Free Republic

Politico scored a journalistic coup with its exclusive 2014 profile on Lois Lerner, the former IRS official at the center of the agency's targeting of conservative groups. But a former Illinois lawmaker who said Politico contacted him repeatedly that year with questions regarding claims he was targeted by Lerner in the mid-1990s has been left wondering why the news group chose to ignore his documented dealings with the former federal official. "I was shocked," Al Salvi told the Washington Examiner's media desk, describing what he characterizes as several "lengthy" interviews with Politico reporter Rachael Bade. Lerner went after his 1996...

Scandal: Before his 2010 letter urging the IRS to target conservatives, the Senate majority whip's 1996 campaign benefited from the targeting of his opponent by a Federal Election Commission official with a familiar name. Perhaps not surprisingly, the IRS scandal may have its roots in Illinois politics with the 1996 targeting of Illinois conservative Al Salvi by a familiar name, Lois Lerner, then head of the Enforcement Division of the Federal Elections Commission. That year, Democrat U.S. Rep. Dick Durbin and Republican State Rep. Al Salvi were locked in a battle for the U.S. Senate seat Durbin would eventually win....

Because he posed a threat to Dick Durbin’s US Senate election in 1996, Illinois Republican Al Salvi was threatened by a United States government official. That official was Lois Lerner and she was using her position as a representative of the Federal Election Commission. In the course of her FEC inquisition of Salvi for alleged election law violations, Lerner made a statement that amounts to extortion. Following the Chicago way, Durbin made a series of FEC complaints against Salvi and Lerner took the point in handling his case. According to Salvi, at one point Lerner made an offer to him...

Salvi vs. Obama? Wednesday, July 21, 2004 By The Leader-Chicago Bureau CHICAGO -- Chicago Public Radio is reporting that Al Salvi is telling colleagues he is rested and ready for another run at the U.S. Senate. According to reporter Carlos Hernandez-Gomez, the former state representative and 1996 GOP U.S. Senate nominee is waiting for State Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) to make his decision before going public. Gomez reports that Salvi will commit $1 million of his personal fortune to 'jump-start' his campaign. Reports have been swirling for days that Salvi has been in contact with national level politicos, including Speaker...