Free Republic

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that he isn’t sure how many times he’s seized reporters’ records. “I’m not sure how many of those cases … I have actually signed off on,” Holder said in an interview with NPR’s Carrie Johnson. “I take them very seriously. I know that I have refused to sign a few [and] pushed a few back for modifications.” Holder’s answer serves as confirmation that the Justice Department’s secret seizure of The Associated Press’s phone records is not an isolated incident. Though the decision to subpoena information from media organizations normally falls to Holder, he insists...

The scandal involving IRS discrimination against conservative groups is growing. In one case LifeNews has profiled, a pro-life group was told it had to promote abortion. Now, the Thomas More Society is speaking out about blatant bias by the supposedly apolitical tax-collection agency. The pro-life legal group informed LifeNews today that cases it handled support mounting accusations that demonstrate the agency’s abuse of pro-life organizations, in addition to those identified as ‘tea party’, ‘patriot’, or ‘government spending’ groups. Outrage spurred by recent revelations of IRS discrimination against these groups has also led the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to...

One of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign co-chairmen used a leaked document from the IRS to attack GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the 2012 election, according to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). NOM, a pro-traditional marriage organization, claims the IRS leaked their 2008 confidential financial documents to the rival Human Rights Campaign. Those NOM documents were published on the Huffington Post on March 30, 2012. At that time, Joe Solmonese, a left-wing activist and Huffington Post contributor, was the president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Solmonese was also a 2012 Obama campaign co-chairman. Both the Huffington Post's...

(snip) Speaker of the House John Boehner (R – OH) stated at the weekly GOP leaders press conference that Americans needed “accountability from their government.” However, some Democrats are doubling down on the issue. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – NV) told reporters on Tuesday that some conservative organizations, like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, deserve to be scrutinized. (snip) Congressman Alan Grayson (D – FL) told Breitbart News he thinks the “Koch brothers have abused the system by setting up 501c3’s that are doing political activity,” arguing, “It doesn’t make any sense to look for something on the other...

Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) repeatedly pressed the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-exempt status of specific conservative nonprofit organizations in letters to then-IRS commissioner Doug Shulman and director Lois Lerner in 2012.

As Twitchy reported yesterday, Drudge editor Joseph Curl teased that a CIA source says “still one more shoe to drop” for the Obama administration. Sheesh! The administration can open a Zappos soon. Today, he reminds citizens to keep their eyes on the ball: The White House knows Benghazi is devastating. Curl explains why:

The White House says Mr. Obama only learned of the IRS political abuses from news reports. Funny, that's also how they learned about the Justice Department seeking the phone records of the Associated Press. And who knows what the State Department or "the intelligence community" was up to on Benghazi. The Washington Examiner's David Freddoso joked on Twitter that "Seal Team 6 is the only govt agency that acts directly on Obama's behalf." All others are run by career officials who keep screwing up. Your "independent" government at work.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called on President Barack Obama on Tuesday to make available for questioning everyone who knew about the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, and demanded "no more stonewalling." With Congress preparing to hold hearings on the IRS's holding conservative groups to extra scrutiny, McConnell said he was "calling on the president to make available, completely and without restriction, everyone who can answer the questions we have as to what was going on at the IRS, who knew about it, and how high it went."

The Justice Department is obligated to investigate leaks that could endanger national security, but the secret seizure of Associated Press telephone records – called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" by the news organization – is unusual, according to two former attorneys general. *snip* Mark Corallo, chief spokesman for another Bush attorney general, John Ashcroft, called the secret probe "unprecedented." "The normal course of business is very narrow and very tailored to a particular individual’s phone records," said Corallo, who served for three years as director of public affairs under Ashcroft. "The idea that they would do two months – grab...

In a fiery exchange during Tuesday’s White House press briefing, one reporter pointedly asked Press Secretary Jay Carney how he could be “categorically certain” that no one from the White House was involved in the IRS targeting conservative groups.Carney stumbled when asked whether he was basing his claims on assumptions. “I can tell you that … I am not aware of anyone here knowing about it.”

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that he's ordered a Justice Department probe into an IRS program that singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status. Holder announced the investigation during a press conference in Washington. He said the FBI was coordinating with the Department of Justice to see if any laws were broken. He called the practice "outrageous and unacceptable," echoing remarks from President Obama a day earlier. The probe comes as newly obtained documents show the current IRS chief knew about the agency's targeting of Tea Party groups as...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican governors are urging President Barack Obama to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Internal Revenue Service’s admission that it targeted conservative political groups. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker call the allegations “Big Brother come to life.” They want a special prosecutor to find out if any laws were broken and say Obama should fire any IRS employees responsible for the situation................

It may not be the only case, or even the most pressing case, in need of an independent investigation, but there’s little doubt the targeting of White House opponents by the IRS needs a lot more sunlight than the Obama administration has thus far provided. Republican Governors Association chair Bobby Jindal and vice-chair Scott Walker demanded a special prosecutor to start an investigation of the expanding scandal: Two Republican governors are urging President Barack Obama to appoint aspecial prosecutor to investigate the Internal Revenue Service’s admission that it targetedconservative political groups.Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker call...

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus believes Attorney General Eric Holder should resign for tapping the phones of the Associated Press, calling the move a violation of the First Amendment. Here is his statement: “Freedom of the press is an essential right in a free society. The First Amendment doesn’t request the federal government to respect it; it demands it. Attorney General Eric Holder, in permitting the Justice Department to issue secret subpoenas to spy on Associated Press reporters, has trampled on the First Amendment and failed in his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. Because Attorney General Holder has so egregiously...

The evolving by the hour IRS scandal, in which the tax agency targeted conservative groups for examination and harassment, as detailed by the Washington Post, cries out for not only an investigation, but legislation. To be sure an investigation and the punishment of those responsible for politically motivated examinations and audits must happen. But the fact that the IRS did these things at all stems from the fact that someone wanted to target conservative organizations and perhaps people and, thanks to the existence of the IRS, they could. This therefore argues for an overhaul of the tax code that would...

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) told Breitbart News he thinks Attorney General Eric Holder needs a refresher course on the U.S. Constitution in the wake of reports that the Department of Justice secretly obtained two months of the Associated Press's phone records. Gosar expressed concerns that President Barack Obama’s “enemies list” continues to grow, especially in light of revelations that the IRS targeted conservative and Tea Party organizations. “On one hand, I am encouraged to hear that the Attorney General obtained warrants first. Score one for the Fourth Amendment,” Gosar said in an email. “But I remain concerned about the First...

Reporters across The Associated Press are outraged over the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of staff phone records - and they say such an intrusion could chill their relationships with confidential sources. In conversations with POLITICO on Tuesday, several AP staffers in Washington, D.C., described feelings of anger and frustration with the DOJ and with the Obama administration in general.

Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who have reportedly given a combined $10 million to Winning Our Future, the super PAC that supports and is run by former staffers of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, were drawn to him by a shared view of the importance of the U.S. relationship to Israel. But a review of public records by Sunlight suggests that the couple, who appears to be the former House speaker's most generous political patrons pending the filing of Winning Our Future's first complete financial disclosures later this month with the Federal Election Commission, have considerable...

(CNSNews.com) - The Internal Revenue Service has given no indication to the House Ways and Means Committee about whether it will respond to the committee’s demand, delivered in writing last Friday, that the agency hand over copies of all internal communications containing the words “tea party,” “patriot,” or “conservative” and the names and titles of all IRS officials involved in discriminating against tea party and conservative groups when they submitted applications for tax-exempt status.