Free Republic

As millions of Americans race to meet Tuesday’s tax deadline, their chances of getting audited are lower than they have been in years. Budget cuts and new responsibilities are straining the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to police tax returns. This year, the IRS will have fewer agents auditing returns than at any time since at least the 1980s. Taxpayer services are suffering, too, with millions of phone calls to the IRS going unanswered. “We keep going after the people who look like the worst of the bad guys,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in an interview. “But there are going...

Catherine Engelbrecht became the face of the IRS scandal with her riveting testimony before Congress on how her group True the Vote was targeted by the IRS for selective persecution and harassment. Recently, it was discovered that Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings had a hand in the IRS targeting True the Vote. You might remember Cummings as the grandstanding Democrat who railed against Darrell Issa’s investigation of the scandal after a Congressional hearing with IRS official Lois Lerner had closed (and then implied that Issa was racist): Further making the situation ironic and unsightly for justice-avoiding Democrats is that emails show...

Wind Shield radar to be carried into enemy territory, track the sources of incoming rocket, missile and mortar fire.

The U.S. House Oversight Committee today released emails between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Democrat Minority Leader Elijah Cummings of the same committee detailing joint attempts to collect non-public information from True the Vote. According to the release obtained by Breitbart Texas, House Oversight offered glimpses into coordinated fishing attempts for information: Five days after Cummings contacted True the Vote seeking “copies of all training materials used for volunteers, affiliates, or other entities,” the IRS sent True the Vote a letter requesting True the Vote provide “a copy of [True the Vote’s] volunteer registration form,” “…the process you use...

Lois Lerner, who was director of the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations Division, used her position in the IRS to deny conservative groups their constitutionally protected rights to due process and equal protection of the law, the House Ways and Means committee alleged today in what the committee called a “criminal referral letter” sent to Attorney General Eric Holder. The letter presents information the committee says “tends to show intentional wrongdoing, including targeting specific taxpayer groups for adverse treatment, making misleading statements to law enforcement, and the possible disclosure of confidential taxpayer information.” …

The House Ways and Means Committee has voted to 23-14 along party lines to refer former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner to the Justice Department for prosecution. Although the details about exactly what charges will be have not yet been released, lawmakers are arguing Lerner has not been truthful with Congress or the IRS inspector general and leaked confidential tax information. Last time a referral like this happened, it was to Major League Baseball player Roger Clemens, who was pursued by the Department of Justice for lying to Congress but was exonerated in court....

Over the past few days, we have received a lot of questions and seen a great number of media stories about the events surrounding Brendan Eich’s resignation from the role of CEO. Many of the media stories have incorrect facts, so we compiled the following FAQ as a resource for everyone to have access to the core facts. Here is the announcement on Brendan Eich stepping down as Mozilla CEO.

It could take years for Congressional committees to get all the documents demanded about the IRS scandal under mandatory subpoenas, IRS’ new Commissioner John Koskinen testified. The new IRS Commissioner displayed the slippery style of a snake-oil salesman while testifying March 26 before Congressman Darrell Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government. Koskinen’s excuses were especially surprising because similar demands for documents are imposed upon private companies all the time by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Your author has worked as a lawyer on teams responding to such massive governmental document requests. Any time there is...

This may come as a shock to Lois Lerner, but the House of Representatives has the authority to jail her unless she changes her mind about refusing to answer questions about her role in the IRS scandal. Essentially, what is required for that to happen is for a House majority to vote for a motion holding her in contempt and House Speaker John Boehner to then direct the House sergeant at arms to arrest and confine her. Under the Constitution, the House can do that under its “inherent contempt” authority, which was initially exercised in 1795 during the First Congress...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Internal Revenue Service told House Republicans on Wednesday that it would take years to provide all the documents they have subpoenaed in their probe of how the agency handled tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status. The comments by IRS chief John Koskinen drew a frosty response from Republicans who run the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, one of several congressional panels investigating the controversy. The panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned him he should comply with the request "or potentially be held in contempt" of Congress, a sometimes threatened but...

Jim Jordan wants to know what the White House knew about the IRS targeting scandal, and when they knew it-- as if we didn’t know. The conservative Representative from Ohio has penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the activities of the IRS and, more specifically Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who is at the center of the controversy. Jordan essentially is saying where there is smoke there is fire, and oh yeah, where there’s fire, there is fire too. “Emails and testimony that we confronted Ms. Lerner with showed her...

March 14, 2014 Issa pens scathing letter to Cummings as IRS feud escalates Chad Pergram Republican Rep. Darrell Issa has penned a personal, scathing letter to his Democratic counterpart on the House oversight committee, escalating the public feud between the two high-ranking lawmakers amid the committee's investigation into IRS targeting. The letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on that committee, was obtained by Fox News. In it, Issa countered, point by point, a series of claims that Cummings and two legal experts made earlier this week about whether former IRS official Lois Lerner could be held in contempt...

--SNIP-- The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings, said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner that Republicans have already botched any plans they might have for contempt actions against Lerner, who headed an IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. Cummings, citing opinions from two legal experts and “Supreme Court case law,” said Republicans cannot pursue contempt charges against Lerner because of how the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, abruptly adjourned a hearing with the former official last week. The letter said Issa “failed to take the basic — but Constitutionally required — steps necessary to hold...

We now know that Obama Administration actions were intentional and partisan when the Internal Revenue Service targeted, harmed, and intimidated conservative and tea party organizations. Keep in mind the timetable while reading this – that the plot against conservatives inside the IRS was gearing up in March 2010 and in full force in September 2010, according to recently released Lois Lerner emails. Also keep in mind that Lois Lerner previously worked enforcement at the Federal Election Commission. The Obama Administration offered excuses that disparate treatment of conservatives was a result of confusion or accidental mishandling by lower-level staff. Yet these...

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...