Free Republic

"I don't think an apology is owed" -IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Note well the smirk on the face of the IRS Commissioner during this hearing. That smirk was on display all hearing long especially when he said no apology was owed to anyone because, well, they have lost anything in the last few months. Can we use that excuse during an audit? Today's hearing about the IRS scandal told us one thing for sure. The IRS and this Administration is hiding something. The IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has long tried to do the "I know nutting!" song and dance...

Contrary to the White Houses explanation that a few rogue agents in Cincinnati lead the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS, newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch detail Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) pressuring the IRS to target conservative groups. On March 30, 2012 Levin wrote to then IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman about his concern with the political activity by conservative nonprofits. “Some entities claiming tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations under 26 U.S.C.&501(c)(4) appear to be engaged in political activities more appropriate for political organizations claiming tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C.&527. Because of the urgency of...

"I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors." - Barack Obama Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisconover/2012/10/12/presidential-debates-highlight-what-the-health-care-debate-already-revealed/

The dam protecting the IRS scandal began to crack today when Lois Lerner, the IRS official who announced, and apologized for, the improper singling out of conservative-leaning organizations by IRS employees under her command, announced through her criminal defense lawyer that she will not testify as scheduled tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee. Rather, she will assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. This marks a milestone in the IRS investigation. It can now be taken as more or less established that crimes were committed by Obama administration employees. LernerÂ’s lawyer tried to minimize the significance of her invoking the...

In a sign of liberal panic, NPR's Diane Rehm Show spent its first hour Monday questioning President Obama's management style. As their website elaborated on the Healthcare.gov fiasco and the NSA spying on world leaders, "the latest embarrassments have even some of the president’s supporters questioning his management style." To insure that their comments weren't too upsetting to Obama-loving NPR listeners, several journalists -- Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and David Gergen of CNN -- insisted the Obama administration has been "relatively scandal-free" in its operations: MARCUS: This is not a scandal in the traditional sense of scandal. And...

Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010. In fact, applications were declining, data show. Top IRS officials have been saying that a “significant increase” in applications from advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status spurred its Cincinnati office in 2010 to filter those requests by using such politically loaded phrases as “Tea Party,” “patriots,” and “9/12.” Both Steven Miller, the agency’s acting commissioner until he stepped down Wednesday, and Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s exempt-organization division, have said over...

When the FBI finally fires up its criminal investigation of the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, there is one person the special agent in charge better be sure to interview — former White House Counsel Robert Bauer. The FBI may discover the whole IRS mess leads through the land of campaign finance “reform” and an obsession with speech regulation, an obsession shared by Bauer. Any criminal investigation identifies for further scrutiny those with motive, opportunity, and means, and Bauer deserves no quarter from FBI investigators on those three counts. The Crimes Without any doubt, crimes were committed by IRS...

Two Southern California offices were named Tuesday in an Internal Revenue Services scandal where offices singled out Tea Party organizations during the 2012 election. Offices in El Monte and Laguna Niguel came under fire after allegedly targeting conservative social welfare groups with the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their names in the national scandal. IRS officials sent questionnaires to the groups, probing about their donor lists and requesting other information after the groups filed for tax exempt status.

Ever since its spontaneous inception, the Tea Party has been doing their Paul Revere thing with respect to warning citizens about the danger of too big, out-of-control government. So, in a move designed, seemingly, to prove their point, the IRS’ responded by implementing a program designed to harass and intimidate individuals and groups that looked anything like a tea party. Alinsky rule # 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. That sounds a lot...

Under pressure to show who's boss, President Obama called a press conference late Wednesday to say he was “angry” that the IRS singled out conservative groups for extra vetting and to announce that the agency’s acting commissioner had been forced out. "Its inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives." [Snip] Obama's former deputy press secretary, Bill...

Who knew that I would be a victim of the oppressive attacks of the IRS on people of conservative values and Christian faith. But I have, and it is a personal stinging reminder of how terribly close we are to losing all of our freedoms. Like many readers of my column, I have been watching accelerated attacks against Constitutional government, free speech, free markets, freedom of religion - you name it, we have lost much over the last few years. Even so, I wasn't expecting that I would be caught up in the latest scandal to rock the Obama Administration....

