...I hope this isn't us
Posted on 06/06/2013 7:30:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
How might you feel if you had performed, with your bosses’ permission and direction, a project that they later blamed on you and publicly denounced as a rogue operation?
That’s the situation in which some employees of the Cincinnati’s IRS office find themselves. The IRS and the Obama administration have repeatedly said that low-level, “rogue” employees in Cincinnati were to blame for the agency’s inappropriate targeting of conservative groups, despite an array of evidence to the contrary. As a result, those Cincinnati employees are understandably miffed.
Several IRS employees in the Cincinnati field office acknowledge in recent interviews with the House Oversight Committee that they’re not happy with the excuse.
“I still hear people saying we were low-level employees, so we were lower than dirt, according to people in D.C.,” one employee told the committee. “So, take it for what it is. They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.” The same employee, when asked about former acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller’s claim that the scandal was the result of two “rogue” agents’ “overly aggressive” handling of conservative nonprofit cases, said that explanation was “impossible.”
“As an agent, we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen,” the employee said.
Another, more senior employee in the Cincinnati office said she was so fed up with “micromanagement” from IRS officials in Washington that she applied for another job in July 2010, several months after the targeting began. “It was the micromanagement,” the employee explained. “The subject area was extremely sensitive and it was something that I didn’t want to be associated with.”
The employee said she was aware of the “inappropriateness” of “not processing these applications [from conservative groups] fairly and timely” in 2010, and seemed baffled at the official explanations coming out of Washington. “I mean, rogue agent?” the employee said. “Even though I was taking all my direction from [the Exempt Organizations Technical Division in Washington, D.C.],” she said. “I didn’t want my name in the paper for being this rogue agent for a project I had no control over.”
An IRS employee in Cincinnati tells National Review Online there “absolutely” is anger in the Ohio office aimed at superiors in Washington — individuals such as Lois Lerner, the embattled director of Exempt Organizations who has been placed on administrative leave, and Holly Paz, the Rulings and Agreements director who donated $2,000 to Obama in 2008. Paz sat in on many of the inspector general’s interviews with Cincinnati employees, which could explain why they were reluctant to identify who ordered them to target conservatives.
Lerner, who recently invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and refused to testify before the House Oversight Committee, preemptively broke the news of the inspector general’s report on May 10, when she responded to a planted question from a D.C. tax lobbyist. Then, Lerner indicated that “our line people in Cincinnati” were responsible for the targeting, despite the fact that her signature appears on at least 15 official requests for information sent to conservative groups.
The IRS source says that employees are “especially” annoyed with Cindy Thomas, a manager in the determinations unit. “She’s a micromanager,” the source says. “She doesn’t defend her employees at all. She and Lois Lerner are — were — good buddies. [This is] part of the reason the [Treasury inspector general] labeled it gross mismanagement.”
Thomas’s name appears in a series of June 2011 e-mails obtained by the House Oversight Committee in which she and Paz discuss the handling of “tea party cases,” as well as Lerner’s interest in the matter. In one e-mail, Thomas asked employees in the Cincinnati office to explain the criteria being used to identify a “tea party case.” “Do the applications specify/state ‘tea party?’ If not, how do we know [the] applicant is involved with the tea party movement?” Thomas wrote, after being informed that Lerner wanted a “a briefing on these cases.”
The employees’ statements are yet another indication that the Obama administration has been, at best, misleading in its response to the IRS scandal. White House press secretary Jay Carney has, on several occasions, referred to the scandal as the “activity in Cincinnati” and “the apparent conduct by our IRS officials in Cincinnati.” However, even the audit report from Treasury inspector general J. Russell George explicitly discusses the involvement of the Washington-based EO Technical Unit in “reviewing” the information requests sent to conservative groups applying for nonprofit status.
The inspector general’s report cited “ineffective management” as a factor in the targeting scandal, but did not find direct evidence of political motivation or outside influence. However, the inspector general has repeatedly emphasized that many questions remain unanswered and that his findings are merely preliminary.
As Congress continues its investigation, the focus has shifted toward officials in Washington, including IRS chief counsel William J. Wilkins and his two deputies. With so many questions surrounding the scandal yet to be answered, the administration had better get its story straight — and so far, their claims of an isolated scandal haven’t squared with the facts.
— Andrew Stiles is a political reporter for National Review Online.
My heart bleeds for the IRS workers——————Not.
Orders or not they knew what they were doing was wrong.
RE: Orders or not they knew what they were doing was wrong.
Here’s an interesting question — Will the IRS employee simply following orders be liable for criminal prosecution? Should he be?
so far, their claims of an isolated scandal haven’t squared with the facts.
For anyone with a brain, their claims never will. There is no room for independent thought in a government bureaucracy, zip zero nada. When a lowly examiner has no room to deviate from policy, just transfer that reality to every job the IRS does.
What we HAVE is a rogue president.
Just following orders...
...I hope this isn't us
RE: Just following orders...
Next question — Will those simply following orders be made culpable?
Yes., unless they want to cut a deal to implicate higher ups.
“There is no room for independent thought in a government bureaucracy, zip zero nada. When a lowly examiner has no room to deviate from policy, just transfer that reality to every job the IRS does.”
I have to deal with the epa, and it’s eggs ackley the same there.
It seems to me they were acting as agents of a rogue administration. Maybe we should start referring to Obama as the Rogue-in-Chief.
THE TARGETING PAPER TRAIL BEGINS: Soon as they occupied the WH, Obama and the Chicago con artists (a) took control of the US Census; (b) Obama placed his COS Rahm Emanuel in control of the US Dept of the Treasury (the IRS).
