BET: Commentary: IRS Intimidation Scandal Is a Civil Rights Violation 5 Reasons Why the IRS Scandal Will Haunt Democrats in 2014 The IRS, Obamacare, and You: The Spending IRS to Tea Party: 'State the Reasons You Did Not Have a Candidate Rally for Lone Democratic Candidate' BREAKING>>> Lois Lerner Told Republican in 1996: “Promise me You Will Never Run Again, and We’ll Drop This (FEC) Case” IRS To Be Hit With New Lawsuit Today Claiming Tea Party Groups Got Intimidating Letters From The Agency Just Four Weeks Ago… Cincinnati IRS Agent: Special ‘task force’ in DC made decisions about processing Tea Party applications Holder Personally Sued in Massive Tea Party Abuse Lawsuit The Lois Lerner state Conservative groups sue IRS, Eric Holder for ‘unlawful targeting’ of tax forms IRS’s Shulman had more public White House visits than any cabinet member Did the Palestinians Ask Obama to Target Pro-Israeli 501(c)(3)s?
IRS Crosses Green Line Pro-Israel groups felt wrath of Obama IRS, WFB investigation reveals A Washington Free Beacon investigation has identified at least five pro-Israel organizations that have been audited by the IRS in the wake of a coordinated campaign by White House-allied activist groups in 2009 and 2010. These organizations, some of which are too afraid of government reprisals to speak publicly, say in interviews with the Free Beacon that they now believe the IRS actions may have been coordinated by the Obama administration. Many of the charities openly clashed with the Obama administration’s policy of opposing Israeli settlement construction over the so-called “Green Line,” which marks the pre-1967 boundary between Israel and the West Bank and West and East Jerusalem. After the Obama administration took up the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as one of its most prominent foreign policy priorities in early 2009, and made a cessation of Israeli settlement construction the cornerstone of its approach, the nonprofits were subjected to a string of unflattering media reports. White House-allied lobbying groups joined the media criticism by challenged the nonprofits’ tax-exempt status, arguing that they undercut President Barack Obama’s Middle East policies. “Our concern at that time was that these articles weren’t just appearing by happenstance, but may have reflected an evolving policy shift in the Obama administration to scrutinize charitable giving by organizations on behalf of Jewish communities and institutions over the Green Line,” said Jerusalem-based attorney Marc Zell, who convened a private meeting of pro-Israel groups in August 2009 to discuss these concerns. Tax-exempt charities that support Israeli settlements have been the subject of controversy for years. But the issue came to a head after Obama made opposition to settlement construction a focus of his Middle East policy in 2009 and demanded Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu halt all construction beyond the Green Line, including in the Israeli capital of Jerusalem. While it is not illegal for these charities to contribute to groups and individuals across the Green Line, critics say that they should not receive tax-exempt status because they support communities the administration views as antagonistic to administration policy. The media scrutiny began as early as March 26, 2009, when the Washington Post’s David Ignatius published a column questioning the groups’ tax-exempt status. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) announced the next day that it would begin a campaign of filing legal complaints with the IRS and the Treasury Department to investigate groups “allegedly raising funds for the development of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.” ADC is closely tied to the Obama White House. The president recorded a video greeting to the group’s annual conference and sent two senior administration officials to attend. The ADC announced in October 2009 that it had expanded its legal campaign against pro-Israel charities and was “working with a number of coalition partners, both nationally and internationally, in conducting this ongoing campaign.” The chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority raised the issue two days later during a meeting with U.S. Consul General Daniel Rubenstein, according to a State Department cable revealed by Wikileaks. “[Palestinian negotiator Ahmad Quraya] gave the Consul General a copy of an article by Uri Blau and Nir Hasson, published in Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper on August 17, entitled ‘American Non-profit Organization Raises Funds for Settlement,’ and asked the USG to review the situation with an eye toward eliminating organizations’ tax exempt status if they are funding settlement activity,” said the cable. On July 5, 2010, the New York Times published its 5,000-word cover story on the groups, following up with a Room for Debate series two days later. The article quoted an unnamed senior State Department administration official calling such groups “a problem” and “unhelpful to the efforts that we’re trying to make.” The story also quoted a senior Obama Middle East adviser, Daniel Kurtzer, saying the groups “drove us crazy.” J Street, a pro-Palestinian lobbying group that was closely aligned with the White House in 2009 and 2010, called the following week for an investigation into U.S. charities that contribute to settlements. One pro-Israel targets was HaYovel, which was featured prominently in the New York Times article. Six months after the article was published, the IRS audited the Nashville-based charity, which sends volunteers to work in vineyards across the Green Line. “We bookend that [New York Times] story. We were the first [group mentioned]. They really kind of focused on us,” said HaYovel’s founder Tommy Waller. “Then six months later we had an audit.” Shari Waller, who cofounded HaYovel with her husband, said the couple received a phone call from the IRS in December 2010. She said she was not aware of anything in their tax documents that may have prompted the audit, and added that the additional scrutiny came during the group’s first five years of existence when audits tend to be rare. “They contacted us the week of Christmas and told us they wanted to audit us, right now,” she said. “The most unusual thing to me was they contacted us at a time [that] for most people is a very hectic time, and we had just returned from Israel. To think about