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IRS Agent: Tax Agency is Still Targeting Tea Party Groups

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Photo Credit: Fibonacci BlueIn a remarkable admission that is likely to rock the Internal Revenue Service again, testimony released Thursday by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp reveals that an agent involved in reviewing tax exempt applications from conservative groups told a committee investigator that the agency is still targeting Tea Party groups, three months after the IRS scandal erupted..

In closed door testimony before the House Ways & Means Committee, the unidentified IRS agent said requests for special tax status from Tea Party groups is being forced into a special “secondary screening” because the agency has yet to come up with new guidance on how to judge the tax status of the groups.

In a transcript from the committee provided to Secrets, a Ways & Means investigator asked: “If you saw — I am asking this currently, if today if a Tea Party case, a group — a case from a Tea Party group came in to your desk, you reviewed the file and there was no evidence of political activity, would you potentially approve that case? Is that something you would do?”

The agent said, “At this point I would send it to secondary screening, political advocacy.”

The committee staffer then said, “So you would treat a Tea Party group as a political advocacy case even if there was no evidence of political activity on the application. Is that right?” The agent admitted, “Based on my current manager’s direction, uh-huh.”

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Sen. Coons Denies Knowledge of or Involvement with Christine O’Donnell Tax Breach

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As unanswered questions swirl around Christine O’Donnell and the breach of her personal tax records, the other key figure in Delaware’s 2010 U.S. Senate race said neither he nor his campaign had anything to do with it.

Democratic Sen. Christopher A. Coons, who handily defeated Ms. O’Donnell three years ago in the contest to fill Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s Senate seat, says he hasn’t been contacted by congressional investigators or the Treasury Department watchdog responsible for looking into the improper use of Americans’ private tax records.

“Any political abuse of the government’s power is inappropriate, wrong and ought to be investigated fairly,” said Ian Koski, a spokesman for the senator. “This particular matter was already subject to a months-long investigation by the Treasury Department — which found no wrongdoing — and no evidence has been presented that indicates that the Treasury investigation was unfair or inadequate.”

The Washington Times first reported last week that Ms. O’Donnell’s personal tax records were accessed by a Delaware official, who has now been identified as David Smith, an investigator with the state’s Division of Revenue. The breach occurred in March 2010, the same month Ms. O’Donnell announced she would challenge Republican Michael Castle in the party’s Senate primary.

The timing and release of information related to Ms. O’Donnell’s taxes to the media raises questions about the possible role her political enemies played, and whether Delaware state officials used a backdoor into Americans’ confidential IRS tax records.

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Tea Party Candidate Announces Senate Bid Against ‘Mud-Slinging Mitch’ McConnell

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Frankfort, Kentucky – Kentucky businessman Matt Bevin announced he would be running against Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky Republican senate primary.

“Never before in American political history has the leader of a party lost a primary election,” Bevin acknowledged in his remarks, given in the rotunda of the Kentucky state capitol. “Never. But never before has it been so important to make that happen.”

Flanked by his wife and nine children, Bevin attacked the GOP as being “a party that is as complicit in our impending deficit crisis as the Democratic party,” according to his prepared remarks.

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Tea Party Called ‘Top Terror Threat’ in U.S.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

One in four likely voters who support President Obama believe the tea party is the biggest terror threat to the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.

The survey, conducted over the past weekend. polled 1,000 likely voters. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, with a 95 percent level of confidence.

It asks a number of questions about America’s security on topics including nuclear weapons, an anti-missile defense shield – and just exactly who is the nation’s top terror threat.

Twenty-six percent of Obama’s supporters say that would be the tea party – the grass-roots political effort to limit the size of government, get bureaucrats out of the average family’s life and crack down on corruption and graft.

“Among those who Strongly Approve of the president more fear the tea party than radical Muslims,” the survey report said.

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FBI Hasn’t Contacted a Single Tea Party Group in IRS Probe, Groups Say

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

There is no evidence that the FBI has contacted a single tea party group in its criminal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service, according to the groups the IRS abused.

“We have not been contacted by any federal investigative agency and, to date, none of our clients have been contacted or interviewed by the FBI,” Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice told The Daily Caller on Thursday. The ACLJ has filed suit against the IRS on behalf of 25 conservative groups, with additional groups being added in the next couple weeks, according to a spokesman…

Tea Party Patriots — a group with thousands of local chapters — “has not been contacted by the FBI” either, according to Jameson Cunningham, the group’s spokesman.

The revelation suggests that the FBI is in no hurry to get to the bottom of the scandal, despite the Obama administration’s promise to investigate the IRS’s multi-year abuse of conservative groups…

Attorney General Eric Holder promised in mid-May that the FBI would get to the bottom of the IRS’s behavior by opening a criminal investigation.

