New #IRSscandal e-mails reveal a very paranoid Lois Lerner
“…can we put this off please?”
Since 2013, we have been investigating charges that the IRS deliberately targeted and discriminated against conservative organizations that applied for tax-exempt status. Now, watchdog group Judicial Watch has uncovered even more evidence that the Washington office had something to hide during the initial Congressional investigations.
Today’s document release by Judicial Watch includes evidence that then-IRS official Lois Lerner strongly objected to and attempted to prevent a visit by Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) Division Deputy Director Joseph H. Grant to the embattled Cincinnati office, which spent time “smack dab in the middle” of Congressional investigations into the IRS targeting of conservatives.
From Judicial Watch:
The newly released documents include an intense chain of emails in which Lerner pleads with Grant, who was a supervisor to her, to “put this [Grant’s planned visit to Cincinnati] off please” at the very time during which both the internal IRS watchdog and Congress were investigating whether the IRS had been inappropriately targeting conservative groups in the months leading up to the 2012 elections. The chain begins with an email from Lerner to Grant, apparently written in response to her learning of the Deputy Director’s planned visit to the Cincinnati office:
• April 4, 2012 – 4:41 PM – Lois Lerner to Joseph Grant:
We just gor an very extensive information request from Imraan [Imraan Khakoo, TE/GE official] –sure looks like op review material. I’m especially concerned that information about pipeline is being asked about … Add to that the fact tha cincinnati is smack dab in the middle of the c4 Congressional inqueries and is about to get a request from TIGTA on all of that, this is NOT a good time to be asking them for anything or to be talking to them about issue in their work. Everyone is stressed to the max and at their wits end, so can we put this off please? [Typos in originals]
• April 4, 2012 – 5:17 PM – Joseph Grant to Lois Lerner:
It is a visit, not an OP review … I am also interested in the questions Imraan sent to them. Some answers should be readily at hand. Others certainly won’t be … The questions just serve as a framework for a broader conversation about how things are going and what is on our respective minds.
• April 4, 2012 – 5:26 PM – Lois Lerner to Joseph Grant:
I get that–but timing would be bad if we have to go to Cincy now. So, I will assume we can go over this here as I get the information I’ve already asked for? Thanks.
Breathe, Lois, breathe!
Released documents show that Lerner knew just how burdensome information requests from tea party groups had become and confirm that since at least 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Steve Miller knew that the IRS was collecting donor information from applicant organizations—which Lerner later conceded was inappropriate.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton had strong words for these high-level officials, saying that,
“These new documents, withheld for years contrary to law, suggest that a top IRS official may have obstructed investigations into the IRS scandal. Even Lois Lerner objected to her boss’s travel to the infamous Cincinnati IRS office, falsely accused by Barack Obama as being solely responsible for the abuse of the First Amendment rights of his critics… These documents also show the IRS knew early on that it was abusing its authority and innocent Americans through burdensome information requests and improper collection of the names of donors to groups that threatened Obama’s reelection. This IRS scandal is just getting started. Obama’s cover up of his administration’s suppression of his political opposition continues to unravel.”
This latest batch of information is damning not only because it gives hard evidence to suggest that high-level officials attempted to repress free speech, but also because it confirms what we’ve suspected all along—that these people engaged in a shameless cover-up that went all the way up to the President himself.
As Fitton said, this scandal is just getting warmed up.
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Comments
“New #IRSscandal e-mails reveal a very paranoid Lois Lerner”
Now, see, you fundamental error here is that a mens rea is not at all like being “paranoid”.
The first is based on reality, which Sweet And Lois knew very well.
Jail. Now.
BILL O’REILLY: Okay. So you don’t recall seeing [Douglas] Shulman, because what some people are saying is that the IRS was used at a local level in Cincinnati, maybe other places to go after —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely wrong.
O’REILLY: How do you know that because we still don’t know what happened?
OBAMA: Bill, we do — that’s not what happened. Folks have again had multiple hearings on this. These kinds of things keep on surfacing in part because you and your TV station will promote them. But —
O’REILLY: But aren’t there some unanswered questions?
OBAMA: Bill, when you look at the stuff, there have been multiple hearings on it. What happened here was that you’ve got a 501(c)4 law people think is confusing. The folks did not know how to implement because it basically says —
O’REILLY: So you’re saying there was no corruption there at all.
OBAMA: That’s not what I’m saying.
O’REILLY: I want to know what you’re saying. You’re the leader of the country.
OBAMA: Absolutely.
O’REILLY: You’re saying no corruption, none?
OBAMA: There was some bone-headed decisions.
O’REILLY: Bone-headed decisions. But no mass corruption?
OBAMA: Not even mass corruption. Not even a smidgeon of corruption
Can you imagine the mass deletions, hard drive wipes, and shreddings that are going to be going on for the 6 months prior to Obama leaving office, especially if it looks like its going to be a Republican in the big chair in 2017?
You left out mass pardons!
I’m especially concerned that information about pipeline is being asked about….
What is ‘Pipeline?’
The Republicans in the House and Senate need to be flexing their muscles on this, and they need to be putting the IRS individuals in JAIL for their obstruction until they start spilling the information to Congress.
By the by: What happens to Eric Holder when he officially leaves the position of Attorney General and is no longer covered by his position in the Administration? He’s still officially in contempt of Congress. I wonder if the GOPe Leadership will have the balls to have the Sgt. at Arms go and get him and take Holder to the pokey until he answers for his deeds.
Agreed, that seems to imply that the Keystone XL issue may be dragged into this somehow. that seems to be the only pipeline issue that they could be discussing. That broadens the scope of the conspiracy quite a bit indeed.
Or they’re using “pipeline” as a synonym for “application processing queue.”
Occam’s Razor says you’re right.
Occam’s razor would indicate that you’re right except for one minor detail: we know that IRS was feeding unredacted data to Justice (in full violation of Federal Law).
I’m wondering if ‘pipeline’ is a data-stream on Conservatives to someone that Ms. Lerner doesn’t want to name, because he/she is an official inside the White House or Senior Staff.
Pension benefits earned during a criminal enterprise and conspiracy should be forfeit. I am a gubbamint employee with a pension coming and I support that – strip the liars, cheaters, and criminal conspirators and it loses it’s allure damn quickly
They actually don’t exist, under that scenario. What does exist is a recurring entry in the computer program that enters them on a log/ledger. But at best, the ledger only REPRESENTS the earned pension credit. At any time that the worker was not performing government duties, the worker cannot be earning a pension contribution. It gets a little murky when you are talking about salaried employees instead of hourly drones.
If I were a lowlife scumbag like Lerner, I’d be paranoid too ~
I’ve had an out-office manager try that with me one time.
I initiated a full audit of the finances, operations, and compliance of that office the next day.
The manager was terminated within the week, the entire staff was punted within the month, and we are seeking restitution from more than half of them.
Any executive who ignores those red-flags is in on it.
We’ve been waiting for you. What will it take to get you to run for 2016 POTUS?
Thin scholarship. It does in anyone who sallies forth relying on it.