taking calls for an audit on the telephone—official business is usually conducted through the mail.” Tommy Waller said he found the timing of the audit “suspicious” and believes it may have been politically motivated. “We 100-percent support Judea and Samaria, and Jewish sovereignty in that area, and the current administration is 100 percent opposed to Jewish sovereignty in that area of Israel,” he said. “That’s why we suspected that we would have to deal with [an audit].” Two other organizations—the American arm of an educational institution that operates across the Green Line and the American arm of a well-known Israeli charity that was mentioned in the New York Times article—say they were also audited. Another organization that was criticized in multiple articles during 2009 and 2010 was audited last year. The organization, like many of the groups with whom the Free Beacon spoke, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of political retaliation and concern that exposure would harm fundraising efforts. “The IRS carried out an examination of our organization, reviewing all of our accounting records, tax returns, bylaws, bank records, grant awards, etc, for the relevant period,” said a senior official of this organization. “There was no vindictiveness in the audit itself and it was completed within a matter of months. Our feeling at the time was that this order must have come from above. The IRS seemed to be responding to a request or a complaint from higher up.” Concerns that the IRS was targeting pro-Israel groups were first raised publicly by Z Street, a pro-Israel organization run by Lori Lowenthal Marcus. Z Street filed a lawsuit against the IRS in 2010, alleging its application for tax-exempt status was delayed because it disagreed with the Obama administration’s Israel policy. According to the suit, Marcus’s attorney was informed by IRS official Diane Gentry that Z Street’s “application for tax-exempt status has been at least delayed, and may be denied because of a special IRS policy in place regarding organizations in any way connected with Israel, and further that the applications of many such Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office.” Neither the IRS nor Gentry responded to a request for comment. Marcus said Z Street has not funded anyone or any groups in the settlements. But, she added, the problems her organization faced could be related to the administration’s concerns over settlement-supporting groups. Z Street’s application for tax-exempt status first ran into trouble with the IRS on July 19, 2010, two weeks after the lengthy New York Times article was published. “Even if that is the case, that’s an explanation, but it’s not an answer. It’s not an adequate reason,” said Marcus. “It’s totally inappropriate.” Zell told the Free Beacon he has not personally witnessed a shift in IRS policy since the 2009 meeting suggesting settlement-supporting nonprofits have been targeted. However, he said it is a “yellow flag” that at least five of these organizations have been audited since 2009, considering the recent finding by the IRS inspector general that the agency targeted conservative groups. “Now with the revelations of the IRS abuses vis-a-vis U.S. right-wing organizations, that have been published of late, there is renewed concerned that these kinds of policies, same kinds of policies and procedures, may have been targeted at these organizations [that support settlements],” he said.
IRS Agent Who Signed Intimidating Letters Sent To Conservative Groups Gets Promoted To Supervisor Role… For a job well done?
Holder Given June 5 Deadline to Explain Involvement in Reporter Search Warrant The top Republican lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday sent a list of questions to Attorney General Eric Holder about his involvement in approving a search warrant for a Fox News reporter’s phone records and emails. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and security and investigations subcommittee chair Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said their letter concerns “the discrepancy” between Holder’s May 15 sworn testimony to the panel and the Department of Justice’s decision to obtain the Fox search warrant. With the possibility of a perjury charge hanging over Holder, the lawmakers want him to answer their questions by June 5. At issue is an exchange between Holder and Rep. Hank Johnson during the May 15 hearing in which Holder said the “potential prosecution” of the press “is not something I have ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be a wise policy.” But after the hearing, the media disclosed the contents of the search warrant for James Rosen, the Fox reporter, that stated “probable cause to believe,” Rosen is “an aider abettor and/or co-conspirator,” of a State Department employee who leaked information about North Korea. Read More: http://washingtonexaminer.com
Poor Bobby. Just can't catch a break in crazyland. The 'smoking gun' fires blanks As part of its commitment to transparency, the administration makes public a list of everyone who visits the White House. But as The Atlantic's Garance Franke-Ruta explained this morning, the right's attempt to use these records to advance the IRS story has failed miserably. So, Shulman, the Bush-appointed head of the IRS, was cleared to attend 157 gatherings at the White House. How many did he actually attend? Eleven. The former IRS commissioner attended 11 events at the White House over the course of three years. Why is that interesting? It's not.