only “stylistic” changes had been made to the Benghazi talking points, when that obviously was not true.

The questioning grew heated and it appeared to show on Carney, as first his ears and then his face reddened to the point where people on Twitter were mocking it. Twitchy captured some of the more fun comments including one saying he was trying to “defend the indefensible.” That was an understatement.

Hilariously, Carney made multiple positive references to the famous interview of UN Ambassador Susan Rice where she made the bogus comments about the “heinous and offensive” video about Islam.

It took 37 minutes into the press conference for one of the reporters to ask a question that didn’t involve one of the day’s two big scandals. Carney seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when it happened.

But it wasn’t over. One of the later questions was telling. “Don’t this series of e-mails now I suggest that your discussion of the video was speculative. You were cherry picking,” asked one reporter. Others pointed out a key flaw in Carney’s defense, calling him out for saying the talking points were what we were sure we knew, but reminding him that the initial talking points said the CIA wrote “we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.” Carney’s response was to direct that inquiry to the “intelligence community.”

If the questioning was a true sign of media interest, Carney can look for many more red-faced press briefings. Perhaps he needs more make-up next time. He should try cover-up. It’s perfect.

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

By Dan Gainor / Published May 11, 2013 / Associated Press

BOMBSHELL: Mayor Sarah Palin Denied Police Protection To Family, Resulting In Their Murder

May 10, 2013 By Editor 2 Comments

If Sarah Palin had any 2016 presidential aspirations, this story might deal a significant deathblow to them.

It begins in Wasilla, Alaska, in late 1998, when a family of four–a single mother and her three daughters–began, according to police reports, receiving untraceable, sexually perverse telephone calls from an unknown man.

Over a period of six weeks, the calls became more frequent, and so the mother requested and received from the telephone company a change of number. The calls stopped for a while, and the family was now able to live in peace.

Until two months later.

That’s when the same man, having finally, somehow, discovered the new phone number, began his phone calls again. But now he dropped from his calls the sexuality and replaced it with threats of violence against the woman and her three children.

This is when Sarah Palin entered the picture.

The mother allegedly (there is no proof) went to Palin’s office to put in a formal request for 24-hour police monitoring of her house.

The request was allegedly denied for some yet unknown reason.

The next month, the family’s home was broken into and all four of them were murdered.

Naturally, this caused heavy unease in Wasilla, and the citizens wanted to hear from Mayor Palin on the matter.

Palin, busy with her re-election campaign, directed all questions to her spokesman, who continually told local reporters that the murder had nothing to do with the harassing phone calls of previous months. “It was just a spontaneous burglary,” said the spokesman, “that culminated, unfortunately, with a murder.”

Murder is a federal issue, of course, so, several months later, Sarah Palin herself was questioned before Congress on what exactly transpired with regard to the stalker, the family of four, and their murder. (If you were up until this point unaware of these congressional hearings, that can be attributed to Palin’s not being a major figure in politics at that time.)

Under oath, Palin claimed that no security of any kind was ever requested. At one point, the strain of being questioned having evidently taken its toll on her, she attempted to deflect the questioning and suggested it doesn’t matter who is to blame. “What difference, at this point, does it make?” she erupted indignantly.

The questions ultimately ceased, both by Congress and by the news media, who were content with not knowing the answers.

But now a white paper of the mother’s formal request of that 24-hour police monitoring has been released, along with the formal denial of that request. The damning revelation: Sarah Palin’s signature is on that denial.

This is proof–not evidence, but proof–that Sarah Palin, Mayor of Wasilla, was requested security; that Sarah Palin, Mayor of Wasilla, did deny that security, which resulted in the deaths of four women and children; that Sarah Palin, Mayor of Wasilla, committed the crime of perjury before Congress; and that Sarah Palin, private citizen and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, can kiss any political future goodbye and start preparing to live the rest of her days in an 8-by-10 prison cell.

That is, if the media cares enough to report on this atrocity.

I assume you have now figured out what this post is really about. For the record, all the claims made about Sarah Palin in this post are fictional and written for satirical purposes. The post is really about Hillary Clinton and the Benghazi scandal. If Sarah Palin or any Conservative had done anything remotely similar to this they would have been crucified by the media.

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