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House Budget Punishes IRS with 15% Cut, Halts Obamacare Enforcement

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner The Internal Revenue Service is about to get slapped with a harsh payback for messing around with conservative groups, blowing wads of tax dollars on employee conferences and helping implement Obamacare.

The House Appropriations Committee is set to OK an IRS budget of $10.9 billion, $1.5 billion under President Obama’s request for fiscal year 2015, reducing the agency’s budget to 2008 levels.

The goal is to keep the tax agency focused on its “core duties,” and eliminate efforts to judge the political activities of tax-exempt groups and brake its implementation of Obamacare.

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Lawmakers: IRS Knew for Months of ‘Lost’ Lerner Emails, More Documents Missing

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Photo Credit: APRepublican lawmakers charged Tuesday that the IRS knew for months they had “lost” a massive trove of emails from embattled ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, but kept it “secret” until this past Friday.

The lawmakers noted that during this period, newly appointed Commissioner John Koskinen nevertheless assured Congress the agency would produce the documents, which are considered critical to their efforts to probe the targeting of Tea Party and other groups. Further, lawmakers said records from six other IRS workers appear to have gone missing as well.

“It looks like the American people were lied to and the IRS tried to cover-up the fact it conveniently lost key documents in this investigation,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., said in a statement.

Republicans on the committee said the agency knew as early as February that emails were missing.

Yet the IRS only revealed last Friday that it had lost an untold number of emails when Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Lerner used to head the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status.

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House GOP Investigators Argue IRS Targeting Influenced by Obama

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Photo Credit: APHouse Republicans seeking a direct link between President Obama and the IRS targeting of conservative groups — a connection Democrats say is essential for a legitimate White House scandal — have released a report detailing dozens of examples that they say prove the president and fellow Democrats pressured the agency to act.

The influence campaign unofficially started during Obama’s January 2010 State of the Union Address in which he “delivered a stunning rebuke” of the Supreme Court decision in favor of the group Citizens United, among the IRS’s first and biggest targets, according to the 77-page report released Monday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The decision in part allowed campaign donors to remain anonymous.

“The Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests,” Obama said in the address. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse by foreign entities. … And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”

The report attempts to show that Obama combined his master oratory skills with the “indisputably powerful” presidential bully pulpit to sound a clarion call that was heard by news outlets shaping the national agenda and that led IRS official Lois Learner to start targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

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Convenient: IRS Has ‘Lost’ Two Years of Lois Lerner’s Emails

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Photo Credit: TownHallBy Katie Pavlich.

According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS has “lost” two years of emails belonging to former head of tax exempt organizations Lois Lerner. The IRS doesn’t have a record of her emails to outside groups or government agencies from January 2009 through April 2011, conveniently encompassing some of the same time when tea party groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution. The IRS says the loss of emails is due to a “computer crash” and claims emails from or to Lerner from the White House, Democratic members of Congress, the Treasury Department, FEC and Department of Justice cannot be located. They do however have emails belonging to Lerner that she sent to other IRS employees.

“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries. There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp said in a statement. “Just a short time ago, Commissioner Koskinen promised to produce all Lerner documents. It appears now that was an empty promise. Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies…

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Photo Credit: Getty Images IRS claims it has LOST two years’ worth of emails from embattled former official Lois Lerner as tea party targeting scandal heats up again

The Internal Revenue Service has lost two years worth of emails to and from embattled former tax official Lois Lerner, the agency told congressional investigators on Friday.

The IRS promised on May 8 to turn over all her emails but now blames a computer crash for huge tranches of missing documents.

Lerner is under investigation for allegedly orchestrating a years-long program that targeted tea party groups and other conservative organizations for unusually intrusive scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status beginning in the year before the 2010 congressional midterm elections.

The House Ways and Means Committee, one of two bodies probing the case, said Friday that the IRS says that for the period of January 2009 through April 2011, the only Lerner emails it can find are those that were sent to or from other IRS employees.

Emails whose sender or recipient was outside the government, or inside other agencies, have mysteriously disappeared.

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Joe Miller Says Begich Should Release Correspondence with IRS

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Photo Credit: SenateDemocrats

Responding to reports that the IRS is continuing to refuse disclosure of communications with Mark Begich relating to its discrimination against tea party and other conservative groups, Joe Miller is calling on the senator to release any and all correspondence or documents (electronic or otherwise) exchanged between himself, his staff and top IRS officials between 2009 and the present.

