IRS official Lois Lerner to take the Fifth

Jack Hays said:

Happy Friday, Polgara.:2wave:
And who thought horses would make good glue?

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polgara said:

And let's not forget the poor guy that accidently let the grains his wife collected for bread making get ruined by rain. They fermented, so we have him to thank for the first whiskey! First time in history grains became as important as hunting! Good man! :thumbs:

Good Afternoon, Jack! :2wave:

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ocean515 said:

I want to know who the second person was who ate wild mushrooms...

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ocean515 said:

I want to know who the second person was who ate wild mushrooms...

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Jack Hays said:

Separating poisonous from non-poisonous would have been trial and error, I suppose, and courage as well as curiosity would have been required. Happy Friday, ocean.:2wave:

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ocean515 said:

Exactly, trial and error. Can't say I'd be ready to sautee some more while viewing my dead friend next to the table.

I trust all is well with you Jack. :2wave:

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Jack Hays said:

Very well indeed. You?:mrgreen:

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the law still states that a 501(c)(4) group must be engaged EXCLUSIVELY in social welfare

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trfjr said:

"It is well established that a witness, in a single proceeding, may not testify voluntarily about a subject and then invoke the privilege against self-incrimination when questioned about the details. See Rogers v. United States, 340 U.S. 367, 373 (1951#. The privilege is waived for the matters to which the witness testifies, and the scope of the “waiver is determined by the scope of relevant cross-examination,” Brown v. United States, 356 U.S. 148, 154—155 #1958). “The witness himself, certainly if he is a party, determines the area of disclosure and therefore of inquiry,” id., at 155. Nice questions will arise, of course, about the extent of the initial testimony and whether the ensuing questions are comprehended within its scope, but for now it suffices to note the general rule."

Self-Incrimination legal definition of Self-Incrimination. Self-Incrimination synonyms by the Free Online Law Dictionary.

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The blossoming IRS scandal over the targeting of conservative groups is provoking new scrutiny and terse questions about the agency’s role in shaping and implementing the controversial new national health care law, with the biggest changes set to begin next year.

The Internal Revenue Service is an important cog in the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly shorthanded as Obamacare. The tax agency must act on 47 provisions of the new law, more than half of those already in effect, including the more controversial ones taking effect in 2014 such as the requirement that nearly all non-elderly adults have health care coverage.

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A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups as recently as April 2012, more than nine months after she first learned of the activity.

Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to 15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012. The letters, such as this one sent to the Ohio Liberty Council on March 16, 2012, informed the groups applying for tax-exempt status that the IRS was “unable to make a final determination on your exempt status without additional information,” and included a list of detailed questions of the kind that a Treasury inspector general’s audit found to be inappropriate. Some of the groups to which Lerner sent letters are still awaiting approval.

Lerner has denied involvement in the targeting, which she has blamed on a few “front-line people” in the agency’s Cincinnati field office. “I have not done anything wrong,” she told members of the House oversight committee on Wednesday. However, she then refused to answer any questions, citing protection under the Fifth Amendment. She has since been placed on (paid) administrative leave, and the committee may call her to testify again.

“One thing is clear: this correspondence shows [Lerner’s] direct involvement in the scheme,” wrote Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ACLJ. “Further, sending a letter from the top person in the IRS Exempt Organization division to a small Tea Party group also underscores the intimidation used in this targeting ploy.”

The letters coincide with former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman’s March 2012 testimony before Congress, in which he said there was “absolutely no targeting” of conservative groups at the agency. Two months later, an internal IRS investigation concluded that the agency had engaged in such targeting. Obama-administration officials have insisted the targeting stopped in May 2012, although a number of ACLJ clients have received similar requests for information from the IRS within the past year, according to chief counsel Jay Sekulow.

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Top IRS officials, whose agency was under investigation for targeting conservative groups, visited the Obama White House more than 100 times over two years while the probe was going on, far more often than in previous administrations and frequently enough that Republicans suspect White House officials knew about the targeting.

Lawmakers now investigating the Internal Revenue Service practice zeroed in on those nearly weekly White House meetings to determine whether an IRS official — or someone higher up in the administration — had approved the targeting and whether it was politically motivated.

The frequent meetings also raised questions about the White House's claims that it couldn't have instigated the targeting of conservative groups because it took a hands-off approach to the tax agency, going so far as to describe it as independent of the administration even though it's part of the Treasury Department.

Former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman visited the White House 118 times between 2010 and 2011. Acting Director Steven Miller, who took over at the IRS in November, also made numerous visits to the White House, though variations in the spelling of his name in White House visitor logs makes it difficult to determine exactly how many times.

The frequent trips to the White House under Obama far outnumbered the times other administrations felt the need to meet with the IRS, according to Mark Everson, who led the IRS under former President George W. Bush. Everson said he remembers making only one trip to the White House between 2003 and 2007 and said he felt like he'd "moved to Siberia" because of the isolation.

Shulman said he couldn't remember why he went to the White House so frequently, though some of the visits were probably about the IRS' role in implementing Obama's health care reforms, he told a congressional committee. Logs show Shulman met with two West Wing officials working on health care.

