Free Republic

The IRS filing in federal Judge Emmet Sullivan’s court reveals shocking new information. The IRS destroyed Lerner’s Blackberry AFTER it knew her computer had crashed and after a Congressional inquiry was well underway. As an IRS official declared under the penalty of perjury, the destroyed Blackberry would have contained the same emails (both sent and received) as Lois Lerner’s hard drive. We all know by now that Lois Lerner’s hard drive crashed in June 2011 and was destroyed by IRS. The emails of up to twenty other related IRS officials were missing in remarkably similar “crashes,” leading many to speculate...

We saw this coming, didn’t we? Fox News’ Shannon Bream broke the news this afternoon: BREAKING: #TomFitton of @JudicialWatch just told us on @FoxNews DOJ atty told JW atty that IRS/Lerner emails DO EXIST in backup somewhere— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) August 25, 2014 MORE: #TomFitton @JudicialWatch says DOJ atty told JW atty - fed govt backs up ALL computer records "in case of a catastrophe" #IRS #Lerner— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) August 25, 2014 And National Review Online caught the relevant portion of the exchange: “A Department of Justice attorney told a Judicial Watch attorney on Friday that it turns out...

'UnFair: Exposing the IRS' screenings will feature a Q&A with Mike Huckabee A version of this story first appeared in the Aug. 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Right-wing heroes are hitting the big screen, at least for one night. UnFair: Exposing the IRS will screen in 674 movie theaters Oct. 14, followed by a panel discussion with Mike Huckabee, one of the documentary's stars. The film features interviews with members of Tea Party groups and others who were allegedly abused by IRS officials. "The IRS shakes down innocent people, harasses them out of business, and does so without...

In June of last year I wrote that the future of ObamaCare would depend upon the outcome of a small number of under-reported lawsuits filed to prevent the IRS illegally re-writing the Affordable Care Act. At issue in the lawsuits: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides tax credits and subsidies for the purchase of health insurance through exchanges that are run by “a governmental agency or nonprofit entity that is established by a state.” (2) By mid 2013 however, 33 states had refused to build an ObamaCare Exchange so necessary to the functioning of the law. And although the ACA...

In April, the House Ways and Means Committee referred Lois Lerner to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. Nothing has come of it. Given the politicization and lawlessness of the DOJ under Attorney General Eric Holder, nothing likely will. The House should move to impeach Lerner instead, and other IRS officials who have broken the law. Federal bureaucrats need to be sent a message that lawbreaking is not part of their job descriptions, and that notwithstanding our recalcitrant Justice Department, our constitutional system provides this remedy against executive branch officials gone rogue under the law. More importantly, Americans deserve...

RANT! It's a frustrating situation to have in your hands a check from the US Treasury for over $141,000 and you can't do a darned thing with it except frame it and hang it on the wall as a souvenir. My MIL passed away in 2011, and my wife (as the only surviving relative) was named in the will as the executor of the estate and successor to the trust. The will was filed with the courts in L.A. and the long process began. We paid the IRS $240K the first year in estimated estate taxes along with a request...

The American tax authority, the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), will monitor churches for electioneering in a settlement reached on 18 July with an atheist group, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF). In 2012 the FFRF filed a lawsuit alleging that "the IRS routinely ignored complaints by the FFRF and others about churches promoting political candidates, issues, or proposed legislation. As part of their tax-exempt status, churches and other religious groups are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity." Monitoring what is said in houses of worship is a clear violation of the First Amendment, since no law can be...

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan Thursday ordered the Internal Revenue Service to come up with new answers after IRS employees contradicted sworn testimony about damage to Lois Lerner’s hard drive. Sullivan ruled that “the IRS is hereby ORDERED to file a sworn Declaration, by an official with the authority to speak under oath for the Agency, by no later than August 22, 2014″ on four issues: the IRS’ attempted recovery of Lerner’s lost emails after her computer allegedly crashed, bar codes that could have been on the hard drive, IRS policies on hard drive destruction, and information about an...

After listening to excuses from IRS officials about why they cannot produce "lost" emails requested through a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered the IRS to come up with a better explanation as to why the agency cannot produce valid documentation. He's also asking for details about IRS hard drive destruction policy and wants verification from an outside source that IRS hard drives in question were in fact destroyed as officials have claimed. "In an extraordinary step, U. S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan has launched an independent inquiry into the...

House Republicans on Friday accused a top Obama administration health official of telling staff to delete an email related to the healthcare law’s rollout last fall. In a letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, the Republicans point to an Oct. 5 email from Tavenner to staff about how to handle calls from people applying for ObamaCare. In the first line of the email, Tavenner writes “please delete this email but see if we can work on call script.” Republicans in their letter ask why Tavenner wanted the email deleted, and whether she has asked for other...

