Free Republic

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wants the Justice Department to save documents related to its two-year investigation of allegations that the IRS targeted conservative groups. "This Administration's recent announcement ... has finally made it abundantly clear that the responsibility of ensuring a thorough, fair, and impartial investigation of IRS employees and their potential criminal conduct will fall to the next presidential administration, and relevant materials must be protected accordingly," Cruz, who is running for president, wrote in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. He sent the letter Monday, after the DOJ announced last month that it was closing its probe....

Already planning for a GOP president in 2017, Sen. Ted Cruz sent a letter Monday demanding that the Justice Department preserve all documents from its completed investigation into the IRS's tea party targeting, saying too many questions still remain. Mr. Cruz, a Texas Republican who is himself seeking his party's presidential nomination, said the department's decision to close the investigation and clear IRS employees of any wrongdoing was a sign of just how broken the Justice Department has become. "It is important for you and other officials in this Administration to understand that this administration's decisions to neither continue this...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew demanding to know why the IRS is using secret cellphone tracking systems to spy on Americans. “This warrant-less eavesdropping appears to be a blatant invasion of privacy,” Grassley complained. “It’s precisely the kind of overbearing intrusiveness that our Constitution sought to prevent.” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen admitted the spying, but justified it as “necessary. We can’t allow a claim of privacy to deter us from gathering evidence against persons harboring anti-government animus or attempting to deny us access to...

Open enrollment in the Obamacare-created federal Health Insurance Exchange is scheduled to begin on November 1, and many consumers returning to the exchange or signing up for the first time are in for a rude awakening. Millions of Americans’ health insurance premiums are expected to rise and hundreds of thousands more could find themselves without any health insurance subsidies at all in 2016.

The introduction of a resolution to impeach IRS commissioner John Koskinen should comes as no surprise considering the lawlessness of the Obama administration and its use of the IRS to bludgeon its political opponents and the refusal by the DOJ to prosecute Lois Lerner for her political targeting of the Tea Party and other conservative political groups, as well as her destruction of evidence. The resolution, introduced by .House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Rep. James Jordan (R-OH) and 18 other committee members, accuses Koskinen of making false statements under oath, failing to comply with a subpoena, and failing to...

Two top senators Thursday demanded that the Obama administration explain why the Internal Revenue Service is using technology to secretly track cellphones that is normally the domain of law-enforcement agencies. The move by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont followed IRS Commissioner John Koskinen's admission to the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday that the agency uses the technology.

Despite impeachment proceedings, the Left still eyes new frontiers of political harassment President Obama’s IRS is still holding nonprofit applications from conservative and Tea Party groups hostage even now, years after the IRS targeting scandal first made headlines. It is yet more proof that even after years of bad press arising from the sordid saga, the Internal Revenue Service remains a powerful instrument of political repression in the hands of Obama, who apparently treats the agency as his personal fiefdom. Always on the hunt for new ways to disadvantage his political adversaries, Obama is also now moving forward with a...

Two words that make foes of the First Amendment go crazy: Citizens" and "United." Citizens United was the Supreme Court case that ruled the First Amendment applies to everyone: unions, individuals, and corporations supporting their interests through free speech. But the Federal Election Commission has started the process to undo the Citizens United case - and only one day remains for Americans to provide comments asking the FEC to respect the First Amendment.

On Friday, in a letter to the chairman and the ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, Peter Kadzik, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department, let Lois Lerner (shown) off the hook:

Part 271 of 269 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War MADISON, Wisconsin — The authors of a bill reforming Wisconsin’s controversial John Doe law want answers from state Government Accountability Board director Kevin Kennedy about his conversations with the Internal Revenue Service regarding a now-dead, political John Doe probe. State Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, and state Rep. Dave Craig, R-Town of Vernon, are particularly interested in an email from former GAB staff counsel Shane Falk to Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney David Robles. In the Feb. 28, 2013, communication, Falk tells Robles: “As you may know, things are really heating...

ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening newscasts on Friday all failed to cover the Justice Department announcing that it would be ending its investigation into the IRS's targeting of conservative groups. The Big Three networks' news program did find time to air reporting on the top Google searches for Halloween costumes, the fewer number of turkeys available for upcoming Thanksgiving dinners, and the controversy over the first bear hunt in Florida in 20 years. By contrast, PBS NewsHour did air a 20-second news brief on the DOJ closing its probe into the scandal [video below]:

Well the left looks at issues that the rest of us currently look at and are concerned with and think it's a witch hunt, or partisanship. But for many of us who simply want a government that's competent, accountable, open,and ethical we look at things like Benghazi, the IRS targeting scandal, the DEA, the Secret Service, and Planned Parenthood- not to mention the VA, and we know how sad of a shape everything is in today. Most people in the country regardless acknowledge that something is wrong. They just don't necessarily know what. Well, the "something" may not be all...

The Justice Department will not seek criminal charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner for her role in targeting conservative non-profits groups, CNN is reporting. The investigation into Lerner’s and the IRS’ handling of conservative groups’ tax-exempt applications uncovered substantial mismanagement and poor judgment, but none of it rose to the criminal level, according to the letter, which Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik sent to members of Congress on Friday. “Substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints. But poor management...

(Washington, DC ) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding the Obama Justice Department decision to close its investigation of the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups and other conservative opponents of President Obama’s policies: “President Obama’s IRS was used against his opponents to help him win reelection. So the Obama Justice Department’s decision to shut down its IRS abuse investigation with no prosecutions is as unsurprising as it is corrupt. Judicial Watch’s independent litigation proved the Obama IRS obstructed justice and destroyed evidence. And we uncovered that the IRS and Lois Lerner conspired with the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — No IRS official would face criminal charges arising from the political controversy over the processing of applications for tax-exempt status, the Justice Department announced Friday. In a letter to members of Congress, the department said that while investigators had found "mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia," there was no evidence of a crime. "We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution," the letter stated. The department also announced that Lois Lerner, who headed the division that processes applications for tax-exempt status...

When the IRS scandal broke in the spring of 2013, President Obama accepted the resignation of the acting IRS commissioner and said he was “angry” at the targeting of conservative groups. “Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” Mr. Obama said at the White House, calling the agency’s actions “inexcusable.” “It should not matter what political stripe you’re from. The fact of the matter is, the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity,” the president said.

Washington (CNN)The Justice Department notified members of Congress on Friday that it is closing its two-year investigation into whether the IRS improperly targeted tea party and other conservative groups. There will be no charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner or anyone else at the agency, the Justice Department said in a letter.

Two new books are reigniting a century-old debate about the central bank’s worthiness. So what do we think of the Federal Reserve, the people who run it, and the role it plays in setting short-term rates and even influencing investment portfolios? While the modern Fed has its supporters, the detractors seem to get most of the ink. As veteran financial journalist Roger Lowenstein wrote in a recent column for The Wall Street Journal, “No federal agency, except the Internal Revenue Service, is held in lower regard than the Federal Reserve, according to public opinion surveys. ... The never-ending debate about...

Irwin Schiff died on Friday while in federal custody over charges connected with his refusal to pay taxes and his advising others to do so. His public career began as a popularizer of small-government, Austrian-economics-influenced thought with a popular book mostly about the various ways he thought government actions of various sorts harmed citizens called The Biggest Con. He then shifted to become the most famous popularizer, over many books over decades, of the idea that no one legally owes income tax. According to an obituary notice from his son Peter Schiff, who runs the firm Euro Pacific Capital and...

“Irwin Schiff, imprisoned for his resistance to the federal income tax, died yesterday (10/16/2015). Efforts by his son, the noted financial commentator Peter Schiff, to secure his release from prison so that he could die with his family were unsuccessful. Schiff’s sad passing illustrates an essential truth about the state: if you resist its orders, you will be dealt with by force.” ************* Personal comment: R.I.P., Irwin. I sat at Irwin's table -- and snapped this photo -- at the Tupper Saussy pretrial rally in Chattanooga years ago. The man was a patriot and a fighter for justice while receiving...