But while the health care-related visits were explained in the logs, many others included no explanation. Other sources said the IRS and White House were also talking at the time about an investigation into excessive IRS spending on employee conferences, travel and awards.

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j-mac said:

Yeah, I saw that on Colbert too...Not sure if that is indeed the case...But let me just ask you something....

What possible relevance in determining someones tax exempt status could a question like, "How many times does your group pray together, and what is said in those prayers"?

How is that the IRS's business in determination?

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Dickieboy said:

That is true (eventually) but a large majority (63% - 188 of 296) of the sample group were not approved timely:


IG report linked previously.

Some delayed over TWO ELECTION CYCLES! Why would you presume this was the case if NOT for political reasons?...especially considering that 'progressive' groups were expeditiously approved...

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nota bene said:

If you think that this IRS scandal is nothing, then you are the one in denial.

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Perotista said:

It is her right to take the 5th.

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Mithros said:

They didn't. Crossroads GPS was never approved. The law allows groups to act like they've been approved for 501(c)(4) status before they've been approved. In fact, Priorities USA never even applied for the status.

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much to do about nothing

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Obama called such behavior “outrageous” and said anyone involved needs to be “held fully accountable.”

The IRS has apologized for what it calls “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

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austrianecon said:

But giving a statement then pleading the 5th will result in the court deciding if that's legal. When you take the 5th you say nothing.

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much to do about nothing

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upsideguy said:

It is much to do about nothing. I actually have a decent understanding of what is happening here and most do not. It is actually quite comical how politicians and their constituencies are falling all over themselves crying for jail time, firings, impeachment, etc. When this all shakes out, people are going to feel quite foolish and those that tried to tell us how this was the greatest scandal since (well, the last greatest scandal) are going to look quite foolish.

The emperor has no clothes. The Cons will wish they spent this time and attention on Benghazi (or better yet, the AP scandal).

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OpportunityCost said:

Im not saying it makes sense or that its right, but people dislike the IRS almost instinctively. This makes believing the worst of it easily believable and makes it much harder to explain away. This scandal doesnt have a lot of moving parts, its not a complicated policy subject, its a matter of pure political power use and possible abuse.

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it's lower level people

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I sat in a White House chief of staff’s office every day for more than two years. The only reason the legal counsel would tell the chief of staff about an impending report or disclosure would be so the chief of staff could tell the president. The legal counsel would assume the chief of staff would know how and when to bring up the matter. The chief of staff would be expected to know if there were additional factors surrounding the issue that needed to be considered before the president was told, or whether or not others needed to be included in the conversation when the information was shared with the president. There are many valid reasons why the chief of staff would tell the president, but I can’t think of a reason why he and the legal counsel would both agree that this news nugget would go no further. It’s very odd.

The legal counsel would never assume that information shared with the chief of staff would not go to the president. In my experience, a legal counsel never would believe that there was information that was appropriate for the chief of staff to know but that was inappropriate for the president to know. Out of all the news that has emerged regarding the Obama IRS scandal, this is the most curious whopper I’ve heard so far. I can’t wait to hear the real story.

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upsideguy said:

You sir, are closer to the truth then all but a few people on this board..... except, at the end of the day, there isn't really a strategic abuse of power; its lower level people that took short-cuts to get the job done.

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The other thing I’d point out that is very odd about this is that IRS has been prohibited – by that same RRA98 – from using enforcement statistics to measure employee performance. Nobody’s allowed to rate you on how many cases you made, how many arrests, convictions, seizures, levies, taxes assessed, etc. Managers get in big trouble for that, but they still have to evaluate employee performance somehow, so the Service devised this whole scheme that revolves around time.

Elapsed time on a case is a huge issue. Agents get dinged if they’ve got too many hours or if a case drags on for too long. It’s all tracked in the computerized case management system, and managers get in trouble with their managers if their “inventory” (and yes, that is the term that is used to describe your case load) has overage cases. I can’t stress enough how important this is to the Service, and every employee knows it. Your performance report is going to be affected by overage cases, too many hours on a case, etc., but more importantly, the manager’s performance report is going to be affected, and her manager’s, and so on.

To have a statutory or Internal Revenue Manual deadline like 270 days to process something and to blow past without consequences is inconceivable to me. The day that thing went overage, the manager gets a report, and the employee gets asked why. The manager would keep getting reports until it was fixed, and if it wasn’t fixed soon, the SAC would be on the phone, because he or she is getting the same report, and his or her performance report (and bonuses) is on the line.

I obviously can’t speak for EO, but in CID, for an agent to have multiple overage cases like that would be impossible. This simply could not happen without dire consequences for everyone in the chain, and as a result, it never happened.

So, how do I explain a revenue agent in EO who has open cases that are 300 or even 700 days overdue? The only possible explanation is that management was okay with it, because it is absolutely impossible that they – and this includes everyone in the chain – didn’t know. Maybe they’ve got a good reason why they were okay with it, but the whole chain had to sign off on it. All the way to DC.

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