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...ects-docs-from-88-employees-in-investigation/ 13 hours ago First on CNN: IRS collects docs from 88 employees in investigation Posted by CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash Updated 5:49 p.m. ET Friday 5/31 Washington (CNN) – The Internal Revenue Service has told House GOP investigators they have identified 88 IRS employees who may have documents relevant to the congressional investigation into targeting of conservative groups, according to a congressional source familiar with the investigation. The IRS asked these employees to preserve all the "responsive documents" on their computers, and it has been in the process of collecting it all to comply with congressional requests for information. The IRS missed its May 21st deadline to turn over documents to the House Ways and Means Committee. The same source said the IRS argues it missed its deadline because of the scope of documents it is collecting. The request for documents was a bipartisan one, but Republicans are privately preparing to seize on the fact that if nearly 90 IRS employees may have been somehow involved in this targeting, it is evidence that the controversy extends well beyond the mistakes by a few low level employees. However, with no documents in hand, there is no way to know how many of the employees being asked to preserve documents were truly involved in the activity in question. The IRS, in a statement to CNN, said the large number reflects its effort to ensure they are as responsive as possible to the Congressional requests. "The IRS and Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel are moving aggressively and taking the data requests very seriously. As a precautionary measure, the IRS is casting a wide net to capture any potentially related materials. Our goal is to be exceedingly thorough during this process to ensure we identify any and all pertinent records," the IRS statement said. "The IRS has received numerous congressional requests involving an extensive set of questions and calls for data. Responding to these requests is a top priority for us. We have been in contact with committee staff, and we continue to provide them updates as we diligently work through these requests." READ MORE: Did IRS chief really visit White House 157 times? The IRS is responding to multiple Congressional requests for information and struggling to meet the deadlines. According to a Senate Finance Committee aide, the IRS told the committee it will also miss Friday's deadline to produce documents relevant to the tea party targeting. In a joint statement from the press offices of Sens. Max Baucus and Orrin Hatch, the committee's Democratic chairman and its top Republican, said they were disappointed and that the agency needed to do better. "This is an agency that revolves around making the American taxpayer meet hard deadlines each and every year when they file their taxes, oftentimes penalizing those that are late," the statement said. READ MORE: House investigators questioning IRS Cincinnati workers More problems are on the horizon for the IRS. Rep. Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will hold a hearing next week on an audit of the agency's "spending culture and conference abuses." The committee will focus on the report released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) that shows excessive spending at IRS conferences. Werfel said in a statement that the report will focus on an IRS conference that took place in 2010 and labeled it an "unfortunate vestige from a prior era." "While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of the expenses associated with it were inappropriate and should not have occurred," he said, adding new rules have been put in place and such a conference will not happen under his watch. Filed under: Congress • Darrell Issa • IRS
FORMER IRS CHIEF'S WIFE WORKS FOR LEFTIST CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM GROUP On Friday, reports broke that Former IRS chief Doug Shulman’s wife works with a liberal lobbying group, Public Campaign, where she is the senior program advisor. Public Campaign is an “organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.” The goal of Public Campaign is to target political groups like the conservative non-profits at issue in the IRS scandal. The Campaign says it “is laying the foundation for reform by working with a broad range of organizations, including local community groups, around the country that are fighting for change and national organizations whose members are not fairly represented under the current campaign finance system.” CEO of Public Campaign Nick Nyhart has offered words of support for the IRS’ targeting: “There are legitimate questions to be asked about political groups that are hiding behind a 501(c)4 status. It’s unfortunate a few bad apples at the IRS will make it harder for those questions to be asked without claims of bias.” Public Campaign gets its cash from labor unions like AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU, and Move On. http://twitchy.com/2013/05/31/shock...tweet&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter
So you're saying that the 11th Amendment right to associate does not apply to high level government employees? I don't recall that being the law.
You think so highly of me. I appreciate your candor. My wife is the only one who can tell me, "Oh baby..." though. Me and Ginni Thomas go way back, btw.
Very efficient; conservatives' racial bigotry and homophobia on display in one concise, clear image. Certainly debunks that trite pic you posted of Romney's dad for the infantilizing, racial deflection that it was.
Sorry I've been out for a while Holder was an embarrassment before this scandal, now it's just like, wtf brah.
A thing of beauty Candy Crowley completely destroys Darrell Issa over claim that Obama conspired to target tea party <iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2NoCiP1sJrg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> "To substantiate his claim, Issa provided CNN with selected excerpts from his staff’s interviews with IRS agents. But as Crowley quickly pointed out, the portion Issa cherry picked did not definitely prove that officials in Washington D.C. directed IRS officers to target conservative groups. In fact, after hearing Crowley read the transcript of an interview, Issa himself admitted that he has yet to uncover evidence that demonstrates IRS coordination with Washington."
Thats OK, Issa was simply pivot to some other invented "scandal" about Holder and Obama. Does Issa serve any other purpose in government?
what invented scandals are u referring to? Are you suggesting the IRS didn't target conservatives and Pro-Israel groups (they have admitted they did)? As for Issa's purpose; he is Chairman of theCommittee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose job it is to investigate things such as this. checks and balances are scary to you liberals who desire Obama have unquestioned power. Nobody seems to know where this list to target conservatives and Pro-Israel groups came from (because the IRS is lying and pleading the 5th). It is Issa's job (amongst others) to find that information out. Obviously Obama, HOlder, or the Senate will not put any effort into finding this out, so it is good that Issa is.
