Ethics | Federalist Press | Defending Liberty

Top IRS Official Caught Spinning On Tea Party Targets

May 20, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Lawmakers Trying To Avert Fiscal Cliff To Prevent Short-Term Shock To The Economy

A detailed fact-check published Monday tore into an IRS official’s claim that the agency’s scrutiny of conservative groups started in response to an influx of nonprofit applications, showing the practice started well before the forms started flooding in.

The piece in The Washington Post disputed a central claim that Lois Lerner, head of the exempt organizations division, and other IRS officials made as they admitted to targeting conservative groups for additional scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status.

Lerner claimed they did so in response to a “very big uptick” between 2010 and 2012 in the number of applications for a status known as 501(c)(4).

Indeed, there was an uptick recorded in that time period. But, as the Post wrote, “it was relatively small.”

“The real jump did not come until 2011, long after the targeting of conservative groups had been implemented,” the Post wrote.

The inspector general report released last week said a Cincinnati office began drafting the new criteria as early as May 2010. But statistics included in the report show the number of applications in that group actually declined between 2009 and 2010 — from 1,751 to 1,735.

The Post fact-check column adjusted the numbers to reflect the rise from one calendar year to the next, as opposed to fiscal year. Even then, the increase was from 1,745 to 1,865.

Applications did not begin to rise significantly until 2011 and 2012.

The Post column gave this and several other Lerner claims a rating of “four Pinocchios,” which is the worst score given by the newspaper’s fact-check column.

“In some ways, this is just scratching the surface of Lerner’s misstatements and weasely wording when the revelations about the IRS’s activities first came to light on May 10,” the Post wrote.

The column also questioned her claim that they looked at the issue after seeing “information in the press.” However, as the Post points out, the IG report said Lerner was briefed on the program in June 2011. Press reports didn’t appear until early 2012.

Further, Lerner claimed, as she publicly acknowledged the program, that nobody had asked her about it before. But she was asked about the probe during congressional testimony two days earlier. It has since emerged that Lerner contacted a friend to pose the question about the IRS program to her at a May 10 conference.

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

AP Chief Says Phone Taps “Unconstitutional”

May 19, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Associated Press President Gary Pruitt said Sunday the Justice Department sent a strong – and negative — message to future sources that the government would go after them if they spoke to the press. It’s a move Pruitt called not only unconstitutional, but damaging to the ideal of a free press in the country.“It will hurt,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We’re already seeing some impact. Officials are saying they’re reluctant to talk.”

The Justice Department sought phone records for a two-month period from more than 20 phone lines in four bureaus,including Washington and New York.

“Their rules require them to come to us first,” Pruitt said.

But the Justice Department maintains that telling the AP would have posed a threat to their investigation.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder faced aggressive questioning at a hearing by the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee amid the outcry over the gathering of phone records.

Holder said he had recused himself from the AP investigation and that it was Deputy Attorney General James Cole’s decision to authorize the subpoena. Holder had said he supported the decision and said that the department had seized the phone records in an effort to find out who leaked confidential information about a foiled terror attack in Yemen.

The DOJ went a step further and said the AP’s actions put Americans at risk, something the news organization strongly refuted.

“Rather than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying that notifying us would compromise their investigation,” Pruitt said in a statement on the AP’s website.

Sen. John Cornyn, who was also on “Face The Nation,” called for Holder’s resignation. “I think it’s time for him to go,” he said.

Published May 19, 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.

Lawyer Confirms She Asked Planted Question That Broke IRS Scandal

May 18, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The first revelation that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups came in a planted question during a lawyers’ conference earlier this month, the attorney who asked the question confirmed Saturday with Fox News.

The inspector general report on the IRS targeting Tea Party groups and other conservative-leaning political organizations applying for tax-exempt status was complete, so the agency had the question added to the conference’s Q&A session as part of prepared strategy to start getting out the bad news, outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said Friday before the House Ways and Means Committee.

On Saturday, Celia Roady — the lawyer who asked the question of IRS official Lois Lerner at the May 10 American Bar Association conference — issues the following statement to Fox:

“On May 9, I received a call from Lois Lerner, who told me that she wanted to address an issue after her prepared remarks … and asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks. I agreed to do so.…We had no discussion thereafter on the topic of the question, nor had we spoken about any of this before I received her call. She did not tell me, and I did not know, how she would answer the question.”

