House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform, March 11, 2014, Lois Lerner Involvement IRS targeting of tax exempt organizations, Lerner lied, Planned October retirement
“Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape.”…George Orwell “1984″
“His earlier thought returned to him: probably she was not actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all. He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had not been perfectly under control. It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.”…George Orwell “1984″
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″
From the House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform, March 11, 2014.
“Key Document Based Highlights (documents and testimony in appendix):
- Tea Party “itching for a Constitutional challenge:” Lerner and her colleagues, after being under public pressure from President Obama and other Democrats, engaged in an e-mail exchange about how they could showcase their scrutiny of a Tea Party applicant for public disclosure, despite rules protecting the secrecy of unapproved applications. The conversation turned to the possibility of a court case – if a Tea Party applicant would challenge the IRS ruling. On this, Ms. Lerner opined, Tea Party groups would litigate because they are “itching for a Constitutional challenge.” – p. 41
- Lerner discusses political scrutiny that isn’t “per se political:” In one e-mail exchange that began with a discussion of an article noting, “organizations woven by the fabulously rich and hugely influential Koch brothers,” Lerner told colleagues, “we do need a c4 project next year.” While she initially says, “my object is not to look for political activity,” later in the exchange she acknowledges that it will examine political activity. “We need to be cautious so it isn’t a per se political project. More a c4 project that will look at levels of lobbying and pol. Activity along with exempt activity.” – p. 17
- Lerner broke IRS rules by mishandling taxpayer information: While Lerner told Congress under oath, “I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations,” e-mails show Lerner handled protected 6103 taxpayer information in her nonofficial e-mail account. In a November 2013 letter from Daniel Werfel, Werfel notes, “We do not permit IRS officials to send taxpayer information to their personal email addresses. An IRS employee should not send taxpayer information to his or her personal email address in any form, including redacted.” – p. 33
- Lerner planned to retire in October all along: While House Democrats have pushed that Lerner was forced out by the IRS as a result of the TIGTA report; new e-mails indicate that Lerner had planned an October retirement long before TIGTA released its report. Her paid leave amounted to a paid vacation preceding her retirement – it does not appear that the IRS penalized her in any way for her conduct. – p. 40-41
- Despite knowing about improper scrutiny, Lerner had IRS blame victims: An IRS document bearing Lerner’s signature shows that in March 2012, despite knowing about improper scrutiny at that time, Lerner reviewed and signed off on a response to Congress that blamed applicants for heightened scrutiny. “[T]he IRS contacts the organization and solicits additional information when the organization does not provide sufficient information in response to the questions on the Form 1024 or if issues are raised by the application …. The revenue agent uses sound reasoning based on tax law training and his or her experience to review the application and identify the additional information needed to make a proper determination of the organization’s exempt status.” – p. 36
- Concern Citizens United hurting Democrats: Lerner believed the Executive Branch needed to take steps to undermine the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. A senior advisor to Lerner e-mailed her an article about allegations that unknown conservative donors were influencing U.S. Senate races. The article explained how outside money was making it increasingly difficult for Democrats to remain in the majority in the Senate. Lerner replied: “Perhaps the FEC will save the day.” – p. 21
- Citizens United created pressure for IRS to “fix the problem”: According to Lerner: “The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year old precedent that basically corporations couldn’t give directly to political campaigns. And everyone is up in arms because they don’t like it. The Federal Election Commission can’t do anything about it. They want the IRS to fix the problem.” – p. 20
- “Multi-Tier Review”: Lerner personally directed that Tea Party cases go through a “multi-tier review.” An IRS employee testified that Lerner “sent [him an] e-mail saying that when these cases need to go through multi-tier review and they will eventually have to go to [Judy Kindell, Lerner’s senior technical advisor] and the Chief Counsel’s office.” A D.C. IRS employee said this level of scrutiny had no precedent. – p. 24-25
- Head of the IRS Cincinnati office’s testimony refutes Lois Lerner and President Obama’s O’Reilly interview assertion that this was all about a “local office”: “[Y]es, there were mistakes made by folks in Cincinnati as well [as] D.C. but the D.C. office is the one who delayed the processing of the cases.” – p. 44″
From the report.
“Through e-mails, documents, and the testimony of other IRS officials, the Committee has learned a great deal about Lois Lerner’s role in the IRS targeting scandal since the Committee first issued a subpoena for her testimony. She was keenly aware of acute political pressure to crack down on conservative-leaning organizations. Not only did she seek to convey her agreement with this sentiment publicly, she went so far as to engage in a wholly inappropriate
effort to circumvent federal prohibitions in order to publicize her efforts to crack down on a particular Tea Party applicant. She created unprecedented roadblocks for Tea Party organizations, worked surreptitiously to advance new Obama Administration regulations that curtail the activities of existing 501(c)(4) organizations – all the while attempting to maintain an appearance that her efforts did not appear, in her own words, “per se political.””
“During the February 24, 2012, briefing, Committee staff asked Lerner whether the criteria for evaluating tax-exempt applications had changed at any point. Lerner responded that the criteria had not changed. In fact, they had. According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), in late June 2011, Lerner directed that the criteria used to identify applications be changed.23 This was the first time Lerner made a false or misleading
statement during the Committee’s investigation.”
“During another briefing on April 4, 2012, Lerner told Committee staff that the
information the IRS was requesting in follow-up letters to conservative-leaning groups—which, in some cases, included a complete list of donors and their respective contributions—was not out of the ordinary. Moreover, on April 26, 2012, in Lerner’s first written response to the Committee’s request for information, Lerner wrote that the follow-up letters to conservative
applicants were “in the ordinary course of the application process to obtain the information as the IRS deems it necessary to make a determination whether the organization meets the legal requirements for tax-exempt status.”24
In fact, the scope of the information that EO requested from conservative groups was extraordinary. At a briefing on May 13, 2013, IRS officials, including Nikole Flax, the IRS Commissioner’s Chief of Staff, could not identify any other instance in the agency’s history in which the IRS asked groups for a complete list of donors with corresponding amounts. These marked the second and third times Lerner made a false or misleading statement during the Committee’s investigation.”
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