Insufficient IRS explanations cause Judge to order sworn answers from IRS about Lois Lerner’s hard drive and emails. Judicial Watch has sued over missing IRS emails in the federal district court in D.C., pursuant to its FOIA request for such documents.The IRS was ordered to provide explanations as to missing emails, particularly Lois Lerner.The IRS provided explanations, but those were not good enough for the Judge, who launched his own inquiry into the matter, as Judicial Watch explained in a statement posted on its website: Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement in response to today’s order...

IRS contractors without background checks had access to sensitive information, potentially putting confidential taxpayer data at risk, according to a federal audit. The Treasury inspector general for tax administration found more than a dozen cases in which the IRS awarded contracts that required access to taxpayer information without background investigations or before those checks were completed. Under IRS policy, background checks are mandatory for contractors who work with that kind of data. "Allowing contractor employees access to taxpayer data without appropriate background investigations exposes taxpayers to increased risk of fraud and identity theft,” said J. Russell George, the inspector general....

The Faith & Freedom Coalition demanded Monday the release of a secret legal agreement between the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice and atheist organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation charging that it is likely to censor churches by "potentially infringing upon their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association". The agreement was reached on July 17 in federal court to settle a lawsuit filed by the FFRF in 2012. The group celebrated it as a victory last month. "We're proud that FFRF's litigation should ensure that the IRS will now resume enforcing the law, and go...

This week, a judge in True the Vote (TTV) v. IRS granted a victory to the IRS when it rejected an attempt by the conservative Tea Party group to have the court appoint a forensics expert to find Lois Lerner’s missing emails and documents. The ruling demonstrates what kind of an uphill climb groups like TTV can expect to face as federal judges have become increasingly beholden to the federal government. The irony is there is a one-page document already in the public arena that would win TTV’s case but attorney Cleta Mitchell refuses to point to it. That document...

An atheist group wants to censor what priests, pastors, rabbis and other clergy say in their sermons by threatening an IRS challenge of their tax-exempt status.Generally, the leaders of houses of worship in America have the constitutional right to preach and promote anything short of an outright endorsement of a political candidate. But now, that freedom is being challenged.In 2012, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit atheist organization that advocates strict separation of church and state, sued the Internal Revenue Service seeking to force the agency to question the tax-exempt status of churches and other houses of worship if they...

The quest of those victimized by the IRS’s discriminatory treatment of conservative groups hit a brick wall when U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton ruled that the plaintiffs failed to prove that denial of access to the emails would result in “irreparable” harm. “True the Vote,” a conservative organization dedicated to combating vote fraud, had requested that a forensic expert of the court’s choosing attempt to recover the “lost” emails of IRS official Lois Lerner. Lerner has refused to testify to Congress on the grounds that such testimony would be “self incriminating.” Nonetheless, Judge Walton characterized the plaintiff’s suspicions as...

Chalk up another victory for out of control government and its related rampant abuse of power. A lawsuit brought by the conservative group “True the Vote” asking to have a forensic expert of the court’s choosing attempt to recover the “lost” Lois Lerner emails has been denied. U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton said in his decision that the plaintiff failed to show “irreparable harm” as a result of the “lost” emails, which, since the contents of them is unknown to those who were not involved in the criminal activities, would likely be an impossible thing to prove before the...

Just a few things to wrap up before packing for the Vineyards: President Barack Obama stepped in front of the cameras on Thursday to utter words he hoped he would never say as commander in chief."I've therefore authorized targeted airstrikes if necessary to help forces in Iraq," Mr. Obama said in a statement from the White House. "Today America is coming to help." That would be as opposed to the last time we came, under George W. Bush, to kill people and break things and…Halliburton!And don’t think for a minute that this decision was an easy one for Val Jar....

A key ObamaCare official involved in the rocky rollout of Healthcare.gov likely deleted some of her emails that are now being sought as part of an investigation into the problems by a House committee, Fox News confirmed Thursday. The Department of Health and Human Services informed House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa in a letter Thursday that some of the emails belonging to Marilyn Tavenner, who leads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, may not be “retrievable.” The missing emails belonging to Tavenner, whose agency runs the ObamaCare exchanges, were first reported by msnbc.com. Issa, whose...

<p>A federal judge on Thursday declined to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the Internal Revenue Service from destroying e-mails or other potential evidence.</p> <p>The ruling by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton is a blow to True the Vote, the Texas-based organization that’s suing the IRS over its handling of a tax-exempt status application. After filing the suit, conservatives and lawmakers learned that e-mails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner had gone missing.</p>