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 Commissions general counsels office appear to have twice colluded to influence the record before the FECs 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 agencys 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 IRSs 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 Funds response, the FEC general counsels office which is prohibited under law from conducting an investigation into an organization before the FECs six commissioners have voted to do so contacted Lerner to investigate the agencys tax-exempt status.
The FEC general counsels office, in its recommendation on the case, apparently didnt tell the agencys commissioners about how it had obtained the information about the groups tax-exempt status. Recommending that the commissioners prosecute the American Future Fund, the general counsels 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 AFFs 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 counsels 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 counsels 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 Funds 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 Funds 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 counsels office, the six FEC commissioners split on whether to pursue the American Future Funds 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.
If you were getting ready to board an aircraft and found out Lois Lerner would also be a passenger, would you still get on?
EPA? Notice they're coming down hard on energy-producing states populated mostly by conservatives? Same with the FDA and farm country.
There has been a concerted effort to crush political opposition on the part of the progs for some time now.....and they guys that are supposed to represent US have remained mostly silent on the subject.
Anyone want to put any money on whether or not the GOPe will manage to grow a pair THIS time, or if they'll continue to cower in the corner while the foundation of the country...the productive People... are undermined?
This is big.
All of the IRS revelations have been big. We have known for months. Yet the beltway GOP has steadfastly refused to engage the Obama Admin/White House on the IRS issue.
Nothing will happen with Boehner’s stooge Dave Camp running the “investigation”. Sorry. Boehner doesn’t intend to do anything about it except flap his gums until Nov 2014.
Yeah. .on second thought it is big but it won’t matter in Washington.
Cynicism seems justified in this era.
“Lerner should be in jail right now”
And Obama should be facing impeachment. Don’t forget,
the republicans were in on it by keeping their mouth
shut about it. They wanted Romney. There are republicans
who have just as much to fear from the TEA Party as
the tards.
I have said this many a time, but we need our own press.
And I’m not talking about Fair and Balanced Fox News.
I want a blatantly partisan conservative TV news network!
Lois Lerner at the FEC
Before her IRS tenure, Lerner subjected conservative groups to heightened scrutiny.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/349181/lois-lerner-fec-eliana-johnson
“why aren’t the conservative media Rush, Levin, Savage , here,Palin, Hannity, Fox , drudge etc shouting this from the rooftops?”
Maybe they have been compromised. There’s been a few
mystery deaths lately. Maybe they fear for their lives.
Maybe that’s why all these scandals are breaking in
foreign media.
not even a sitting president who does not legally qualify to hold the office and all in DC know it and yet do all they can to avoid the issue??
most definitely a need...
Only if I were first in line to beat the living hell out of her.
Why they aren’t screaming from rooftops may possibly be found by reading the comments section in reply to this piece at The Corner. It may actually be legal ..
Aside from some typical partisan bickering there’s some legal points made that are over my head but may possibly be legit.
Will leave it to smarter brains than mine ..watch and wait.
She’s getting to be a liability. I’d have serious doubts about that aircraft arriving at it’s intended destination.
“steadfastly refused to engage the Obama Admin/White House on the IRS issue”
Maybe they are getting something out of it. Maybe they see it as getting the GOPe enemies whacked and all they need to do is nothing to make it happen.
Or they benefit in some other way.
Whoever higher-up than Lerner should also be in jail right now. Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s leading senior advisers, is a prime suspect in all this....
At the direction of Lois Lerner, the Federal Election Commission sued the Christian Coalition in the 1990s. She harassed the Christian Coalition for three election cycles. She lost her case. Lerner even asked one conservative during the case if Pat Robertson prayed over him. (Sound familiar?)
These actions landed her at the IRS where she used the same tactics against conservatives and Christians only on a much larger scale. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS during her tenure. For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications. (Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
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Lerner began her Congressional testimony by reading a self-serving statement, then declared that shed answer no questions. Cong Trey Gowdy objected, insisting that once you start yapping in your own interest, youre not allowed to clam up again. Gowdy knows more than anyone---we are dealing w/ practiced con artists---the logic of established law does not work w/ these cons. Trey needs to grill Lerner about this:
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OBAMA ADMINISTRATION APPROVES 50 MILLION DOLLARS IN AID TO KENYA. O'S HALF BRO READY TO CASH IN---RUNS THE TAX-EXEMPT "DO-GOOD" OBAMA FOUNDATION
NAMED FOR DEAR OLD DAD The tax-exempt charity named in honor of their Dad, is run by President Barack Obamas half-brother Malik.
The tax-exempt Obama foundation, fast-tracked by Lerner for IRS tax-exempt status, is based at a Virginia UPS store, according to its website. The organizations IRS filings list another Virginia address that is actually a drug rehab center where the foundation does not appear ever to have been based.
As first reported by The Daily Caller, the foundation was speedily approved for IRS exemption by Lois Lerner, the self-same IRS senior official at the center of the targeting of conservative organizations that have waited over two years to receive tax exempt status. The IRS thoughtfully gave Obama Foundation retroactive fund-raising status.......which it stupidly never applied for.
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The tax-exempt Barack H. Obama Foundation is run by Abongo Roy Malik Obama, the half-brother of Barack Obama. The foundations mission statement is to provide people everywhere with resources to uplift their welfare and living standards in memory of dad---Barack H. Obama: in the region of his birth, Kenya, and beyond. Its guiding principle is the inherent belief that no one can truly enjoy the riches he has reaped if his neighbor suffers....."We seek to elevate the human condition so that everyone can live in dignity and truly enjoy having one another as neighbors.
(same old, same old sap-happy do-goodniks)
Despite raising more than $250,000, the alleged charity doesnt seem to have done much. Its website claims the organization has built a madrassa and was building an imams house as well as some proposed latrines, but there is no other evidence that the nonprofit was working to mitigate social-shortcomings in areas of education and literacy, health and well-being, poverty, and lack of community infrastructure in such basic needs such as water, electricity, shelter and sustenance, as the site says.
Alton Ray Baysden, a former Dept of State employee, allegedly a registered Republican, who helped start the Barack H Obama foundation, declined to comment before seeing copies of a reporters passport and govt ID, along with a description of the articles motivation and slant.
Repeated reporters' phone calls went to the organizations voicemail and were not returned.
Obama's half-brother Malik holds up photo of Obama in Muslim
dress taken on a trip to Kenya when Ohaha was about 23-24 yo.
Great post!
Not to Godwin the discussion, but most of what Nazi Germany did was “legal”.
That didn’t make it right.
You might be surprised what a conservative news agency similar
To AP could achieve. Journalist are under time restraints. They take the easy route and use whatever is written for them. Liberals understand this and use it to their advantage.
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