News reports about the inspector general’s report released this week came out May 11.

Roady is a partner at the international, Philadelphia-based Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP.

The news of the planted question was reported first by U.S. News and World Report.

In June 2010, Lerner, in charge of overseeing tax-exempt organizations, learned of the flagging and ordered the criteria to be changed right away, the inspector general said. The new guidance was more generic and stripped of any explicit partisan freight. But it did not last.

In January 2012, the screening was modified again, this time to watch for references to the Constitution or Bill of Rights, and for “political action type organizations involved in limiting-expanding government.”

Such flagging ended in May of last year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tea Party Groups Prepare to Sue IRS

May 18, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON – Jay Devereaux hadn’t paid much attention to the daily drumbeat of partisan politics in D.C. He wasn’t a Washington nerd, and didn’t know who said what during congressional hearings — nor did he care.

But when news broke that the government was using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street banks, he started paying attention and didn’t like what he was hearing.

So the Florida father and information technology specialist decided to form a group, Unite in Action, to educate people in his area about the issues, he said. It was originally formed as a corporation before Devereaux decided to apply for tax-exempt status from the IRS.

That was two years ago. It was never approved.

“It’s all but killed us,” Devereaux told FoxNews.com. “We could lose everything. Today, it’s me and my organization, but tomorrow it could be you.”

Devereaux is among a group of activists, being represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, who are preparing to sue the federal government for the practice of targeting Tea Party groups. ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow told FoxNews.com he’ll likely file the civil suits next Wednesday or Thursday on behalf of more than a dozen Tea Party groups who say they were singled out by the IRS and had their tax-exempt status severely delayed or denied altogether.

The suits, combined with congressional inquiries and an FBI probe, signal that the heated hearing on Capitol Hill Friday – with the outgoing IRS chief – was just the start of a protracted legal and political battle over the scandal.

Sekulow said the number of plaintiffs in the civil suit are growing as is the list of who his organization wants held accountable. It’s still unclear whether the organization will file as a class-action or individually in the 17 different states where the complaints originate.

Litigation could take months or years and for some like Devereaux, time isn’t on their side.

While initially waiting for IRS approval, Devereaux dipped into his own bank account, maxed out credit cards and even borrowed money from friends so his group could put on a civic-engagement training session at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington. His goal was to eventually set up a steady stream of revenue for a tax-exempt nonprofit.

The next time Devereaux heard from the IRS, they had requested details and credentials on every single speaker and all the educational materials provided in the 78 classes held at the hotel. The IRS also wanted information on all 45 vendors, their credentials and a donor list.

Devereaux refused.

Five rounds of IRS letters later, and United in Action’s tax-exempt status is still in limbo.

If they are denied, Devereaux’s group would owe the federal government “somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000 in back taxes,” he said, referring to money he would owe the government on donations.

“It’s more than we have in our bank account,” he said.

He’s not alone.

Waco Tea Party President Toby Walker said her group applied for a 501(c)(4) status in July 2010. She’d call the IRS from time to time to check on the progress but was basically told, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you,’ she said.

Then in February 2012, the IRS finally made contact.

Walker said she was asked questions that went well beyond the purview of the agency’s authority. They wanted to know everything about the Waco Tea Party group, their relationships with public officials, lists of volunteers and every single news story the group had ever been mentioned in.

Walker said the request was so lengthy and intrusive that had she complied with the demands, she “would have needed a U-haul truck of about 20 feet.”

While Walker’s group was finally granted tax-exempt status in March 2013, she said a lot of damage has already been done. She said people were afraid to support her group financially because they had not received the IRS-stamped status.

Others were afraid that they might be targeted by the IRS if they supported Walker’s group publicly. Having one of the most powerful government agencies angry at them wasn’t a risk many people were willing to take. And so the group suffered, she said.

“We spent thousands of our own dollars fighting this,” she said. “If this happens to one organization in America, we should all be outraged.”

Allegations that the IRS had been targeting conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status date back years but a government report released Wednesday backed up the claims. The White House has spent most of the week trying to contain the fallout from the scandal. “Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it,” President Obama said earlier this week.

By Friday, two of the agency’s top tax officials had been removed from their posts. One, outgoing acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller, was grilled Friday morning in the House Ways and Means Committee by Republican and Democratic lawmakers who demanded answers on why the unfair practice of targeting conservative groups was allowed to continue on his watch.

