IRS mega-scandal email smoking gun? BroJ J:)
I thought I should post a currently sizzling possible
IRS stonewall destroying bomb fuse. Together
with rather complete background links, which are valuable in their own right.
(Today's
post reminded me of the internet posts that led to the avalanche of expert
posting that forced Dan Rather into retirement. He relied on obviously forged documents
as the sole essential support for his mythical G.W. Bush re-election defeating
scoop. Interestingly he continues to believe
the myth: "The truth of this story stands up to this day" - Dan
Rather - Wikipedia - http://bit.ly/1lImh0M
)
June 21, 2014 [/] IRS contracted with email archiving company in 2005 [/] By Thomas
Lifson
Is that a smoking gun I
smell? It turns out the IRS contracted with a company
that provides email backup services starting in 2005. This first came to
light in the Twitter feed of moregenr, who noticed that the IRS appears on the
client list of email archiving service provider Sonasoft. http://bit.ly/1nUMeub [Partial text follows:]
Morgen
@morgenr [/] Follow
The IRS is listed as a customer
of Sonasoft software - "Email Archiving Done Right"
A
New, More Sinister IRS Scandal [/] April 17th, 2014
- 6:51 am [/] Yesterday was a significant day in the IRS abuse scandal. The
scandal evolved from being about pesky delays in IRS exemption applications to
a government conniving with outside interests to put political opponents in
prison. http://bit.ly/1nrSvvG
The
media ignore IRS scandal: Column [/] Paul L. Caron 3:25
p.m. EDT May 16, 2014
(N.B.
The author of the following is fully credentialed and knowledgeable about the
IRS mega-scandal. World's best expert most probably. See Meet The Tax Professor
Behind The Ultimate IRS Scandal Blog http://bit.ly/1iuSJof
)
We need to get to the bottom of
it by giving Lois Lerner full immunity in exchange for her testimony.
http://usat.ly/1lIf6pb
[...] To paraphrase Matthew McConaughey in A
Time to Kill: Now imagine the president is a Republican.
We've already seen that movie,
and it was called Watergate.
In that scandal, aggressive reporting by the
media and thorough investigations by the FBI, Justice Department and a Senate
Select Committee painstakingly uncovered the facts of the illegal break-in at
the Democratic National Committee's headquarters months before the 1972
presidential election. One of the three articles of impeachment charged that
President Nixon had attempted to use the IRS against his political opponents.
Today's news media are largely ignoring the IRS
scandal, and it is impossible to have confidence in the current investigations
by the FBI, Justice Department, and House committee. I am not suggesting that
the current scandal in the end will rise to the level of Watergate. But the
allegations are serious, and fair-minded Americans of both parties should agree
that a thorough investigation needs to be undertaken to either debunk them or
confirm them.
Step one should be to give Lois Lerner full
immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony. And then let the chips
fall where they may. [My emphasis]
More
text found at above link:
The
media ignore IRS scandal: Column [/] Paul L. Caron 3:25
p.m. EDT May 16, 2014
We need to get to the bottom of
it by giving Lois Lerner full immunity in exchange for her testimony.
The timeline of the Internal Revenue Service
targeting of conservative groups reveals nothing less than a scandal. It is a
scandal that blew into public view a year ago this week and about which the
press has been far from curious.
In 2009, the president of the United States
commented in a commencement address that the IRS would soon be auditing the
president of the university and the Board of Regents for refusing to grant him
an honorary degree. Supporters of the president dismissed critics who worried
that the "joke" was a "dog whistle" intended to declare
open season on the president's political opponents.
In January 2010, the president in his State of
the Union Address publicly berated the six Supreme Court justices in attendance
for their decision in Citizens United, which held that the First Amendment
prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by
corporations and labor unions.
In the wake of Citizens United, many political
groups formed in opposition to the president applied to the IRS for tax-exempt
status under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which does not require the
disclosure of donors. Senators of the president's party called on the IRS to
investigate these groups.
In March 2010, employees in the IRS branch
office tasked with reviewing applications for tax-exempt status were instructed
to give special scrutiny to certain applications for 501(c)(4) status, later
memorialized in a "Be on the Look Out" (BOLO) list of targeted terms.
Over the next two years, the IRS slow-walked the applications of many such
groups, limiting their ability to participate in the 2010 and 2012 political
campaigns.
In March 2012, the IRS commissioner testified
before a House committee that there was "absolutely no targeting" by the
IRS of political organizations opposed to the president. The subcommittee
chairman requested the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration
(TIGTA) to investigate. The IRS commissioner stepped down at the end of his
term later that year.
On May 10, 2013, four days before the public
release of the TIGTA report, the IRS director Exempt Organization Director (IRS
director) apologized for the "absolutely inappropriate" actions of
low-level IRS branch office employees and denied any involvement by high-level
IRS officials in Washington, D.C.
On May 14, 2013, TIGTA publicly released its
report detailing the IRS' inappropriate targeting of the president's political
opponents. The president directed the secretary of the Treasury to hold
accountable those IRS employees responsible for the targeting, and the attorney
general announced that the Department of Justice would launch a criminal
investigation. The following day, the acting IRS commissioner resigned.
On May 22, 2013, the IRS director asserted her
Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify
before a House committee. She was placed on administrative leave. The following
month, it was revealed that she received a $42,000 bonus. She retired in
September.
On Jan. 9, 2014, it was revealed that the
Department of Justice attorney leading the investigation was a donor to the
president's campaigns. A week later, the Justice Department revealed it would
not bring any criminal charges. Attorneys for many of the targeted political
groups complained that they had never been contacted in the investigation.
On Feb. 2, 2014, the president stated in a
televised interview before the Super Bowl that although there "were some
bone-headed decisions out of a local (IRS) office ... (there was) not even a
smidgen of corruption."
On May 7, 2014, the House voted 231-187 to hold
the former IRS director in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate in
its investigation (six members of the president's party voted with the majority).
The House also voted 250-168 to request the attorney general to appoint a
special prosecutor to investigate (26 members of the president's party voted
with the majority).
To paraphrase Matthew McConaughey in A Time to
Kill: Now imagine the president is a Republican.
We've already seen that movie, and it was
called Watergate.
In that scandal, aggressive reporting by the
media and thorough investigations by the FBI, Justice Department and a Senate
Select Committee painstakingly uncovered the facts of the illegal break-in at
the Democratic National Committee's headquarters months before the 1972
presidential election. One of the three articles of impeachment charged that
President Nixon had attempted to use the IRS against his political opponents.
Today's news media are largely ignoring the IRS
scandal, and it is impossible to have confidence in the current investigations
by the FBI, Justice Department, and House committee. I am not suggesting that
the current scandal in the end will rise to the level of Watergate. But the
allegations are serious, and fair-minded Americans of both parties should agree
that a thorough investigation needs to be undertaken to either debunk them or
confirm them.
Step one should be to give Lois Lerner full
immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony. And then let the chips
fall where they may.
Paul L. Caron is professor of law at Pepperdine
University. He blogs at TaxProf Blog. [TaxProf Blog: The IRS Scandal, Day 408 http://bit.ly/1jFUJF4 ]
Related Notes
House Republicans find 10% of tea party donors
audited by IRS - Washington Times
Kimberley Strassel: The IRS Scandal Comes Into
Focus April 10, 2014 6:53 p.m. ET Nearly a year into the IRS scandal, we still
don't know exactly what happened—though we are finally getting an inkling....
I2C 140621aa IRS mega-scandal email smoking gun qq
IRS hired email archiving service | I2C | 140621 1701 | Mega-scandal history | full
