Free Republic

A House committee report claims Lois Lerner, who oversaw the Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status, lied to Congress about her involvement in the targeting scandal. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report Tuesday concluding that Lerner “created unprecedented roadblocks for Tea Party organizations” and “worked surreptitiously to advance new Obama administration regulations that curtail the activities of existing 501(c)(4) organizations.” […] The emails paint a picture of IRS officials being aware of the potential political consequences of their actions and the increasing attention on the issue. On several occasions, Lerner received...

Mr. Dershowitz thinks the federal campaign fraud charges against the conservative filmmaker and author are an example of “selective prosecution.” Weighing in on the case Friday in an interview with Law Blog, Mr. Dershowitz was withering in his opinion of the Manhattan U.S. attorney office’s prosecution of Mr. D’Souza, who pleaded not guilty last week to making illegal campaign contributions to a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in 2012. “The idea of charging him with a felony for this doesn’t sound like a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “I can’t help but think that [D'Souza's] politics have something...

One of the Articles of Impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon was merely threatening to use the Internal Revenue Service to selectively audit political opponents. Don’t let anyone forget that. Today, IRS officials should go to jail for the overt campaign of intimidation, threats, and persecution of tea party organizations, conservative organizations, and individual critics of the liberal agenda. Yet the conservative response to the IRS scandal consists mainly of begging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute and begging the IRS to start playing nice by releasing information implicating its own staff in wrongdoing and perhaps criminal...

On Wednesday, we found out the Big Reveal on whether or not Lois Lerner would be emptying the bag for Darrell Issa. Nope. So many perfectly good conspiracy theories flushed down the tubes after I went through two pots of coffee dreaming them up. It looked like a big, fat nothingburger and another dead end. But now, seemingly out of nowhere, the IRS seems to have had a change of heart. The powerful House Ways and Means Committee will get everything from disgraced former IRS official Lois Lerner’s email account since a few weeks before Barack Obama became president. And...

Former IRS official Lois Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right Wednesday not to incriminate herself when she testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the IRS targeting of tea party groups. Oddly, the news media and Democratic leaders don't think it's a big deal when a federal official -- Lerner was the head of the unit that deals with tax-exempt organizations when she first invoked the Fifth last May -- won't answer questions about her actions as a federal official, but they are in a huff because the committee's chairman, Darrell Issa, abruptly called an end...

Appearing in front of the House Oversight Committee Wednesday morning Lois Lerner, former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS, refused to answer questions asked by lawmakers by pleading the Fifth Amendment. Earlier this week, Lerner's attorney William Taylor confirmed to Committee members in an email that she would testify. Lerner was issued a subpoena last summer after admitting the IRS singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny. "On the advice of my counsel I respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question," Lerner said. Last year, Lerner was called to testify in front of...

Lois Lerner fears for her life if she testifies openly before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday, according to her attorney. House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa announced Sunday that Lerner will testify at Wednesday’s hearing, but Lerner’s attorney Bill Taylor said that Lerner will seek to continue invoking her Fifth Amendment rights and will also seek a one-week delay of her testimony. Oversight members are reportedly open to granting Lerner a one-week delay if she petitions for one in person at Wednesday’s hearing. The delay would allow Lerner’s lawyers to continue negotiating for immunity, which they...

Korn frontman Jonathan Davis is unleashing the mother of all conspiracy theories -- President Obama's secret agenda to become a tyrannical dictator with Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Kanye West's assistance! We asked Davis about his band's new "Spike in My Veins" music video -- which is filled with clips of Miley and other pop culture phenoms -- and suddenly it was all aboard the crazy train. You gotta see it ... right in the middle of LAX, Davis spewed a theory about Obama using celeb scandals as a “distraction” ... while he screws us out of our freedoms. Por...

In May 2013, it was learned that from April 2010 to April 2012, the Internal Revenue Service had placed on hold the processing of applications for tax-exempt status that it had received from hundreds of organizations with such presumably conservative indicators as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” or “9/12” in their names. During that period, the IRS approved only four applications from conservative groups while green-lighting applications from several dozen organizations whose names included the likely left-leaning terms “Progressive,” “Progress,” “Liberal,” or “Equality.” In February 2014, it was further learned that of the already-existing nonprofits that were flagged for IRS surveillance (including...