By Barnini Chakraborty / Published May 18, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Issa subpoenas Benghazi Probe Co-Leader

May 17, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

A top House Republican has subpoenaed the co-chairman of the Obama administration’s internal review board for the Benghazi attack — escalating his own inquiry amid a report that showed administration officials expressing regret about their response the night of Sept. 11.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., announced Friday that he issued the subpoena to retired veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering to force him to appear at a deposition next week. Pickering, who co-chaired the Benghazi Accountability Review Board with a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chief Mike Mullen, has offered to testify before Issa’s committee in public. But Issa said a closed-door meeting is needed first in order for the committee to fully understand how the review board conducted its investigation.

“The ARB worked behind closed doors,” Issa wrote. “It did not record its interviews. No transcripts of ARB interviews exist. Even now, months after the ARB report was released, the ARB’s investigative process has remained opaque.”

The action made clear that Republicans who have been hounding the administration for information on the attack would not let up, despite the release of 100 pages of internal administration deliberations from the days immediately following the attack.

Separately, CBS News published a report in which unnamed officials expressed regret about a decision on Sept. 11 not to send a counterterror unit known as the Foreign Emergency Support Team.

Fox News has previously reported that the administration decided not to send the unit to Benghazi. It would not have been deployed to repel the fighting, but could have been used to secure the scene in the aftermath. Ultimately, they were not sent, the scene was compromised and it took the FBI weeks to get there.

“We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots,” one Obama administration official told CBS News. “It’s actually closer to us being idiots.”

Another said “I wish we’d sent” the FEST.

Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in his letter Friday that he found it “necessary” to issue the subpoena as he seeks more information. He said he would consider lifting the subpoena for next Thursday’s deposition if Pickering agreed to show up on his own.

Issa complained that prior to a public hearing about Benghazi that he chaired last week, Pickering had refused to speak with him and other members of the committee.

Issa’s Democratic counterpart, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., called the subpoena a “stark example of extreme Republican overreach and the shameful politicization of this tragedy.”

Issa is one of several GOP lawmakers who have suggested the Obama administration is trying to cover up the circumstances and aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the Benghazi outpost that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

The review board convened by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was critical of the State Department, blaming systematic leadership and management failures at senior levels for inadequate security in Benghazi. It made 29 recommendations to improve matters, and the State Department has vowed to implement all of them.

Issa said numerous questions about the review board’s report remain unanswered, including its methodology. He noted that the ARB conducted its work in secret and appears not to have recorded or transcribed its interviews with witnesses.

Published May 17, 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

‘CULTURE OF COVER-UPS’: Outgoing IRS Boss

May 17, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The outgoing commissioner of the IRS apologized Friday for his agency’s practice of targeting conservative groups, calling the actions “foolish” while claiming it was not motivated by partisanship.

“As acting commissioner, I want to apologize on the behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes that we made and the poor service provided,” Steven Miller, the outgoing commissioner, said at the first congressional hearing on the scandal. “The affected organizations and the American public deserve better.”

He said he doesn’t think the agents responsible were motivated by partisanship, but said “foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient.”

A top Republican also claimed at the start of the hearing that the details that have emerged about the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups are “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, ripped the tax-collecting agency over the practice at the start of the hearing. “Now we know the truth — or at least some of it,” he said. “We also know that these revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. It would be a mistake to treat this as just one scandal.”

He questioned how high the scandal went, and also suggested there was other targeting of conservatives that has not yet been acknowledged by the agency. He called it part of a “culture of cover-ups.”

“This systemic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation, or two,” he said. He said the problem is not just personnel, but the size and scope of the IRS.

The inspector general who released a scathing report on the agency also testified Friday. J. Russell George — the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — said his findings raised “troubling questions” about the agency, while claiming some of the wrongdoing was apparently done with no-to-little supervision.

But he said all three allegations against the agency turned out to be true — that it was using “inappropriate criteria” to screen conservative groups, it was delaying applications and it was asking unnecessary questions.

Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the committee, said the agency’s management “completely failed the American people.” At the same time, he urged Republicans not to use the hearing to “score political points.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are sure to have plenty of questions for Miller, as they search for who was responsible for the program. Outrage mounted after lawmakers learned that the IRS official who led the tax-exempt organizations unit when the targeting took place — Sarah Hall Ingram — has since moved over to the IRS office responsible for ObamaCare.

“Stunning. Just stunning,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said after learning of the move.

The acknowledgement comes after the administration announced that Ingram’s successor Joseph Grant — who had only been on the job a few days — would be retiring.

The agency released a memo Thursday night written by Grant. In the memo, Grant acknowledged “errors” but said the program was started to deal with an influx of applications, as well as allegations that some of the groups were engaged in political activity that would be “impermissible” under the tax-exempt status they were seeking.

President Obama, meanwhile, maintained Thursday that he didn’t know about the investigation into the IRS program until it was made public.

The ObamaCare official now drawing scrutiny had been serving as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations from 2009 to 2012 — the division included the group that targeted Tea Partiers — and has since left to serve as director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act division. That unit is responsible for enforcing parts of the health care law, including the fines associated with the so-called individual mandate — the requirement to buy health insurance.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, citing her current position and history with the scandal-marred unit, reinforced his call Thursday for the IRS to be blocked from implementing the health care law. “Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care,” he said.

Obama also appointed a new acting commissioner — White House budget officer Daniel Werfel — after the prior IRS chief announced his resignation.

The revelations at the Friday hearing could add more headaches for the Obama administration, as it tries to juggle its response to several scandals at once.

It’s unclear whether more officials will resign at the IRS in the days to come. This week’s clean-up at the agency is part of the Obama administration’s mad dash to save face and regain footing after being hammered by a series of scandals this week, including new questions over the Benghazi terror attack and the Justice Department’s seizing of journalists’ phone records.

Published May 17, 2013 / FoxNews.com

IRS Official Who Oversaw Unit Targeting Tea Party Now Heads ObamaCare Office

May 16, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

A woman walks out of the Internal Revenue Service building in New York

WASHINGTON – The IRS official who led the tax-exempt organizations unit when Tea Party groups were targeted is now in charge of the IRS office responsible for ObamaCare, two Capitol Hill sources told Fox News.

The acknowledgement comes after the administration announced that the official’s successor — who had only been on the job a few days — would be retiring. And it fueled criticism of the agency, as the outgoing IRS commissioner prepared to face lawmakers’ questions at a hearing Friday morning.

“Stunning. Just stunning,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in reaction to the latest development.

President Obama, meanwhile, maintained Thursday that he didn’t know about the investigation into the IRS program until it was made public.

The ObamaCare official in question, Sarah Hall Ingram, had been serving as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations from 2009 to 2012 — the division included the group that targeted Tea Partiers — and has since left to serve as director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act division. That unit is responsible for enforcing parts of the health care law, including the fines associated with the so-called individual mandate — the requirement to buy health insurance.

While still the commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division, Ingram was assigned to head the implementation of ObamaCare at the IRS in 2010 after the law was enacted. It is not clear when she stopped being the head of the tax-exempt office or how active her role was there while she was implementing ObamaCare.

But the official who succeeded her, Joseph Grant, is now leaving the agency in the wake of the scandal. His retirement was announced Thursday, even though he only took the job May 8.

Meanwhile, President Obama appointed a new acting commissioner after the prior IRS chief announced his resignation.

That official, Steven Miller, will be in the hot seat Friday when he is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee in the first congressional hearing on the IRS scandal.

Also scheduled to testify is J. Russell George — the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — and the man whose report released this week exposed the IRS practice that led to Miller’s ouster (though Miller was apparently planning to leave the agency anyway).

The revelations at the Friday hearing could add more headaches for the Obama administration, as it tries to juggle its response to several scandals at once.

It’s unclear whether more officials will resign at the IRS in the days to come.

An internal memo Thursday stated that Grant — at the tax-exempt unit — will retire on June 3. Grant oversaw the IRS division being called out for holding up applications from Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status. He was appointed to his position on May 8 by Miller.

The Senate side holds its first IRS-related hearing on May 21.

This week’s clean-up at the agency is part of the Obama administration’s mad dash to save face and regain footing after being hammered by a series of scandals this week, including new questions over the Benghazi terror attack and the Justice Department’s seizing of journalists’ phone records.

