Posted on 06/25/2014 5:29:07 AM PDT by SJackson
The Mounting Proof of an IRS Cover-Up
Posted By Matthew Vadum On June 25, 2014 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 10 Comments
More proof the Obama administration is covering up the political persecution it inflicted on its conservative political enemies through the Internal Revenue Service emerged yesterday as a federal official accused the White House of breaking the law by hiding emails.
Whenever the records, including emails, of federal agencies are destroyed — whether intentional or inadvertent — the law requires that the National Archives be notified. But that did not happen when the computer hard drives of a former IRS official and six of her IRS subordinates allegedly crashed in 2011, destroying records of emails now at the heart of a congressional corruption probe.
“They did not follow the law,” Archivist of the United States David Ferriero said of the IRS during testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
It has also been revealed that the IRS suspiciously backed out of a circa 2005 contract with an email storage contractor named Sonasoft mere weeks after Lerner reported losing personal files and before other IRS officials allegedly experienced hard drive crashes as the Tea Party-targeting investigations got underway.
As Investor’s Business Daily explains,
Timing is everything, the saying goes, and sometimes the timing of events is also very curious, as in the case of the lost emails of Lerner and at least six other officials at the very same time the IRS canceled its contract to back up and preserve those emails as required by federal law.
Lerner’s computer supposedly crashed in June 2011, an alleged event the IRS concealed from the American public and congressional investigators for two years.
This event, which cannot be verified because her hard drive has since been destroyed and recycled, occurred just 10 days after House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp first wrote a letter asking if the IRS was engaging in targeting of nonprofit groups.
Sonasoft runs ads stating the company provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” In a 2009 tweet it bragged: “The IRS uses Sonasoft to back up their servers, why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?”
Why not — indeed.
Under hyper-partisan, left-wing Democrat Lois Lerner, the tax-exempt organizations branch singled out for harassment the heroic Catherine Engelbrecht, leader of the Houston-based good government group True the Vote. Earlier this year the IRS revoked the charitable status of Manassas, Va.-based Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, because it disseminated criticism of Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry a decade ago. In recent years the federal agency also subjected conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status to heightened scrutiny, harassment, and extended processing delays that may have hindered their activities during the previous election cycle.
It is the latest outrage from the Obama administration which has been on a vindictive rampage in recent years, using the feared tax collection agency to vex and annoy its political enemies, especially those associated with the Tea Party movement.
Republicans say the White House has been less than helpful in efforts to investigate the IRS scandal. “They haven’t done a damn thing to get to the truth of what happened,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said yesterday.
The hearing yesterday followed a previous hearing the night before at which lawmakers unloaded on the increasingly arrogant IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, questioning him aggressively. The normally mild-mannered Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) excoriated Koskinen for his bad attitude in testifying before the congressional panel. On Friday Koskinen set the stage for conflict. He angered lawmakers when he told them at that hearing that the IRS had nothing to apologize for in the missing Lerner emails scandal.
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told Koskinen a Monday hearing: “We have a problem with you and you have a problem with credibility.”
At a hearing yesterday, Koskinen told Issa that he had honored his vow to the panel to give it all of Lerner’s emails, adding it is impossible to recover the emails lost in 2011.
“If you have a magical way for me to do that, I’d be happy to hear about it,” a sarcastic Koskinen told Issa.
“I’ve lost my patience with you,” Issa shot back.
Yesterday’s hearing came as the IRS admitted it illegally provided the confidential tax return of the National Organization for Marriage to that group’s left-wing arch-enemy, the Human Rights Campaign, which favors same-sex marriage. The IRS has agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to NOM. Unauthorized disclosure of confidential tax information is a felony that can lead to a five-year term of imprisonment, but Eric Holder’s Justice Department never got around to filing criminal charges in the case.
“We’re delighted that the IRS has now been held accountable for the illegal disclosure of our list of major donors from our tax return,” said NOM Chairman John D. Eastman. “We urge other groups that have suffered similar problems with the IRS to keep pressing until they, too, are fully vindicated.”
The egregious IRS leak allowed the HRC in February 2012 to post online NOM’s 2008 tax return and the names and contact information of NOM’s major donors, including Mitt Romney who became the Republican presidential nominee later that year. Making that normally confidential information public allowed progressive activists to harass and intimidate NOM’s donors, just as they had done in the wake of California’s Proposition 8 that affirmed traditional marriage in 2008. The most prominent victim of leftist venom was former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, who was forced out of his post because he dared to donate $1,000 to the “pro” traditional marriage side in the Prop 8 battle.