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FBI Director Dropping the Ball on IRS Investigation, Defends NSA (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

The country’s top investigator seemed to be in the dark Thursday when pressed to provide details of the IRS investigation into the tax agency’s targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, seemed to rattle FBI Director Robert Mueller for not knowing the specifics surrounding the IRS probe.

“You’ve had a month now to investigate,” Jordan said. “This has been the biggest story in the country and you can’t even tell me who the lead investigator is. You can’t tell me the actions the inspector general took which are not typically how investigations are done. You can’t tell me if that’s appropriate or not. This is not speculation. This is what happened.”

Mueller repeatedly declined to answer Jordan’s questions, saying he couldn’t because the investigation was ongoing or that he’d have to get back to the lawmakers with answers.

When Jordan asked again,” Can you tell me who the lead investigator is?” Mueller responded, “Off the top of my head, no.”

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Critics: ‘The Purge’ an attack on Tea Party, NRA (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

In the new Ethan Hawke thriller “The Purge,” the year is 2022, and the United States is run by a bunch of multinational corporations called the “New Founding Fathers of America.” The nation is ravaged by crime and overcrowded prisons, so in a quest to curb overpopulation and get rid of unsavories, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period where anything goes in the streets.

Known as “The Purge,” all criminal activity – including murder, brutal violence and in this movie, a sinister home invasion – is legal, all emergency services and calls are suspended, and the only rules are that harming high-ranking government officials and using “Class 4” weaponry (bombs and grenades) are strictly prohibited.

But while the plot may seem on its surface like any of hundreds of other futuristic hellscape directorial visions from “Clockwork Orange” to “Oblivion,” “The Purge” has been dubbed by some a thinly veiled attack on the Tea Party and National Rifle Association, and has some critics rolling their eyes.

“Director James DeMonaco makes it clear the movie is a direct attack on the NRA, an organization filled with millions of law-abiding gun owners. The loony left’s reflexive hatred of the 2nd Amendment is founded in the concept that people who don’t break the law are somehow evil for exercising the Constitutional rights,” Dan Gainor, VP of Business and Culture at the Media Research Institute told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. “’The Purge’ is also an obvious attack on the Tea Party and Christians.”

In an interview with Bloody Disgusting, DeMonaco said the leadership of his 2022 United States was indeed based on the NRA, although he tried to use a light touch.
“I layered in these New Founding Fathers, this regime that we voted into power at some point, some kind of NRA-thing that took over the country,” he said. “But I kind of left that to the audience. I think sometimes in my writing I try to spoon feed too much, it’s better to let the audience make their own decisions on things.”

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Tea Party Mom Blasts US Gov’t at Congressional Hearing: “You’ve Forgotten Your Place” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

At yesterday’s House Ways and Means Committee testimony on the Obama Administration’s IRS abuses, the President of the Wetumpka Tea Party had sharp words for the federal government.

Her heart-felt comments can be heard in the video below. Here’s are some of her more memorable statements:

“In Wetumpka, we are patriotic Americans; we peacefully assemble; we petition our government; we exercise our right to free speech. We don’t understand why the government tried to stop us. I’m not here as a serf or a vassal. I’m not begging my lord for mercy. I’m a born-free American woman, wife, mother, and citizen, and I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place.”

“I’m not interested in scoring political points. I want to preserve and protect the America that I grew up in. The America that people crossed oceans and risked their lives to become a part of, and I’m terrified it’s slipping away.”

IRS Field Agent: Orders to Investigate Tea Party Came from DC; They’re “Throwing Us Underneath the Bus” (+video)

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Photo Credit: US News

Interviews with an IRS field agent involved in the agency targeting Tea Party groups for additional vetting appear to contradict the White House assertion that rogue agents, not the administration, were behind the effort, according to partial transcripts released Sunday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The agent in the Cincinnati office, in which the targeting took place, told congressional investigators that he or she was told in March 2010 by a supervisor to search for Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status and that “Washington, D.C., wanted some cases”…

When asked by congressional investigators about allegations and press reports about two agents in Cincinnati essentially being responsible for the targeting, the agent responded: “It’s impossible. As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen. … They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.”

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IRS Lerner to Politician: ‘If You Don’t Ever Run Again, We’ll Drop our Case’

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Photo Credit: usofarn

In 1996 Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the harassment of Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status, was head of the enforcement division of the Federal Elections Commission(FEC). That year Al Salvi was the Republican nominee for the US Senate from Illinois, his Democrat opponent was then congressman Dick Durbin.

During the final weeks of the campaign Salvi loaned himself over a million dollars to buy ads in the Chicago media market. This in turn prompted the Democrat party’s campaign arms to file complaints with the FEC and in kind the FEC, specifically Lois Lerner, filed charges against Al Salvi.

That is when Mr. Salvi contends Lois Lerner made him the following offer, “Promise me you will never run for office again, and we’ll drop this case.”

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