On Thursday, Obama appointed senior White House budget officer Daniel Werfel as acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

“Throughout his career working in both Democratic and Republican administrations, Danny has proven an effective leader who serves with professionalism, integrity and skill,” Obama said in a statement. “The American people deserve to have the utmost confidence and trust in their government, and as we work to get to the bottom of what happened and restore confidence in the IRS, Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time.”

Allegations that the IRS had been targeting conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status date back years but a government report released this week backed up the claims.

“Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it,” Obama said.

Republican leaders were quick to call out Obama for being too passive with the situation and demanded more be done.

“This is runaway government at its worst,” McConnell said Thursday. “Who knows who they will target next? The truth will come out. It always does.”

However, the president knocked down the prospect of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS, saying the congressional investigations and a separate Justice Department probe should be enough to nail down who was responsible for improperly targeting Tea Party groups when they applied for tax-exempt status.

Asked whether he previously knew about the IRS practice, Obama said Thursday: “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the (inspector general) report” beforehand.

The president, though, did not say whether he was previously aware of the IRS’ actions, which allegedly started as early as 2010, well before the inspector general’s office began to investigate. Republican lawmakers were inquiring about the alleged targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS more than a year ago.

But White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has said no one in the White House knew about the practice.

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.

“Gross Mismanagement”: Report Says DOJ Lost Track of Possible Terrorists

May 16, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The Justice Department temporarily lost track of two known or suspected terrorists who were in the witness protection program — and allowed others on the no-fly list to board commercial flights — according to a watchdog report which fueled criticism of the administration.

“This is gross mismanagement — pure and simple,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

The allegations were made in an inspector general report released Thursday. The report found agencies in the department did not properly share the new identities of some in witness protection — the lapse meant those new names were not updated in the no-fly list.

“Therefore, it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,” the report said.

The report said “some” in the program were able to do just that.

The inspector general’s office also said the U.S. Marshals Service, as of last July, was “unable to locate” two former participants who were known or suspected terrorists, and that they were thought to be outside the U.S. The report said the department “did not definitively know” how many known or suspected terrorists had been admitted into the program either.

Though the Justice Department says these problems have in large part been corrected, Republicans seized on the report as another example of administration mismanagement. The DOJ is already under fire for seizing journalist phone records, while the IRS faces criticism for a practice of singling out conservative groups.

Goodlatte said the latest report detailed behavior that jeopardized American lives.

“Today’s IG report shows that the Justice Department continues to repeat the same mistakes that were made prior to 9/11,” he said, adding that his committee would hold a hearing on the matter.

The Justice Department began making changes in response to the report last year. The department says it is now sharing information on the new identities of those in the program with other agencies.

The department also said in a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz that it has since “identified, located and minimized the threat of all former known or suspected terrorists” in the program.

That includes the two individuals the department temporarily lost track of. Justice Department officials said Thursday that those individuals left the program and the country years ago and had made no effort to return to the U.S. “They’re not fugitives,” one official said.

Officials said there is “no threat to public safety,” stressing that those in the program had been thoroughly vetted from the outset and that most were admitted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Both the department and IG stressed that the witness protection program has helped in major investigations including that into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The department said the number of known or suspected terrorists in the program amounts to a fraction of a percent.

But Republicans were not satisfied with the assurances.

“This is just another example of the Justice Department’s ineptness at the basic handling of an important program,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “These people may be in a witness protection program, but they were still known or suspected terrorists. It’s only logical that the federal government know where they are.”

Published May 16, 2013 / FoxNews.com

In Wake of Scandal, Obama Fires IRS Boss — Who Was Leaving Anyway

May 16, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

President Obama announced Wednesday that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would resign in the wake of the agency scandal in which conservative groups were targeted — though Miller was apparently set to step down anyway.

An official close to Miller told Fox News, shortly after Obama’s brief announcement, that the IRS chief was “set to resign the position of acting commission as of early June.” He was planning to leave the IRS entirely a “couple of months later, regardless of the current controversy,” the source said.

These details were not mentioned by the president as he announced Wednesday evening Miller was resigning. Obama spoke following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and other top department officials in which they reviewed a highly critical inspector general’s report on the practice. The report concluded poor management allowed agents to improperly target Tea Party and other groups for more than 18 months, starting in 2010.

Obama said Lew asked for the resignation and Miller agreed, after being on the job since November 2012.

“Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” Obama said from the White House.

Republicans, who along with Democrats have slammed the IRS for the practice, welcomed the resignation Wednesday but made clear they would continue to investigate and press for accountability.

Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said the resignation “is a necessary first step but more heads need to roll.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., reacting to the claim that Miller was leaving anyway, said it seemed like he was a “perfect scapegoat” for the administration.

Miller’s resignation was part of three-step plan Obama outlined to fix the problem.

The other steps are to put in place the safeguards recommended in the IG report and to work with Congress as it investigates.

“The good news is we can fix this,” Obama said.

Miller became acting commissioner after Commissioner Douglas Shulman completed his five-year term. Shulman had been appointed by President George W. Bush.

The president has proceeded cautiously since the IRS controversy was made public Friday. While he initially said the accusations were “outrageous,” he also said he wanted to wait until the report was released before addressing what should be done to hold accountable those responsible.

Obama said he would hold a press conference Thursday.

The report lays much of the blame on IRS supervisors in Washington who oversaw a group of specialists in Cincinnati who screened applications for tax-exempt status. It does not indicate that Washington initiated the targeting of conservative groups, but it does say a top supervisor in Washington did not adequately supervise agents in the field even after she learned the agents were acting improperly.

The Justice Department is also investigating the IRS targeting, as are three congressional committees.

Sources told Fox News that Miller will remain on the job “for a couple of weeks.”

The House Ways and Means Committee said after the announcement of Miller’s resignation that he still will attend a hearing Friday.

And the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs sent a letter Wednesday afternoon to the IRS requesting five employees named in the IG audit be made available for transcribed interviews by committee staff.

The Republican-led committee wants to start the interviews Monday.

The names and titles of the IRS employees requested are Holly Paz, a director; John Shafer, a manager; Gary Muthert, a screener; Liz Hofacre, a case coordinator; and Joseph Herr, a manager.

“The resignation of Steven Miller is a positive and important step as this agency struggles to try to regain the public’s trust,” said Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. “A clean slate at the IRS with new leadership is imperative to fix this egregious encroachment on the lives of honest, hard-working Americans whose only sin was that they want to express their beliefs.”

Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney sidestepped a question about whether Obama still had confidence in Miller, saying he wouldn’t discuss personnel matters. He said Obama has expressed his overall view that IRS personnel had acted inappropriately.

“He wants to see that the actions taken, as revealed by the Treasury report, that are inappropriate, are met with consequences,” Carney said. “He will make clear to Treasury Department leaders that he expects action.”

Carney said Obama wants the public to “understand and believe that the IRS applies our tax laws in a neutral and fair way to everyone.”

Published May 16, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press 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

Benghazi Review Board to Testify Before Congress

May 15, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON – The leaders of the panel that independently reviewed last year’s deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, said Tuesday they were prepared to testify publicly before Congress to counter what they consider unfounded criticism of their work.

In a letter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering said he and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen would answer any questions lawmakers have. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the panel, is pressing for the two men to agree to an interview with staff investigators prior to a public hearing.

The work of the Accountability Review Board is the latest focus of a broader Republican inquest into their claims that the Obama administration misled Congress and the American people after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The blistering report released in December by Pickering, Mullen and three other reviewers found that “systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels” of the State Department meant security was “inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”

Pickering, however, noted how recently “some have called into question the integrity of the board and its work.”

“We believe that such criticisms are unfounded and, if left unaddressed, undermine the essential work that the board has done,” he wrote. “It is therefore important that we be afforded the opportunity to appear at a public hearing before the committee and answer directly questions regarding the board’s procedures, findings and recommendations.”

Republicans believe the report was flawed, and they want to know why top officials like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton weren’t interviewed. The panel absolved Clinton of any wrongdoing, faulting lower level State Department officials. Four were given paid suspensions.

On Monday, Issa asked Pickering and Mullen to meet privately with committee staff investigators to answer questions about their review. Democrats countered that if lawmakers wanted to talk to them, Issa should hold a full open hearing.

Pickering said the board “conducted a thorough review and produced a report that included detailed findings and frank and often highly critical assessments.” It issued 29 recommendations for improving security at diplomatic facilities worldwide, and Pickering insisted that the board “fulfilled its role in identifying the lessons that must be learned and acted upon from Benghazi.”

