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Judicial watch more effective at obtaining IRS emails than Congress

Judicial Watch today released a new batch of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents revealing that its handling of Tea Party applications was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC. The documents also show extensive pressure on the IRS by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations. The IRS’ emails by Lois Lerner detail her misleading explanations to investigators about the targeting of Tea Party organizations.

Probably because Judicial Watch went to court and Congress for the most part seems content to whine.

Democrat Senator Carl Levin was pressuring the IRS to shut down the groups working against his reelection campaign:

Further, documents show the IRS responded to "intense" requests from Democrat Senator Carl Levin to come down on conservative tax exempt groups in an effort to get rid of them, specifically the groups working against his reelection campaign.

Remember, the IRS rule is not "no politics". 49% politics is OK, and politics is a narrow definition that excludes issue education.. particularly in the legal environment established by Citizens United, which struck down campaign finance limitations on political activity by corporations. Going after the people trying to throw you out of office -- specifically targeting them using your influence as a public official -- is wrong.

And the IRS has known all along it was wrong. We can tell because they lied about what they were doing, blaming it on "rogue low-level employees" in Cincinatti when the targeting was being directed from Washington DC:

Grodnitzky worked in the IRS headquarters' Exempt Organizations Technical Unit. In his response to Paz, he said his colleagues were "working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in D.C. and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases."

If they thought what they were doing was OK, they wouldn't have tried to hide it.

This entry was published Fri May 23 17:42:56 CDT 2014 by TriggerFinger and last updated 2014-05-15 18:46:21.0. [Tweet]

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