Free Republic

Four hundred sixty nine different plaintiffs in two class-action lawsuits over Obama-era IRS harassment settled with the Department of Justice Thursday, bringing to a close a dark chapter in the IRS’s history. In 2010 and 2011, the IRS under Lois Lerner, particularly out of the Cincinnati field office, launched what many contended were politically motivated investigations and audits of “Tea Party” and other conservative groups. While no criminal prosecutions ever resulted, hundreds of victims assembled in class-action lawsuits against the federal government. Attorney General Sessions appears to have largely acknowledged the plaintiffs’ claims. In a DOJ press release on the...

The Justice Department says it will not prosecute former IRS executive Lois Lerner for targeting conservative groups during the 2010 and 2012 elections. In a letter to top Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, Assistant Attorney General Kevin Brady said that after a careful review of the case, DOJ will not pursue charges against Lerner, who oversaw the IRS division that reviewed tax exempt organizations. “After this process, the Department determined that reopening the investigation would not be appropriate based on the available evidence,” Boyd wrote Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the chairman of the House Ways and Means...

The Trump administration has no plans to charge former IRS official Lois Lerner over her role in the Tea Party targeting scandal, the Justice Department said Friday in response to calls by Republican lawmakers to revisit the case. In a letter to the lawmakers, the Justice Department said that "reopening the criminal investigation would not be appropriate based on the available evidence." This past April, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., had asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to take a "fresh look" at the case. Despite numerous hearings and inquiries into the...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the IRS to name the specific employees the agency blames for targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny and said the government must prove it has ceased the targeting. Judge Reggie B. Walton also said the IRS must explain the reasons for the delays for 38 groups that are part of a lawsuit in the District of Columbia, where they are still looking for a full accounting of their treatment. Judge - Walton - Round - Discovery - Case Judge Walton approved another round of limited discovery in the case and laid out six...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the IRS to name the specific employees the agency blames for targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny and said the government must prove it has ceased the targeting. Judge Reggie B. Walton also said the IRS must explain the reasons for the delays for 38 groups that are part of a lawsuit in the District of Columbia, where they are still looking for a full accounting of their treatment. Judge Walton approved another round of limited discovery in the case and laid out six questions that the IRS must answer, including the employees’...

Judicial Watch Launches New Election Integrity Lawsuit IRS Records Missing Court Update: Weiner Laptop Documents Uncovered Judicial Watch Launches New Election Integrity Lawsuit This week saw the first official meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity , which is under attack from leftists who want to preserve the ability to steal elections. Also this week, your Judicial Watch filed a new lawsuit that could serve to get key information about the integrity of election rolls in Maryland (one of the states “resisting” inquiries from the Advisory Commission on Election Integrity). We filed the lawsuit simply to gain...

The IRS manager most directly responsible for the targeting of tea party groups has demanded that her deposition for an upcoiming class action lawsuit related to the scandal be kept secret. Lois Lerner, former head of the tax exempt department at the IRS, claims that she has received death threats in the past and fears that publicity surrounding her deposition will lead to similar threats. Washington Times: Mr. Lerner and Holly Paz, another figure from the IRS tea party targeting, told the judge they’ve already faced “harassment and death threats” before, and said they fear another media firestorm if their...

I wonder what part of “serves at the pleasure of the President” the loonie left doesn’t understand.But if they insist on “cause” as the standard let’s start with these: The Tsarnaev bothers: Despite being warned by the Russians (Russia! Russia! Russia!) and despite the fact that the FBI secretly flagged at least one of the “Boston Marathon bombers” as a terrorist threat in his immigration records, (despite publicly denying it had done so). This designation existed right up to the time the bombs went off at Boylston St. on April 15, 2013. Mistakes were made - under someone else’s watch,...

In a major victory in the ongoing Lois Lerner scandal at the IRS, non-profit election integrity organization True the Vote defeated an IRS motion to quash discovery in True the Vote v. IRS. The ruling means that everyone involved in the scandal could be compelled to submit every document related to the case and be deposed by True the Vote's legal team.From their press release: Judge Reggie Walton of U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia just issued a critical order in True the Vote v. IRS case. The order compels the IRS to submit to discovery and...

Embattled ex-IRS executive Lois Lerner was in federal court last week, asking a judge to seal her forthcoming deposition due to the inflammatory nature of her testimony. Lerner told the judge that if her actions at the IRS were to become public knowledge, she could face death threats from angry Americans – particularly those on the conservative side of the spectrum. Lerner is well-known for her role in the IRS’s partisan targeting of Tea Party groups; under the Obama administration, the IRS singled out nonprofit groups with conservative, Tea Party-ish style names for extra scrutiny. Many of their cases lingered...