THE DOTS CONNECT Obama told voters "Tea Parties were a threat to democracy." His mouthpiece, Valerie Jarrett, said the O Team "would not forget" which Americans did not worship Obama.
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THE SMOKING GUN---WSJ REPORT--On Jan 20, 2009 Timothy Geithner was appointed Obama's Secy of the Treasury. But within three weeks, the Obama White House tightened its grip on Treasury. Obama put his COS, Rahm Emanuel, in charge of Treasury---Rahm Emanuel's dual role was an unusual move.
When he got to Treasury, WH COS Rahm Emanuel was so involved in the inner workings of the Treasury that the phrase "Rahm wants it" had become an unofficial mantra among subservient govt staffers, prostrate in obeisance, scurrying to accede to Rahm's wishes, according to Treasury government officials. Reported by WSJ / 05/31/09
More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113406528875137.html
Yes, they should be but only if the person giving the orders receive a greater criminal punishment.
The arrogant, self-entitled Obamatons surely went ballistic. Does not take much imagination to know the WH con artists were thinking up demonic ways to stop the Tea Partiers who stood in their path.
SIGNIFICANT Remember that the Obamatons also took over the census. When Rahm Emanuel landed at Treasury, he had all the tools at his disposal to target individuals, tea parties, patriot groups, and so on.
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NOW HEAR THIS---CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND THE LOCAL MEDIA WITH THIS MESSAGE: All of the Treasury factotums doing Rahm's bidding need to be identified and brought before Congress to testify under oath. We need to know the specifics WRT Emanuel's activities at Treasury including dates and times when Emanuel consorted w/ the IRS.
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REFERENCE--WSJ REPORT--On Jan 20, 2009 Timothy Geithner was appointed Obama's Secy of the Treasury. But within three weeks, the obama White House tightened its grip on Treasury. Obama put his COS, Rahm Emanuel, in charge of Treasury--- Rahm Emanuel's dual role was an unusual move.
When he got to Treasury, White House COS Rahm Emanuel was so involved in the inner workings of the Treasury that the phrase "Rahm wants it" had become an unofficial mantra among subservient govt staffers, prostrate in obeisance, scurrying to accede to Rahm's wishes, according to Treasury government officials. Reported by WSJ / 05/31/09
More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113406528875137.html
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MOMENTS TO REMEMBER Obama was fond of saying "Tea Parties are a threat to democracy."
Valerie Jarrett ominously warned, they "would not forget" which Americans did not worship Obama.
FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324069104578527713122409302.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The Wall Street Journal reviewed transcripts of Congressional investigations, and puts the final nail in the coffin for the “low-level employees” dodge — and names at least one name:
Two Internal Revenue Service employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office told congressional investigators that IRS officials in Washington helped direct the probe of tea-party groups that began in 2010.
Transcripts of the interviews, viewed Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, appear to contradict earlier statements by top IRS officials, who have blamed lower-level workers in Cincinnati.
Elizabeth Hofacre said her office in Cincinnati sought help from IRS officials in the Washington unit that oversees tax-exempt organizations after she started getting the tea-party cases in April 2010. Ms. Hofacre said Carter Hull, an IRS lawyer in Washington, closely oversaw her work and suggested some of the questions asked applicants.
“I was essentially a front person, because I had no autonomy or no authority to act on [applications] without Carter Hull’s influence or input,” she said, according to the transcripts.
Mr. Hull could not be reached for comment.
Who is Carter Hull? Carol Platt Liebau takes a look at his biographical information, but that won’t tell us as much as his position with the IRS org chart. He’s prominent enough within the IRS to write its training materials, and apparently well-known enough in Cincinnati to be the go-to guy on drafting the intrusive and harassing questions asked of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
That would tend to indicate that the effort did not have its genesis among these employees. It’s probably rather rare that a low-level field agent would call Washington for legal advice without at least clearing the call with a supervisor first. And this, which has already been published, makes it look like the genesis of the effort didn’t happen in Cincinnati at all.
MORE FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
In his interview with congressional investigators, he said a local manager—whose name was redacted in the transcripts—asked him to find all the tea-party applications in the office’s files, both pending and closed. The manager asked him to use the phrase “tea party” to conduct the search.
Around the same time, the local manager “said Washington, D.C., wanted seven” cases, Mr. Muthert said in the transcript. That month, he said, he “batched up” seven of the cases for “EO Technical,” a unit of the Exempt Organizations Division in Washington, then headed by Ms. Lerner, according to his interview.
Around May of 2010, Mr. Muthert said, another local official asked him to locate a couple more applications to send to Washington. Over the next two months, Mr. Muthert said, he located about 40 tea-party cases after expanding his search to include the terms “patriot” and “9/12.”
___________________________
So, This strongly suggests that the idea started in Washington DC. That would explain why agents in Cincinnati would call Washington DC for legal advice on how to grill conservatives, too. None of this should be terribly surprising, either; bureaucracies don’t generate ideas from the bottom up but the top down.
Who gave Carter Hull his orders? What did he do with the knowledge that Cincinnati agents were targeting Tea Party groups on behalf of the IRS headquarters?
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.
Tell us who gave the orders or go to jail.
The “Rogue” agent lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Ryan your email is being scanned right now for your subversive comments. Expect the black helicoptors and drones within the hour.
I hope so. Let them all lose their jobs and pensions, pay fines and do jail time. Every employee in all the alphabet agencies need to see the proverbial hangings.
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