“We stand behind the board’s report and look forward to discussing it in a public hearing,” he wrote.

Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the committee, said late Tuesday that the panel was following up with Pickering and the State Department to determine whether he would appear voluntarily for an interview with committee staff investigators. Hill noted that Issa and Pickering appeared on a Sunday talk show together two days ago, and said the former diplomat had told the committee chairman that he would voluntarily submit to an interview.

“The committee is giving him a full opportunity to voluntarily follow through on his commitment,” Hill said.

Issa, in his letter on Monday to Pickering and Mullen, had said that following the private interview, the committee would work with the report’s authors on a date for a public hearing.

Published May 14, 2013 / Associated Press

AG Holder Faces Tough House Questioning, After Defending AP Records Probe

May 15, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Attorney General Eric Holder will likely face aggressive questioning at a hearing by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee Wednesday amid the outcry over the Justice Department’s gathering of phone records at The Associated Press and other scandals within the Obama administration.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said committee members are planning on asking Holder “pointed” questions about the decision to obtain two months’ worth of telephone records of as many as 20 of the wire service’s reporters and editors.

“Congress and the American people expect answers and accountability,” Goodlatte said.

Holder’s prepared testimony, obtained by Fox News, does not address any of the recent controversies. It is focused on the department’s mission as well as the recent Boston terror attack.

Goodlatte, though, says the committee will also ask Holder about the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, which is now the focus of an investigation by the Justice Department.

As for the AP controversy, Holder said Tuesday that his deputy “ultimately authorized the subpoena” to secretly obtain the records, and that he had recused himself early on in the related investigation into leaks of sensitive information that “put the American people at risk.”

Word that Deputy Attorney General James Cole is directing the FBI probe came as the White House expressed confidence in Holder and the department following revelations that it had seized the phone records in an effort to find out who leaked confidential information to it. Republicans pointed to the incident in renewing calls for Holder’s resignation.

Holder said Tuesday that the leak in question, which the AP has suggested involved a foiled terror attack originating in Yemen, was “very, very serious,” but declined to elaborate. He said it was among the most serious he’d seen in his career and that it “required very aggressive action.”

“It put the American people at risk,” he told reporters during a press conference Tuesday.

AP President Gary Pruitt called out the Justice Department in a statement posted Tuesday night on the media organization’s website.

“Rather than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying that notifying us would compromise their investigation,” Pruitt said.

He added, “They say this secrecy is important for national security. It is always difficult to respond to that, particularly since they still haven’t told us specifically what they are investigating.”

During his press conference this morning, Holder said the investigation followed “all of the appropriate Department of Justice regulations.”

“As the Attorney General testified in June 2012, he was interviewed by the FBI in connection with the investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” a DOJ official told Fox News earlier.

“To avoid any potential appearance of a conflict of interest, the Attorney General recused himself from this matter,” said the official, who spoke on background. “Since that time, this investigation has been conducted by the FBI under the direction of the U.S. Attorney and the supervision of the Deputy Attorney General, who has served as the Acting Attorney General overseeing this investigation. The decision to seek media toll records in this investigation was made by the Deputy Attorney General consistent with Department regulations and policies.”

The year-long Justice Department probe included the seizure of two months’ worth of what the AP said included cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor; AP general office numbers in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn.; and the main number for AP reporters covering Congress.

Republicans, meanwhile, are calling on Holder to resign following news of the probe.
“Freedom of the press is an essential right in a free society,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.

“The First Amendment doesn’t request the federal government to respect it; it demands it,” Priebus said. “Attorney General Eric Holder, in permitting the Justice Department to issue secret subpoenas to spy on Associated Press reporters, has trampled on the First Amendment and failed in his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”

The Obama administration has been aggressive in going after leaks of classified information, prosecuting six officials – more than under all previous administrations combined.

In an initial letter to Holder, Pruitt, accused the Justice Department of seeking information beyond what could be justified.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” Pruitt wrote to Holder. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

The White House said Tuesday that it had no knowledge of the investigation and referred all inquiries to the Justice Department.

“The president is a strong defender of the First Amendment,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said during a press conference. “He also of course recognizes the need for the Justice Department to investigate alleged criminal activity without undue influence.”

“I cannot, and he [President Obama] cannot, comment specifically on an ongoing criminal investigation,” Carney said.

