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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) knew for months that Lois Lerner’s emails had been destroyed, even before the current IRS commissioner testified that his agency would produce all of them. The IRS knew as early as February 2014 that Lerner’s emails were missing, top lawmakers on the House Committee on Ways and Means confirmed Tuesday. The IRS had this knowledge nearly three months before IRS commissioner John Koskinen agreed at a hearing to turn over all of Lerner’s emails to the committee. Additionally, the IRS failed to deliver emails from six other IRS employees at the heart of the IRS...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed Friday that it cannot produce Lois Lerner’s emails to and from the White House and other administration departments due to a supposed computer crash. The IRS previously agreed to hand over all of the ex-IRS official’s emails from 2009 to 2011 to the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Dave Camp. But the IRS claimed Friday that it has Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS officials but it cannot produce emails to and from the Treasury and Justice Departments, the Federal Election Commission, or Democratic offices. The IRS’ computer crash may...

According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS has "lost" two years of emails belonging to former head of tax exempt organizations Lois Lerner. The IRS doesn't have a record of her emails to outside groups or government agencies from January 2009 through April 2011, conveniently encompassing some of the same time when tea party groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution. The IRS says the loss of emails is due to a "computer crash" and claims emails from or to Lerner from the White House, Democratic members of Congress, the Treasury Department, FEC...

The smoking gun in the IRS targeting scandal could be found in the Senate, one advocacy group says, pointing out a correspondence it believes pressured the tax agency to impose extra scrutiny on conservative groups as part of a Democratic election strategy in 2010 and 2012. The Center for Competitive Politics, which opposes campaign finance restrictions and other limits on political speech, filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics against nine Democratic senators, most notably Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois and Carl Levin of Michigan, for repeated lobbying of the IRS to probe conservative groups. It also...

The current presidential administration has engaged in so much outright thuggery it’s hard to keep track of. It has abused its power at every level and in every department possible, going after its political opponents with the full force of the federal government. The Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have uncovered emails that seem to indicate that the IRS was actively working with the Justice Department in the targeting of conservative groups.

Republicans on a House oversight panel say the Justice Department asked former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in 2010 to help them build criminal cases against nonprofit groups conducting political activity. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have requested an interview with Jack Smith, who heads the Justice Department's Public Integrity Unit, after a subordinate revealed the department meetings with Lerner in a closed-door interview. “The Justice Department convened a meeting with former IRS official Lois Lerner in October 2010 to discuss how the IRS could assist in the...

Sen. Ted Cruz went after FBI Director James Comey, who promised a year ago that the IRS investigation would be a very high priority. Yet today, as Comey sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he won’t answer whether a single person has been interviewed or, really, much else about the investigation, hiding behind the fact that it’s an ‘ongoing investigation’. What I like about this clip is the passion with which Cruz questions the FBI Director. He also hits back at Leahy, the committee chair, when he’s basically told to accept the witness’ non-answer. Cruz pretty much tells Leahy that...

Through months of Obama administration stonewalling, the redoubtable Judicial Watch perseveres in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, finally uncovering bombshell documents that have eluded several congressional investigations. For the second time in a matter of days, we find that standing oversight committees with competing subject-matter jurisdictions and limited attention spans are incapable of the grand-jury-style probe needed to get to the bottom of administration lawlessness. For that, in the absence of a scrupulous special prosecutor reasonably independent from the Obama Justice Department (not gonna happen), it becomes clear that a select committee will be necessary. Just two weeks ago,...

A tranche of new Internal Revenue Service e-mails refute the White House’s longtime defense of the agency’s actions in the IRS targeting scandal. The e-mails, uncovered by a Judicial Watch FOIA request, reveal there was direction coming from the Washington headquarters of the IRS and that the targeting of Tea Party groups was indeed political. The Washington Examiner‘s Mark Tapscott excerpts: In a July 2012 email, Holly Paz, who was then director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements division, asked IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky “to let Cindy and Sharon know how we have been handling Tea Party applications in...

The emails released by Judicial Watch showing that the IRS targeting of conservative groups was based in Washington also show that former IRS official Lois Lerner and others were getting direction from President Barack Obama's campaign, says Judicial Watch Director Chris Farrell. "It's very clear that she and the rest of the staff of the political operatives at the IRS are acting at the direction of people from the president's campaign," Farrell told J.D. Hayworth and John Bachman on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV. "There's a concerted effort to suppress the president's political opposition, and that doesn't just happen in...

