Posted on 07/31/2013 4:47:38 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
Embattled Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner and an attorney in the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office appear to have twice colluded to influence the record before the FEC’s vote in the case of a conservative non-profit organization, according to e-mails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee and obtained exclusively by National Review Online. The correspondence suggests the discrimination of conservative groups extended beyond the IRS and into the FEC, where an attorney from the agency’s enforcement division in at least one case sought and received tax information about the status of a conservative group, the American Future Fund, before recommending that the commission prosecute it for violations of campaign-finance law. Lerner, the former head of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division, worked at the FEC from 1986 to 1995, and was known for aggressive investigation of conservative groups during her tenure there, too.
“Several months ago . . . I spoke with you about the American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization that had submitted an exemption application the IRS [sic],” the FEC attorney wrote Lerner in February 2009. The FEC, which polices violations of campaign-finance laws, is not exempted under Rule 6103, which prohibits the IRS from sharing confidential taxpayer information, but the e-mail indicates Lerner provided that information nonetheless: “When we spoke last July, you had told us that the American Future Fund had not received an exemption letter from the IRS,” the FEC attorney wrote.
The timing of the correspondence between Lerner and the FEC suggests the FEC attorney sought information from the IRS in order to influence an upcoming vote by the six FEC commissioners. The FEC received a complaint in March 2008 from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party alleging that the American Future Fund had violated campaign-finance law by engaging in political advocacy without registering as a political-action committee. The American Future Fund responded to that complaint in June 2008, telling the commission that it had applied for tax exemption in March of that year and was a “501(c)(4) social-welfare organization that was organized to provide Americans with a conservative and free-market viewpoint and mechanism to communicate and advocate on the issues that most interest and concern them.” According to the e-mail correspondence, a month after receiving the American Future Fund’s response, the FEC general counsel’s office — which is prohibited under law from conducting an investigation into an organization before the FEC’s six commissioners have voted to do so — contacted Lerner to investigate the agency’s tax-exempt status.
The FEC general counsel’s office, in its recommendation on the case, apparently didn’t tell the agency’s commissioners about how it had obtained the information about the group’s tax-exempt status. Recommending that the commissioners prosecute the American Future Fund, the general counsel’s office wrote, “According to its response, AFF submitted an application for tax-exempt status to the Internal Revenue Service . . . on March 18, 2008.” The footnote to that sentence reads, “The IRS has not yet issued a determination letter regarding AFF’s application for exempt status. Based on the information from the response and the IRS website, it is likely that the application is still under review.” In fact, an FEC lawyer knew that the organization had yet to obtain tax-exempt status because Lerner provided the confidential information.
The general counsel’s report was issued in September 2008, but it was over five months before the six FEC commissioners voted, in late-February 2009, on whether to prosecute the American Future Fund for violations of campaign-finance laws. (The typical lag time between the submission of a general counsel’s recommendation and a commission vote is about a month, according to a source familiar with the workings of the commission.) As the vote approached, on February 3, 2009, the FEC lawyer went back to Lerner for an update on the status of the American Future Fund’s application. “Could you please tell me whether the IRS has since issued an exemption letter to the American Future Fund? Also if the IRS has granted American Future Fund’s exemption, would it be possible for you to send me the publicly available information and documents related to American Future Fund?”
Despite the recommendations of the general counsel’s office, the six FEC commissioners split on whether to pursue the American Future Fund’s case and voted six-to-zero to close the case.
House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp and ranking member Charles Boustany are calling on the IRS, in the wake of these revelations, to provide all communications between the agency and the FEC between 2008 and 2012. “The American public is entitled to know whether the IRS is inappropriately sharing their confidential tax information with other agencies,” Camp and Boustany write in a letter they will send to acting IRS administrator Danny Werfel on Wednesday.
The FEC enforcement attorney also inquired about the tax-exempt status of another conservative organization, the American Issues Project. “I was also wondering if you could tell me whether the IRS had issued an exemption letter to a group called the American Issues Project? The group also appears to be the successor of two other organizations, Citizens for the Republic and Avenger, Inc.” Also sought were “any information and documents that would be publicly available in relation to the American Issues Project, Citizens for the Republic, or Avenger, Inc.”
"...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;""I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"--The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786
"First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians..."
--Martin Luther, "On the Jews and Their Lies"
Hm, that's funny: I never ascribed infallibility to Luther. But here's what Jesus said should be done:
From Luke 6:Now, since you are trying to equate Luther (whom I never claimed infallible) with Christianity, reconcile to his statements these words of Jesus.
27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
29 And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.
30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
[Now, since you are trying to equate Luther (whom I never claimed infallible) with Christianity,]
Luther equated Luther with Christianity, super-genius - and he no more represented those words attributed to Jesus than vociferous gas-bags like you and the pharisees did or do.
FAIL, NO SALE.
>>Hm, that’s funny: I never ascribed infallibility to Luther.
Nobody said you did.
Got any more straw?
Apparently you need me to flat-out say it: Luther was fallible, I don't believe his sentiment to be indicative of the church in general. This is to say, I believe him to be wrong here.
and he no more represented those words attributed to Jesus than vociferous gas-bags like you and the pharisees did or do.
Ah, so I'm a gas-bag? Why do you say this?
Then why are you making the argument with the implication built in?
I believe you are producing enough strawmen here.
LOL. You’re confused, and evidently lack the reading comprehension skills to see when two of your quotes are responded to separately in a single post.
And every keystroke you make further illustrates Jefferson’s point.
I think I’ll just pray for you instead.
>>This is to say, I believe him to be wrong here.
Well evidently the “christian” folks who took Luther’s words to heart and reiterated that sentiment in Mein Kampf (and der sheeple who acted upon those thoughts) believed otherwise.
This is to say, your regurgitive parroting is irrelevant and emasculated by the historical record.
And many, many of the people who helped Jews escape the Holocaust were Christian.
From this article:
Also within a year of the Nazis taking power, The Twenty-Five Theses of the German Religion, a conscious modeling of the twenty-five points of the Nazi program, was published in Germany. Thesis XV of that Nazi publication states:Without a fallen world there is no need of a savior, and that destroys the necessity of a savior."The Ethic of the German Religion condemns all belief in inherited sin, as well as the Jewish-Christian teaching of a fallen world. Such a teaching is not only non-Germanic and non-German, it is immoral and nonreligious. Whoever preaches this menaces the morality of the people."
There is no way that the NAZI philosophy is Christian.
>>You know not of what you speak.
See, there you go again - illustrating Jefferson’s point.
Your selective memory and wishful thinking cannot unexist the impact Luther’s “christianity” had upon leading the fiery-minded McSheeple into building MeinKampf’s fiery ovens.
FAIL
So what you're saying is that even if there's a christian who says/does something stupid, and others use that to try to justify their own actions, that's Christianity's fault?
That's moronic.
Seriously moronic.
Stupid, agenda driven, and so ridiculously wrong it hurts to read your posts. They are really that stupid. Go back to the pit you came from.
No super-genius, that’s Religion’s fault.
Except that the religion in question, Christianity, says the exact opposite.
Your argument would be like saying that because she's a Republican she's a lying, double-dealing, socialist, statist just like Romney, because he's a republican too. — actually, this one makes even more sense than your moronic drivel because they directly share party-affiliation.
[Except that the religion in question, Christianity, says the exact opposite.]
Whose version exactly — Yours, Luther’s, Vernon Howell’s, Jose Smith’s?
Or maybe one of the more original implementations documented by Albert Pike & Co.... in the temple 1 mile North of the White Hut.
http://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=bbbf6ab58350d459&q=morals+and+dogma+pdf
NO SALE
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