IRS Scandal

Today in Washington, D.C. - May 14, 2013:
The Senate resumed consideration of S. 601, the Water Resources Development Act of 2013. At noon, they voted on cloture on S. 601 (i.e. whether to cut off debate and restrict amendments) and then recessed for policy lunches.

The House convened yesterday but took up no bills.  Today they conviened at noon but will not take up any bills until early this evening.  The House is  scheduled to conside two bills:  H.R. 180 — "To encourage, enhance, and integrate Blue Alert plans throughout the United States in order to disseminate information when a law enforcement officer is seriously injured or killed in the line of duty." H.R. 1580" To affirm the policy of the United States regarding Internet governance."

Revelations about the growing scandal at the IRS where it targeted conservative and Tea Party groups for extra intensive scrutiny over tax-exempt status are coming quickly following the first news on Friday stemming from a Treasury inspector general report.

Reuters reports, “Higher-level Internal Revenue Service officials took part in discussions as far back as August 2011 about targeting by lower-level tax agents of ‘Tea Party’ and other conservative groups, according to documents reviewed by Reuters on Monday. The documents show the offices of the IRS's chief counsel and deputy commissioner for services and enforcement communicated about the targeting with lower-level officials on August 4, 2011, and March 8, 2012, respectively. The two communications occurred weeks and months before Doug Shulman, then the commissioner of the IRS, told congressional panels in late March 2012 that no groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny by the tax agency.”

And The Washington Post adds, “ProPublica on Monday reported that the same IRS division that targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle provided the investigative-reporting organization with confidential applications for tax-exempt status. That revelation contradicts previous statements from the agency and may represent a violation of federal guidelines. Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS sector that reviews tax-exemption applications, told a congressional oversight committee in April 2012 that IRS code prohibited the agency from providing information about groups that had not yet been approved. . . . ProPublica reported that the Lerner’s division released ‘nine pending confidential applications of conservatives groups’ in response to a request from the investigative-reporting organization for the applications of 67 nonprofits in November 2012. . . . IRS officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating the groups, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to a report in Tuesday’s Washington Post. IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified on the targeting issue before a House Ways and Means subcommittee in March 2012, adamantly denying that the IRS singled out groups for special scrutiny. ‘There’s absolutely no targeting,’ he said.”

House Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise responded today to the IRS Scandal:
“This latest government scandal at the IRS is a fresh reminder of the political thuggery that has characterized the Obama Administration,” Scalise said. “The Internal Revenue Service’s decision to target organizations based on their beliefs and values represents a new low for the Obama Administration’s attack on conservative principles. All those responsible for this scandal, from the White House down, must held accountable for their shameful actions.

“The American people deserve to know what the White House knew about this scandal and when they knew it. The fact that the IRS targeted groups simply because they expressed interest in the tea party movement or ‘making America a better place’ is outrageous, and there is no place for such Anti-American attitudes.

“It is quite telling that President Obama has yet to call for anyone’s resignation as result of this scandal, and I urge him to take significant corrective measures against all of those involved.”
Outraged about this scandal, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor this morning: “Over the past few days we’ve heard many in the media talk about how this has been a ‘rough week’ for the Administration. It’s been a worse week for those who cherish the First Amendment. On Friday, we learned that, just as we'd been told by our constituents, the IRS deliberately targeted conservative groups across the country in the midst of a heated national election. Over the weekend, we learned that the extent of it was even broader than we originally thought. Then this morning, we all learned that the targeting wasn’t limited to an IRS office out in Cincinnati — as the Administration suggested last week — but that it reached all the way to IRS headquarters in Washington. What we don’t know at this point is whether it jumped the fence from the IRS to the White House. But we do know this: we can’t count on the administration to be forthcoming about the details of this scandal — because so far they’ve been anything but. So, this morning, I’m calling on the President to make available, completely and without restriction, everyone who can answer the questions we have as to what was going on at the IRS, who knew about it, and how high it went. No stonewalling, no more incomplete answers, no more misleading responses, no holding back witnesses, no matter how senior their current or former positions — we need full transparency and cooperation. The American people deserve answers.”

He noted, “Despite repeated assurances from the Obama Administration that it was not targeting its political enemies through the IRS during the last election cycle, we’ve now learned that the IRS was in fact singling out conservative groups – groups who dared to speak up and express their First Amendment rights. Clearly, we’ve only started to scratch the surface of this scandal. The American people are looking for answers, and I’m determined to help them get to the bottom of this.

“Last June, I gave a very public speech in which I called out the Obama Administration for serial abuses of government power in going after its political enemies in the middle of a heated national election. The Left scoffed at the suggestion. The Washington Post said my speech was full of ‘red herrings’. The New York Times called my argument ‘bogus’. Robert Reich called it ‘bonkers.’ Well, you know what we learned last week: these abuses were even more widespread than we knew.”

As he pointed out in an interview with Breitbart News, “The Obama effort to shut up opponents isn’t limited to the IRS. . . . It applies to the FCC [Federal Communications Commission], SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], FEC [Federal Elections Commission], HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] …. And you remember, the Obama campaign last year published a list of eight businessmen who it believed were enemies.”

Speaking to National Review Online, he explained, “I cannot resist the temptation to say, ‘I told you so.’ . . . I zeroed in on this last summer after reports of this intimidation surfaced in Kentucky and elsewhere. I’ve been warning about this for years. In fact, I launched a campaign on this issue last year, and the Washington Post dismissed it as a bunch of red herrings. Now we know it’s not a red herring, it’s the real deal. . . . The whole effort by the administration to silence their enemies is going on across the board — at the FEC, the FCC, the SEC, and the HHS.”

Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens sums it up well:
"The use of the nation's tax agency to target groups for audit and review on the basis of political leanings is an egregious abuse of power. This is beyond Nixonian in its flagrant disregard for the rule of law as it was intended to stifle dissent, and now there must be accountability. We know the Democrat-controlled Senate will not be bothered to inquire what happened, but the House of Representatives can and should use its power to subpoena witnesses to get to the bottom of this scandal. Our laws either apply equally to all citizens and citizen groups regardless of political leanings, or we have become nothing more than a banana republic."

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