New documents obtained by Washington watchdog Judicial Watch show that while the feds were directing the Internal Revenue Service’s campaign to target tea party and conservative groups, a key Democrat senator was pressing the federal agency to shut down political opposition to President Obama. The organization said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., exposed his intent to attack tea party and conservative organizations in a series of letters exchanged with the IRS. Levin, the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, and top IRS officials discussed how to target groups the senator claimed were “engaged in political activities.” In response to a...

Judicial Watch has released more documents indicating that the American public has been lied to about the IRS scandal. The entire “rogue agents in Cincinnati” story was an outright fabrication, and the targeting was specifically of groups critical of the administration in the lead -up to an election. One key email string from July 2012 confirms that IRS Tea Party scrutiny was directed from Washington, DC. On July 6, 2010, Holly Paz (the former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance) asks IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky “to let Cindy and Sharon know how...

The IRS’ Washington, D.C. headquarters targeted conservative groups in part due to pressure from Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, according to emails obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch and reviewed by The Daily Caller. Levin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ permanent subcommittee on investigations, wrote a March 30, 2012 letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman discussing the “urgency” of the issue of possible political activity by nonprofit applicants. Levin asked if the IRS was sending out additional information requests to applicant groups and citing an IRS rejection letter to a conservative group as an example of...

New documents obtained and released through a Judicial Watch lawsuit show the targeting of tea party and conservative groups came directly out of Washington D.C., not a rogue IRS office in Cincinnati. On July 6, 2012, former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance Holly Paz sent an email to IRS Attorney Steven Grodnitzky asking for an explanation of how tea party group applications were being handled. Grodnitzky responded by confirming the cases were being handled in Washington. "EOT is working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing...

Newly released internal Internal Revenue Service emails obtained by the group Judicial Watch document active direction by the federal tax agency's headquarters in targeting Tea Party and conservative nonprofit applicants during the 2010 and 2012 campaigns. In a July 2012 email, Holly Paz, who was then director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements division, asked IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky “to let Cindy and Sharon know how we have been handling Tea Party applications in the last few months.” Cindy Thomas is the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati, and Sharon Camarillo was a senior manager in...

Boehner: House won't arrest Lerner By Russell Berman - 05/11/14 10:53 AM EDT The House has held Lois Lerner in contempt, but it won’t use its power to place the former IRS official under arrest, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Sunday. Under a precedent affirmed by the Supreme Court, each chamber of Congress can authorize its sergeant-at-arms to detain individuals it holds in contempt. But Boehner said on "Fox News Sunday" that he has no interest in doing that with Lerner, whom the House last week voted to hold in contempt over her refusal to testify about her role...

May 8, 2014 3:23 PM IRS to Turn Over All Lerner E-Mails By Eliana Johnson Less than 24-hours after the House voted to hold disgraced Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress, the agency agreed to turn over all of Lerner’s e-mail and correspondence to a House panel investigating its targeting of conservative non-profit groups. “While it is good that we are finally getting these emails, it should never have taken this long,” Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp said in a statement, arguing that the e-mails are critical to his investigation. “The Committee will thoroughly...

Mark Levin spent his first 2 opening segments exposing the lies behind the attacks on the Tea Party by the Republican Establishment, noting in summary were it not for the tea party, Nancy Pelosi would still be Speaker of the House. But more than that, Levin explains why the Establishment is fighting so hard agains the Tea Party: These “Republican leaders” only want to be in the majority if they can control the people we send to Congress. Mitch McConnell does not want anymore Ted Cruzes or Mike Lees or anybody else who’s going to give him trouble. He wants...

When the IRS was targeting conservative groups seeking tax exempt status for special scrutiny, they demanded the list of donors supporting those groups in 17 cases. Despite assurances from the agency that the lists had been destroyed, a search requested by Congress revealed that at least 3 lists had survived. And of the donors on those lists, fully 10% of the individuals had been audited. The rate of audits for ordinary Americans is about 1%. Now, the House Ways and Means Oversight Committee is demanding that the Government AccoIRS intimidation on a whole other level.untability Office investigate the IRS to...

House Republicans find 10% of tea party donors audited by IRS Tells commissioner to come clean By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times - Updated: 10:10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 Despite assurances to the contrary, the IRS didn’t destroy all of the donor lists scooped up in its tea party targeting — and a check of those lists reveals that the tax agency audited 10 percent of those donors, much higher than the audit rate for average Americans, House Republicans revealed Wednesday. Republicans argue that the Internal Revenue Service still hasn’t come clean about the full extent of its targeting,...