Pressing U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to pursue criminal charges against former IRS nonprofits chief Lois Lerner. Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill are pressing U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to pursue criminal charges against former IRS nonprofits chief Lois Lerner. Lerner, whose title was IRS Exempt Organizations Division Director, orchestrated an unprecedented crackdown on Tea Party and conservative groups and then attempted to scapegoat those nonprofits, blaming them for the harsh treatment they received at her instigation.

After Obama administration refused to review IRS conduct, Republicans request fresh look at evidenceHouse Republicans Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) and Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas) wrote a letter to the Department of Justice urging the agency to investigate evidence regarding Lois Lerner's misconduct in the IRS targeting scandal after the Obama administration refused to hold anyone accountable. The IRS began targeting conservative and tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status based on their political ideology in 2010 and delayed their approval before the 2012 presidential election. Some groups are still waiting for their status to be approved. Lois Lerner,...

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) went on with Stewart Varney on Thursday morning to discuss recent developments on Capitol Hill.   Roskam told Stewart House Republicans are planning of filing criminal charges against Lois Lerner.     Rep. Roskam: The Obama Administration was very lenient with the crimes that Lois Lerner committed. And those are strong words that I’m using but the House Ways and Means Committee voted out a criminal referral to the Department of Justice which was completely dismissed by the Department of Justice… We think that Lois Lerner did two things wrong. Number one, she denied people...

A Washington-based government watchdog is warning President Trump to “clean house at the IRS as quickly as possible” – or, better yet, eliminate the “corrupt” agency altogether. The Internal Revenue Service admitted to a federal court Wednesday that it has identified nearly 7,000 documents that contain information concerning how the agency targeted tax-exempt applications of conservative political organizations. IRS commissioner John Koskinen has insisted since the scandal broke in 2013 that the agency had cooperated completely in the investigation of its targeting of conservative groups. Now, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the IRS revealed it has...

Full Title : New Documents Reveal Top Obama IRS Official Admitted Cincinnati Office Targeted Groups Based on ‘Guilt by Association’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained 1593 pages of new documents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including notes from a 2011 interoffice meeting revealing a top IRS official admitted that Cincinnati office agents were targeting organizations requesting tax exempt status based on “guilt by association” and “party affiliation.” According to former IRS Director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements Holly Paz, “they think they know what the org is really doing, rather than...

The federal government requires structural reform. Because it is very expensive and time-consuming to fire anyone, bad behavior is not just tolerated but propagated. Civil Service protections originally intended to guard against a politicized bureaucracy have now become guarantors of the high-handedness and lack of accountability we saw with Lois Lerner, now retired with a six-figure pension after pleading the Fifth Amendment. Government employee unions have become a mainstay of the Democratic Party, with employee dues, harvested from taxpayers via salaries, laundered into the party’s coffers. So the Democrats will fight like hell, up to and including a filibuster, mass...

New FBI IRS Scandal Documents: Obama IRS Waited Years to Tell the Truth Obama Donor/DOJ Prosecutor Compromised Integrity of IRS Scandal InquiryBreaking the Law is an Obama Administration Policy New FBI IRS Scandal Documents: Obama IRS Waited Years to Tell the Truth Following up on some mega disclosures last week, this week we released 105 pages of newly obtained FBI “302” documents revealing that, beginning in 2010 and lasting through the Obama reelection campaign in 2012, the IRS orchestrated a deliberate policy of burying conservative groups’ tax exemption applications in bureaucratic delays. Interviews with numerous Cincinnati IRS employees in...

New Revelations in Obama IRS ScandalHillary Clinton Keeps Changing Her Story Obama’s Trip To Climate Conference Cost Taxpayers $4,165,068.40 Heroic Judicial Watch Client Sues against Federal Agents Violation of Constitutional Rights New Revelations in Obama IRS Scandal This week we revealed to the public more about the IRS’ historic abuse of power. We released 294 pages of FBI documents showing that top IRS officials in Washington, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting “Tea Party” and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public. Lerner was director of...

CHICAGO Friday, July 29, 2016 Lerner-led IRS investigation didn't deter West Suburban Patriots WASHINGTON - Thursday, the legal group Liberty Counsel released FBI investigation findings that the IRS - while being led by the former IRS Chairman Lois Lerner - began intensifying their efforts against conservative groups with a Tea Party or Patriot connection in 2011. That meant that when a question was planted from the audience at a 2013 conference, the IRS' strategy to discourage the Tea Party movement had been in place for two years. West Suburban Patriots was among several Illinois groups that began getting questions from...

The Left, once the champion of civil liberties, is today orchestrating a coordinated campaign to bully Americans out of free speech. For nearly 40 years, Washington and much of the American public have held up disclosure and campaign finance laws as ideals, and the path to cleaner and freer elections. Yet, as Kimberley Strassel argues and details through first-hand accounts, both campaign finance are disclosure reform have been hijacked as weapons against free speech and free association, becoming one of the most powerful tools of those intent on silencing their political opposition. Through scare tactics and overreach, harassment of conservative...