Fox News’ Mike Levine and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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

IRS DC Officials in Loop on Tea Party Targeting

May 14, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Newly obtained documents show the current IRS chief knew about the agency’s targeting of Tea Party groups as early as May 2012 and other officials in Washington were clued in more than a year before that, as the scandal continued to spread.

The additional details were provided in a timeline from the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, based on briefings by the inspector general’s office investigating the case. Together, they challenged the agency’s initial claims that the practice of flagging conservative groups for additional scrutiny was contained to low-level staffers at a Cincinnati office.

The timeline shows that Steven Miller, the acting IRS chief who at the time was a deputy commissioner, was briefed on the practice on May 3, 2012. Despite this briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress at least twice to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without disclosing that Tea Party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, but again did not mention the additional scrutiny — despite being asked about it.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., blasted Miller over the revelation.

“It is almost inconceivable to imagine that top officials at the IRS knew conservative groups were being targeted but chose to willfully mislead the Committee’s investigation into this practice,” he said in a statement.

Further, the timeline shows that managers, after compiling a list of Tea Party and other cases, decided to send their report “up the chain in Washington” in April 2010. The timeline says this report was shared with two executives in Washington, including Lois G. Lerner. Lerner heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations and is the official who first revealed the controversial practice on Friday.

The timeline suggests she knew about the practice even earlier than previously thought. Further, it suggests other Washington officials were aware early on. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that IRS officials at the D.C. headquarters were sending inquiries to conservative groups on their donors, and in at least one case an application came under review in Washington.

Miller’s actions are sure to come under increased scrutiny.

At the June hearing, Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, told Miller that some politically active tax-exempt groups in his district had complained about being harassed. Marchant did not explicitly ask if tea party groups were being targeted. But he did ask how applications were handled.

Miller responded, “We did group those organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. We continue to work those cases,” according to a transcript on the committee’s website.

Earlier, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., had raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed. Boustany specifically mentioned tea party groups in his inquiry.

But in a June 15, 2012, letter to Boustany, Miller said that when the IRS saw an increase in applications from groups that were involved in political activity, the agency “took steps to coordinate the handling of the case to ensure consistency.”

He added that agents worked with tax law experts “to develop approaches and materials that could be helpful to the agents working the cases.”

Miller did not mention that in 2011, those materials included a list of words to watch for, such as “tea party” and “patriot.” He also didn’t disclose that in January 2012, the criteria for additional screening was updated to include references to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Camp, is holding a hearing on the issue Friday and Miller is scheduled to testify.

The Senate Finance Committee announced Monday that it will join a growing list of congressional committees investigating the matter.

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status. In some cases, the IRS acknowledged, agents inappropriately asked for lists of donors.

The agency blamed low-level employees in a Cincinnati office, saying no high-level officials were aware.

When members of Congress repeatedly raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed last year, a deputy IRS commissioner took the lead in assuring lawmakers that the additional scrutiny was a legitimate part of the screening process.

That deputy commissioner was Miller, who is now the acting head of the agency.

Camp and other members of the Ways and Means Committee sent at least four inquiries to the IRS, starting in June 2011. Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent three inquiries. And Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House oversight committee, sent at least one.

“This was a targeting of the president’s political enemies, effectively, and lies about it during the election year so that it wasn’t discovered until afterwards,” Issa said Tuesday on “CBS This Morning.” The fact is this is the kind of investigation that has to be open and transparent to the American people.”

None of the responses they received from the IRS acknowledged that conservative groups had ever been targeted, including a response to Hatch dated Sept. 11, 2012 — four months after Miller had been briefed.

In several letters to members of Congress, Miller went into painstaking detail about how applications for tax-exempt status were screened. But he never mentioned that conservative groups were being targeted, even though people working under him knew as early as June 2011 that tea party groups were being targeted, according to an upcoming report by the agency’s inspector general.

The IRS issued a statement Monday saying that Miller had been briefed on May 3, 2012 “that some specific applications were improperly identified by name and sent to the (exempt organizations) centralized processing unit for further review.” That was the unit in Cincinnati that handled the tea party applications.

When Lerner responded to inquiries from the House oversight committee, she also didn’t mention the fact that tea party groups had ever been targeted. Her responses included 45-page letters in May 2012 to Issa and to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who chairs a subcommittee.

Published May 14, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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