Free Republic

“They’ve been burned. They’ve been hammered. They’ve been bludgeoned,” George Washington University law professor Miriam Galston explains to the Washington Post. “They’re trying to survive.” In this heartbreaking discussion during this special time of year, the “they” are the poor, long-suffering folks . . . at the Internal Revenue Service. It is a terrible, too-long-ignored scandal, which should tear at the heartstrings of every American. “Years of conservative attacks on the Internal Revenue Service have greatly diminished the ability of agency regulators to oversee political activity by charities and other nonprofits . . .” posits the recently published Post analysis....

“They’ve been burned. They’ve been hammered. They’ve been bludgeoned,” George Washington University law professor Miriam Galston explains to the Washington Post. “They’re trying to survive.” In this heartbreaking discussion during this special time of year, the “they” are the poor, long-suffering folks . . . at the Internal Revenue Service. It is a terrible, too-long-ignored scandal, which should tear at the heartstrings of every American. “Years of conservative attacks on the Internal Revenue Service have greatly diminished the ability of agency regulators to oversee political activity by charities and other nonprofits . . .” posits the recently published Post analysis....

The weaponization of the IRS to suppress the organization of conservative nonprofits when the tea party movement was in full bloom, remains an open sore on our democratic political system. The weight of the most feared agency of the federal government was used to suppress a political movement. Despite the payment of millions of taxpayer dollars to groups that were prevented from getting their status approved because their politics were disagreeable to the incumbent president and his supporters in the federal bureaucracy, the damage cannot be undone, and the perpetrators have suffered no judicial consequences. Los Lerner, the point woman...

Well, isn’t that rich? Lois Lerner, who almost singlehandedly weaponized the IRS, turning into a bludgeon to be used against Tea Party and other groups in the 2012 reelection campaign of Barack Obama, now wants to be protected against threats and intimidation from the groups and people she helped threaten and intimidate: Former IRS official Lois Lerner and her deputy are asking a federal court to keep their testimonies in the Tea Party targeting case private forever, over fear of death threats and potential harm to their families if the documents go public. Lerner and her deputy Holly Paz filed...

Nancy Garcia, then-President of the Nevada County Tea Party in Northern California, wore a white sweater, a red Tea Party shirt, big glasses, and a plastic name tag as she introduced me as the evening’s guest speaker. She was standing in front of homemade signs featuring the Statue of Liberty and inspirational quotes as she introduced me to the mostly-senior crowd. It was 2013 and when Garcia -- my mother’s seventy-something year old best friend –invited me to say a few words in a meeting hall at the fairgrounds, I didn’t hesitate. “We’re so blessed to have one of the...

Former IRS official Lois Lerner wants her testimony on the Tea Party targeting scandal to be kept from the public's eyes. She fears for her life, both she and her deputy Holly Paz claimed in a motion filed last Thursday. “Whenever Mss. Lerner and Paz have been in the media spotlight, they have faced death threats and harassment,” the documents stated. “Returning Mss. Lerner and Paz to the media spotlight places them at risk, regardless of what they actually said in those depositions.” The documents also stated that: “Public exposure will put innocent bystanders, namely Mss. Lerner’s and Paz’s family...

Former IRS executive Lois G. Lerner told a federal court last week that members of her family, including “young children,” face death threats and a real risk of physical harm if her explanation of the tea party targeting scandal becomes public.... Ms. Lerner and Holly Paz, her deputy at the IRS, filed documents in court Thursday saying tapes and transcripts of depositions they gave in a court case this year must remain sealed in perpetuity, or else they could spur an enraged public to retaliate.

Agreement specifically blames Lois Lerner by name for failures The IRS admitted in court Wednesday that it wrongly targeted tea party and other conservative groups for intrusive scrutiny, placing specific blame on former senior executive Lois G. Lerner, and entered into a settlement designed to make sure that kind of political targeting never takes place again. The filing, made in federal court in Washington, D.C., amounts to a stunning apology from the Trump administration for actions taken under President Barack Obama, when hundreds of tea party and conservative groups were singled out for intrusive screening, forced to wait years for...

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,...