Left-wing activists call this kind of in-your-face harassment “accountability,” an Orwellian euphemism to be sure. Accountability actions focus on harassing and intimidating political enemies, disrupting their activities, and forcing them to waste resources dealing with activists’ provocations. It is a tactic of radical community organizers, open borders fanatics, and union goons. Taking a cue from Herbert Marcuse, they want to shut down, humiliate, and silence those who fail to genuflect before their policy agenda.
Even worse, it is fair to say that under President Obama, the IRS has become a de facto branch of the Democratic National Committee, launching partisan attacks on those who stand in the way of the Left’s agenda.
Surpassed only by the knowledge that nothing will be done about it.
Just add the IRS scandal to the list of other Obama scandals that will prompt no action. The DOJ is corrupt to the core and the GOP leadership doesn’t have the cujones to do anything.
We definitely need an Alex Butterfield moment, but that would mean that someone in the democrat party knew and actually cared about the difference between truth and perjury.
I call this the "Marion Berry" effect. It could also be the Jesse Jackson Jr. effect or the Kwame Kilpatrick effect. The idea is that today's voters don't care if the government is corrupt as long as they think the government is on their side and benefits them.
While he worked for Nixon, I haven’t a clue about his political affiliation. Or a John Dean moment. There was a time when public servants, even partisans, might act in the nations interest. Rather than political or self interest. Cyrus Vance wasn’t a favorite of mine, but I respect his resignation as Carter’s SOS. I’d like to think those people exist on the right. I’ve no confidence they exist in todays Democrat party. It’s all about power, and only power. I hope to be proven wrong, only takes a single Butterfield, or Dean, or Vance to do that. But I’m not holding my breath. A sad state we’re in.
I think you’re wrong, but I wouldn’t risk $10.00 on it.
I've read suggestions that the House (and Senate) Sergeant at Arms might well have police powers beyond the immediate vicinity of the House, based on it's history in English common law, a history that extends back to Rome. I've been told that in the face of Justices refusal to enforce the law, the SAA could enforce the contempt citation against Lois Lerner, or our esteemed Attorney General. Don't know if the House has a jail, The likelihood of the House testing this is zero. But it is possible.
Not going to happen, unless the House recruits it's Sergeant at Arms from the military. With legitimate enforcement power. Not a court in the nation you can treat with contempt without looking at the world through bars.
IIRC, the SAA can arrest for contempt and the person can be held throughout that Congressional session.
At a minimum, I would do that. And keep repeating it session by session.
I'm fed up with these teaser's that someone is in "trouble"...OHHHMYYY....
It's all B.S.
The political class in this country are now the untouchables.....
BTW, the last call for the mace by the SAA, 1994, in an attempt to silence Maxine Waters who was abusing Peter King. A Democrat at the Chair made the call. Some things never change. The SAA didn't smack her with the mace.
I suppose, but that would require both houses and a Presidential signature. Losing proposition. If possible, they’re be no need for Congressional courts.
That is too funny. Spray mace would be nice.
Bump
Interesting read.
There is. It's called impeachment in the House, and conviction in the Senate with the Chief Justice presiding.
Now, on the matter of the will to do that, others at FR has suggested that we have moved away from a three co-equal branches system to a two-party system. This means that checks and balances between the branches no longer work, because party loyalty decides who is guilty and who is not at any given moment.
What is criminal today is not criminal tomorrow, depending on whose party is in control. The three branches are no longer relevant.
-PJ
Thanks, that’s kind of what I’ve been told. It makes perfect sense, if a court can imprison someone held in contempt, Congress can. Obama would love this power for himself. She should have been escorted from the cameras to whatever detention facility they have in the basement. Writ of habeas, go for it. If the detention is illegitimate she should be free, and if not, let some liberal judge attempt to rule the courts don’t have the power to enforce contempt.
See the last few posts with xzins. There are options, though through disuse, not likely to be used. Less clear than impeachment, but that gets used every century or so. Congress, in this case the House, does have options.
With the people’s legislature, I’m not sure the rules followed by the judicial system or the judiciary would apply.
I agree, though. Contempt of Congress couple with refusal to cooperate SHOULD result in arrest by the house of Congress so offended.
It's not about the Judiciary, but about which party nominated the judge who overturns a proper state law.
It's not about the abuse of power, but about the party that is abusing it that gets the MSM interested.
It's not about Congressional oversight, but about the party in the majority and its appetite for overseeing its own.
-PJ
The leftist Dems absolutely believe in man-made global warming, and they have complete confidence and trust in the IRS.
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