“I would think in an election year, especially, Mark Begich would want to clear his name of any wrong-doing with respect to IRS profiling,” Miller said. “He should see this as an opportunity to show Alaskans that there really is a difference between his mode of operation and that of the White House with respect to transparency.”

At issue is a FOIA request submitted a year ago that the IRS has still not complied with. In the request, the National Republican Senatorial Committee reportedly asked for all correspondence and documents that passed between Mark Begich’s office and top IRS officials between 2009-2013.

The IRS appears to be stonewalling, having asked no less than six times for more time to compile and go through the information, clearly implying that such documents exists. A FOIA request is supposed to be responded to within 30 days of receipt.

Earlier this year, Begich joined New York Senator Chuck Schumer and other vulnerable Democrats in calling for more scrutiny of certain issue advocacy groups that claim tax exempt status. He has suggested the tax code is being used for cover to engage in political activities.

Just this week, the junior senator boasted of calling the IRS Commissioner to his office, alleging unfair targeting of Alaska’s airline industry. Yet he has been strangely silent regarding blatant political profiling of Tea Party and conservative groups by the IRS, leading some to speculate on his personal involvement in encouraging potentially criminal activity.

Miller concluded, “I think Alaskans have a right to know if Mark Begich played a role in illegal activities at the IRS during the course of his public duties. If he didn’t, it should be a small matter to provide the records his office has of correspondence and other documents exchanged with top officials at the IRS.”

IRS Backs Off Proposal Critics Warned Would ‘Silence’ Conservative Groups

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Photo Credit: Fox News The IRS has agreed to overhaul a controversial proposal that Republican lawmakers warned would revive the agency’s “harassment and intimidation” of conservative groups, after receiving a record number of comments on the proposed regulation.

The new rules have been in the works ever since the IRS came under fire for its targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups. In the wake of that scandal, the agency said it wanted to clarify for everybody how tax-exempt groups can engage in political activity — by reining in the political work those groups do.

But Republicans, as well as some on the left, worried the new rules would only exacerbate the kind of targeting that stonewalled Tea Party groups in the first place.

For months, they’ve urged the IRS to scrap the proposal entirely, saying it would stifle free speech.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, among those senators, called Thursday’s decision a “long overdue step in the right direction.”

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$1 Million Bounty to Be Offered for ‘Smoking Gun’ in IRS Targeting Scandal

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Photo Credit: Voter’s TrustA nonprofit group hopes to award a $1 million bounty to anyone who can provide “smoking gun” evidence to implicate IRS leadership or members of the Obama administration who purposefully targeted conservative and tea party-affiliated groups, TheBlaze has learned.

Gregg Phillips, the managing director for The Voters Trust, a political nonprofit 501 (c)(4) which was established to identify and mobilize Americans, told TheBlaze on Wednesday “that this is the people’s bounty to seek the truth.”

Catherine Engelbrecht, president of the nonprofit group True the Vote, will be officially announcing the bounty Wednesday night on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show, “The Kelly File” at 9 p.m. ET.

To qualify for the bounty, the person needs to provide “relevant evidence including emails, eye-witness accounts, or testimony of political targeting of Americans by the IRS or the Obama administration that has not previously been reported,” according to an official press release from the group obtained by TheBlaze.

Phillips said the evidence must lead directly to the arrest and conviction those responsible and the information provided will remain anonymous and confidential.

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Judicial Watch Obtains New Documents Showing IRS Targeting Came Directly From Washington D.C.

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Photo Credit: Townhall By Katie Pavlich.

New documents obtained and released through a Judicial Watch lawsuit show the targeting of tea party and conservative groups came directly out of Washington D.C., not a rogue IRS office in Cincinnati.

On July 6, 2012, former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance Holly Paz sent an email to IRS Attorney Steven Grodnitzky asking for an explanation of how tea party group applications were being handled. Grodnitzky responded by confirming the cases were being handled in Washington.

“EOT is working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases in EOT and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob,” Grodnitzky wrote.

When the IRS targeting scandal broke last year, officials in Washington immediately pinned the blame on the Cincinnati office. This documentation proves not only that direction was coming out of Washington, but that Washington instructed Cincinnati about how to handle tea party applications.