When I look at the unmitigated disaster that has been the Obama Error, I have trouble deciding which one of Chairman Obama's crimes against the Republic is the most heinous. There's so much to choose from, it's like a buffet of evil. The NSA is reading your email as you read this column. The United States military was used to put the Muslim Brotherhood in control of Libya without any CONgressional approval whatsoever. Obamacareless has changed its appearance more times than a chameleon on LSD. And we could go on an on, with one outrage after another that would have...

You'll recall that our president recently opined that the IRS targeting scandal contained "not even a smidgen" of corruption. He's also asserted that the wrongdoing was not motivated by politics, recycling the thoroughly debunked excuse that it all just amounted to some "bone-headed" decisions "out of a local office." In fact, it was a coordinated campaign of abuse and harassment managed by officials at IRS headquarters in Washington, DC. New allegations from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee indicate that in addition to wildly disproportionately singling out, slow-rolling, and denying right-leaning organizations seeking tax-free status, the IRS...

Just when I think I am beyond the reach of shock, I come across some new revelation that makes my head rotate. Disturbing enough was WND’s breakthrough discovery that the liberal, Soros-funded Urban Institute has an officially sanctioned role in the vetting of nonprofits that seek tax-exempt status through the IRS. Almost equally disturbing is the revelation that the vice chairwoman of the Urban Institute Board of Trustees is none other than Jamie Gorelick. How does this lady manage it? In her most recent public outing, Gorelick represented BP in the Gulf oil mess – not the first disaster with...

Today Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, confirmed that 100% of the established 501(c)(4) groups the IRS selected for audit were conservative. But Obama says their was not a smidgen of corruption in the IRS. The Wall Street Journal reported: A Republican House committee chairman said the Internal Revenue Service targeted tax-exempt conservative groups for audits, widening the scope of GOP ire over the agency’s oversight of political activities. House Democrats pushed back, saying Republicans were seeking to use the IRS controversy to score political points with their conservative base in an election...

This 7 minute video should be an inspiration to all and a reminder of just how important this year's elections are.

**SNIP** Eight months later, the probe has shown few public signs of progress, and many of the tea party victims say they still haven’t heard from the FBI or Justice Department lawyers. House Republicans said they were concerned about the direction of the probe, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican and a subcommittee chairman on the House oversight committee, asked Ms. Bosserman to testify at a hearing next week. The GOP has identified her as the lead lawyer on the investigation, and they have questioned her role, given her history as a significant political donor to President Obama’s 2008 and...

He knew. The liberal New York Times reported today that Governor Chris Christie knew about the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge when they were happening. The New York Times reported: The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge in the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Friday that the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening. In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing...

So if you think that Malik Obama, president Obama’s brother dons a Hamas scarf for sentimental reasons only, think again. The evidence he materially supports Hamas financially is another reason to begin to consider this man’s terror links. As Executive Secretary of the Islamic Da’wa Organization, Malik helps to lead an organization that collects funds and sends them directly to Hamas; this can be found on several Islamic websites...

David Remnick of The New Yorker showed up on PBS’s Charlie Rose Monday night to discuss his long, mostly sympathetic profile of Barack Obama from the January 27 issue of the magazine. Near the end of the interview, Rose focused in on the president’s reported desire to be “big.” The host wondered, “[W]hat's his definition of 'big,' and does he believe in his deep recesses of his own mind that the chance of that has slipped away?” Remnick replied that no, Obama does not think his chance of being “big” has slipped away. The editor then rattled off a laundry...

During the 2012 presidential campaign, somehow each and every Republican presidential contender had a sink thrown at him (or her) via what reporters call "investigative journalism." Every time a Republican rose in the polls, the media tried to knock him or her down, like a game of Whac-A-Mole. The very last man standing was Mitt Romney, who didn't receive the official "Gotcha!" from The Washington Post until May, with a 5,000-word opus on "Teenage Haircutgate." That's why it's so strange the national media would decide so early it was time for journalistic carpet bombing of the Great Squishy Northeastern Hope...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn't plan to file criminal charges over the Internal Revenue Service's heightened scrutiny of conservative groups, according to law-enforcement officials, a move that likely will only intensify debate over the politically charged scandal. The officials said investigators didn't find the kind of political bias or "enemy hunting" that would amount to a violation of criminal law. Instead, what emerged during the probe was evidence of a mismanaged bureaucracy...