The top Republican on one of the House committees investigating the IRS targeting scandal reacted furiously late Wednesday to a report that ex-IRS official Lois Lerner's hard drive had been recycled, making it likely that many emails sent to and from Lerner prior to the summer of 2011 will never be recovered. The Politico report cited two anonymous sources, as well as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who confirmed that the Senate Finance Committee had been told that the hard drive had been discarded. "If the IRS truly got rid of evidence in a way that violated the Federal Records Act...

Obama will not complete his 2nd term as President. First, for Obama’s repeated lies, coverup and abandonment of two heroic Navy Seals, leaving both to die on the Benghazi battlefield on 9/11/2012, while the liberal media openly carried his YouTube video water for eight months. During last week’s House hearings, the mainstream media was shamed and embarrassed before the entire world, exposed as being lazy, partisan and incurious. The Obama-fawning media was highlighted as being unwilling to honestly report to their fellow citizens. Secondly, the 60-day electronic DOJ surveillance blanket thrown over the Associated Press, monitoring 100 reporter’s work and...

White House corruptionBy Katie PavlichPublished: Thursday, May 1, 2014 8:55 p.m. There are two major scandals that will taint President Barack Obama's legacy: Benghazi and the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS. When both of these scandals came to light, senior Obama administration officials, out of habit, immediately blamed everything and everyone outside the White House. But as we move forward with lawsuits and demands for answers, the White House walls are starting to cave in. This week, an email obtained by Judicial Watch revealed White House communications adviser Ben Rhodes as the architect of then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's...

Via the Examiner and NRO, a few more credible, confidence-inspiring breadcrumbs from this morning’s Ways and Means hearing. It’s starting to make sense now why protesting Planned Parenthood might present a risk to your tax-exempt status, isn’t it?The second clip is of Miller saying that he did indeed ask his underlings who was targeting conservative groups, and they told him, but now he can’t remember the answer. Really. The disdain this guy harbors for the proceedings is palpable, but that’s probably in his best interest: The more antagonistic he is, the more liberal support he’ll have when the administration inevitably...

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Sunday that the IRS´ admission of targeting various conservative groups for extra scrutiny was "absolutely chilling," and she called on President Barack Obama to apologize. "This is truly outrageous and it contributes to the profound distrust that the American people have in government," Collins said on CNN´s "State of the Union." "It is absolutely chilling that the IRS was singling out conservative groups for extra review, and I think it´s very disappointing that the president hasn´t personally condemned this and spoken out." The Alabama Democratic Party:

IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane said in transcribed congressional testimony that more IRS officials experienced computer crashes, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20,” and also said that the agency does not know if the lost emails are still backed up somewhere. The new round of computer crash victims includes David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens.

The Obama appointee implicated in congressional testimony in the IRS targeting scandal met with President Obama in the White House two days before offering his colleagues a new set of advice on how to scrutinize tea party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was named in House Oversight testimony by retiring IRS agent Carter Hull as one of his supervisors in the improper targeting of conservative groups, met with Obama in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 23, 2012. Wilkins’ boss, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, met with Obama on April...

The President is currently mired in three major scandals. We all know about Benghazi and the IRS Scandal. The third involves the Justice Department secretly obtaining the phone records of journalists at the Associated Press, allegedly for the purposes of discovering a whistleblower. The White House of course has directed the media to the Justice Department, who will no doubt either refuse to comment or send the press back to the White House. This is an issue that won’t go away, largely because the press has a vested interest in protecting their sources. How can we have a free press...

On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) told Candy Crowley that the IRS scandal involving targeting of conservatives had been “solved.” Crowley asked, “As far as you are concerned, based on the information that you now have, which in its totality is greater than ours, is this case over, have you solved the case of the IRS and how this came to be?” Cummings answered, “Based upon everything I’ve seen, the case is solved. If it were me, I’d wrap this case up and move on.” Cummings added that he would release transcripts of IRS...