A new email from Lois Lerner also details how BOLO lists (be on the look out) were specifically created for tea party groups or groups with issues related to government spending, debt, taxes and “how the country is being run.”

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Gary CameronNew Emails: Democratic Senator Pressured IRS To Target Groups

By Patrick Howley.

The IRS’ Washington, D.C. headquarters targeted conservative groups in part due to pressure from Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, according to emails obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch and reviewed by The Daily Caller.

Levin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ permanent subcommittee on investigations, wrote a March 30, 2012 letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman discussing the “urgency” of the issue of possible political activity by nonprofit applicants. Levin asked if the IRS was sending out additional information requests to applicant groups and citing an IRS rejection letter to a conservative group as an example of how the IRS should be conducting its business.

A top IRS official replied that the agency could send out “individualized questions and requests.”

“Some entities claiming tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations under 26 U.S.C.&501(c)(4) appear to be engaged in political activities more appropriate for political organizations claiming tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C.&527,” Sen. Levin wrote. “Because of the urgency of the issues involved in this matter, please provide the following information by April 20, 2012.”

Levin asked ”if it is not provided on a routine basis, approximately what percentage of such applicants receive an IRS questionnaire seeking information about any political activities, and how the IRS determines whether and when to send that questionnaire; and approximately how many days after an application is filed that questionnaire is typically sent.”

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Congress Holds Lerner in Contempt

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Photo Credit: AP / Carolyn Kaster

Photo Credit: AP / Carolyn Kaster

By Stephen Ohlemacher.

House Republicans voted Wednesday to hold a former Internal Revenue Service official in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a pair of committee hearings about her role in the agency’s tea party controversy.

The House also passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the IRS.

Lois Lerner directed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. A year ago this week, Lerner publicly disclosed that agents had improperly singled out tea party applications for extra, sometimes burdensome scrutiny.

An inspector general’s report blamed poor management but found no evidence of a political conspiracy. Many Republicans in Congress believe otherwise.

“Who’s been fired over the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS? No one that I’m aware of,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday. “Who’s gone to jail for violating the law? When is the administration going to tell the American people the truth?”

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In Showdown With Lerner, House Imprisonment Not Out of the Question

By Katy O’Donnell.

Former tax official Lois Lerner’s confrontation with Congress over a potential contempt citation may get emphatically more dramatic, depending on how far back into congressional history House Republicans want to reach.

Deep in the recesses of congressional power — and in precedent stretching back to the 18th century — is the ability to pursue “inherent contempt” against individuals, including the right to imprison a person in the Capitol to compel compliance with lawmakers’ authority.

Congress hasn’t exercised inherent contempt power since 1935 and there’s no suggestion that lawmakers are actively considering the option in Lerner’s case.

But House attorneys, and lawyers for the former Internal Revenue Service official, are looking at the potential legal paths as House leaders consider first whether to take a contempt citation to the floor and, if it passes, whether the Justice Department will pursue prosecution.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted on party lines to recommend the full House hold Lerner in contempt and refer her to the Justice Department for refusing to testify before the committee on allegations of political targeting at the IRS of conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status. The GOP members said Lerner, who resigned from the IRS last year under fire for her role as the head of the office at the heart of the controversy, waived her Fifth Amendment privilege by delivering an opening statement declaring her innocence before the panel last year.

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One Year Later, the Victims of Obama’s IRS Deserve Justice

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IRSMay 10th marks the one year anniversary of the admission that the Obama Administration’s IRS was responsible for targeting conservative Americans.

This unlawful and unconstitutional targeting scheme has been well documented.

Over the course of at least three years and fueled by the harangues of the Left, the IRS systematically targeted, held up applications, and devised a coordinated plan to demand unconstitutionally intrusive information from conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

The IRS asked pro-life groups for the “content of your members’ prayers.” It demanded donor lists, resumes, and other documentation far outside the purview of the IRS from conservative groups. In multiple instances, the IRS is alleged to have released private taxpayer information in violation of federal law, the latest such accusation in the form of a new lawsuit last month.

On May 29, 2013, the ACLJ filed a federal lawsuit – the largest of its kind – on behalf of targeted conservative and pro-life organizations. We now represent 41 groups from 22 states in that litigation, detailing the IRS’s unlawful targeting and demanding justice for the thousands of American citizens impacted by the IRS dragnet.

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