Posted on 10/26/2017 8:20:35 AM PDT by Rockitz
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 settlement, he said:
[I]t is now clear that during the last Administration, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to screen applications for 501(c) status. These criteria included names such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” or “9/12” or policy positions concerning government spending or taxes, education of the public to “make America a better place to live,” or statements criticizing how the country was being run. It is also clear these criteria disproportionately impacted conservative groups.
As a result of these criteria, the IRS transferred hundreds of applications to a specifically designated group of IRS agents for additional levels of review, questioning and delay. In many instances, the IRS then requested highly sensitive information from applicants, such as donor information, that was not needed to make a determination of tax-exempt status.
In March of last year, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit criticized the Obama DOJ for its handling of the case, writing, “In this lawsuit the IRS has only compounded the conduct that gave rise to it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
That would make her over qualified. She gave her views on ISIS and was 100% correct. The Republicans then threw her out of office. Now Trump is getting rid of some of those pubbies. I would love to see her as IRS Commissioner.
Until these scoundrels are incarcerated our justice system will be made a mockery.
Hopefully the settlement doesn’t preclude the aggrieved from individually perusing a civil suit against Lois Lerner. I’m not a lawyer, but I do think Lerner would be able to get DOJ/FBI representation in a civil suit, but no financial help in payment of claims. And civil suits only requires a 51% bar of guilt.
Is Lois Lerner still walking the streets collecting a Federal Pension?
Why?
When I hear the word “settle” in regards to a crime that has been committed, I immediately equate that to the victim being paid off in order to avoid justice being served.
Sessions said no reasonable prosecutor would pursue this case, or something like that.
The settlement should include commercials purchased by the its explaining to the public why the settlement was made.
The House wanted to vote impeachment before the last election but Ryan wouldn't allow it.
You remember the names of the (ir)responsible Commissioners?
Douglas Shulman, a Bush holdover, from 2008-2012,
and acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, "from whom Douglas Shulman found out about the inappropriate criteria." Names that have disappeared.
What choice did they have? Lerner had already been given a walk.
Because these scoundrels are not incarcerated our justice system has been made a mockery.
Fixed it for you.
At the very least, the b*tch belongs in prison. What she and the Kenyan Administration did was much more than a tax on tea.
no criminal prosecutions ever resulted, hundreds of victims
That’s our Big Gubby!!! They take a hit.. and take another hit..
WE are the recipient of those hits.
Apparently, victimhood does not apply to those on the Right seeking to exercise their rights.
Redress? None.
“DOJ Settles with Tea Party Groups on Lois Lerner IRS Scandal”
These Tea Party groups were trying to start up before the 2012 election.
Lois Lerner IRS was trying to throw an election by trying to keep these groups from forming, from assembling, and from distributing their information freedom of press.
Lois Lerner IRS and those around her should be thrown in jail for:
1) throwing the 2012 election
2) keeping groups from freedom of assembly
3) keeping groups from freedom of press
I hope there is a way that they can go after Lois Lerner personally. I’m sure she was operating independent of IRS policy, which should open her up to civil liability. Please dear God, let there be justice with respect to this evil woman.
I hope so too.
THe Tea Party groups had to agree to it, with a sympathetic Sessions.
What choice did they have? Lerner had already been given a walk.
You are CORRECT for the time that she was acting within the IRS. She retired in September of 2013 and Koskinen took over as Commissioner the following December. However he does bear responsibility for the gross failures of the IRS to comply with Congressional subpoenas and the FOIA requests from Judicial Watch and others in the years following. It is also factual, I believe, that even in the years following the disclosure by Ms Learner of the biased requirements that targeted conservative groups, the Commissioner testified multiple times to Congress that the actions and bad actors were being corrected, when in actuality, they continued.
The sad, very sad fact is this, the IRS is deeply sullied by the exposure of this scandal. The power to tax IS the power to destroy and every time it is shown that such actions occur, it is the absolute duty for the Commissioner to show action on correcting the problem. Koskinen has and is reacting like the bureaucrat, circle the wagons and defend against the heathen. He bears not the prime guilt but he is stained by it nonetheless!
Lerner philosophically was\is a hard core leftist. She didn’t & doesn’t need to take direction from anyone to go after or put conservatives\Republicans at a disadvantage. She demonstrated this when was a government employee at the FEC - she blatantly partisanly entered into some issue regarding a GOP opponent to Durbin. She has routinely showed political favoritism for years and no one ever took her to task for it. I am sure when she got to the IRS she thought her anticonservative\antiGOP crusade could continue.
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