Topic: IRS claims it has LOST two years' worth of emails from former official Lerner (Read 22699 times)

IRS doesn't claim anything. IRS is a company or corporation. It is paperwork. Paperwork can't make any claims. If such claims were made, they were made by a man or woman.

Federal Judge Orders IRS to “Name Specific People” Who Directed Tea Party Targeting…



A federal judge has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to release the names of specific employees involved in targeting Tea Party groups, after years of litigation over what conservatives have long called “chilling” behavior by one of the government’s “most feared” agencies.

Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia also said the IRS must provide information about which groups were targeted and why, along with a strategy to make sure such targeting doesn’t happen again.


The IRS is involved in multiple lawsuits with conservative groups related to the Tea Party targeting scandal; this particular case involves True the Vote.

“We’re thrilled the judge has taken this step and it feels good to have it recognized that they need to be held to account,” True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht told Fox News on Monday. “What happened to me was very personal—my name was thrown around the IRS, and the names of the people involved need to be known. What they did was criminal.”

The targeting scandal drew much attention in 2013 when the IRS, headed at the time by Lois Lerner, admitted it was applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for nonprofit status.

[…]  “We are reviewing the order and will respond accordingly,” a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Monday. Justice Department attorneys are representing the IRS in the suit.

[…]  Engelbrecht told Fox News that “the fight” under the Trump administration has been “every bit as difficult” as it was under the Obama administration


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/21/judge-orders-irs-to-reveal-who-took-part-in-tea-party-targeting.html

IRS employee threatens attorney representing conservative groups with harassment, targeting (LIVE on TV)


A self-identified IRS employee admitted he would go after, target and try to end conservative groups who wanted to abolish the IRS, to Cleta Mitchell, an attorney representing those groups, on a Washington Journal segment on C-SPAN.

Mitchell, a political law attorney who has represented conservative groups during the IRS targeting scandal since 2010, was a guest on C-SPAN to discuss the possible impeachment of the IRS commissioner John Koskinen.

The first caller was a self-identified IRS employee who said he would go after the groups Mitchell represents if their goal was to abolish the IRS.

“I am a lowly clerk at the IRS, looking at your application for tax-free status,” said the caller, Bill, from Elizabeth, New Jersey. “I go to your web page to see the goals of your group and one of the goals of your group is to abolish the IRS.”

IRS possessed Stingray cellphone surveillance gear, documents reveal


Exclusive: Invoices reveal tax service, 13th federal agency to use secretive dragnet, upgraded device that pretends to be cellphone tower to gather metadata


The Internal Revenue Service is the latest in a growing list of US federal agencies known to have possessed the sophisticated cellphone dragnet equipment known as Stingray, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

Invoices obtained following a request under the Freedom of Information Act show purchases made in 2009 and 2012 by the federal tax agency with Harris Corporation, one of a number of companies that manufacture the devices. Privacy advocates said the revelation “shows the wide proliferation of this very invasive surveillance technology”.

The 2009 IRS/Harris Corp invoice is mostly redacted under section B(4) of the Freedom of Information Act, which is intended to protect trade secrets and privileged information. However, an invoice from 2012, which is also partially redacted, reports that the agency spent $65,652 on upgrading a Stingray II to a HailStorm, a more powerful version of the same device, as well as $6,000 on training from Harris Corporation.

Stingrays are the best-known example of a type of device called an IMSI-catcher, also known as “cell-site simulators”. About the size of a briefcase, they work by pretending to be cellphone towers in order to strip metadata and in some cases even content from phones which connect to them.

Despite their extensive capabilities, they require only a low-level court order called a PEN register, also known as a “trap and trace”, to grant permission for their use.

Immense secrecy has so far surrounded these devices, but a picture is slowly emerging which shows widespread use. Various revelations by the American Civil Liberties Union and news outlets including the Guardian had shown that at least 12 federal agencies are already known to have these devices, including the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The IRS makes 13.

In November 2014, the Wall Street Journal uncovered an operation run by the US Marshals Service using a Boeing-made IMSI-catcher known as “dirtbox”. This is the first time that the IRS has been found to own the device.

The devices are also used by local and in some cases state police departments, across at least 20 states, though a culture of secrecy which surrounds Stingray devices has meant that the full scale of their use remains unknown.

Stingray spying: FBI's secret deal with police hides phone dragnet from courts
 Read more
A Guardian report in April revealed a non-disclosure agreement that local police and prosecutors were forced to sign with the FBI before using Stingrays, which mandated them to withdraw or even drop cases rather than risk revealing their use, and in September it emerged that this withholding of “discovery” evidence by police in Baltimore could lead to as many as 2,000 cases being overturned.

It remains unclear how the IRS used the Stingray devices. A spokesman for the agency did not respond to a request for comment.

Mark Matthews, a former deputy commissioner for services and enforcement at the agency who now works for the law firm Caplin and Drysdale, said that while he attends many conferences on IRS and tax law enforcement, he had not heard any “scuttlebutt” about the agency’s use of Stingray.

Matthews said there are currently between 2,000 and 3,000 “special agents” in the IRS who form the criminal investigation division (CID). They have the ability to get PEN register orders – the only authority needed to use Stingray devices.

He said the IRS on its own usually uses gentler investigation tactics. But increasingly, investigating agents from the agency are brought on board for joint operations with the FBI and other agencies when the latter need financial expertise to look at, for example, money laundering from drug organisations.

From these joint operations, he said, “the IRS had moved to drug work and had learned a lot of aggressive techniques in the money laundering and drug world, and these bad habits were leaking over into the tax world, which was supposed to be their real mission”.

Federal agencies using surveillance technology that far outstripped the limits of what a PEN register was designed to do is not new. “That used to be a worry at the FBI with their PEN register [devices],” Matthews said. “There was always a little slot where you could put in a headphone jack” – which could turn the device into a full wiretap, for which they did not have warrant clearance – “and they said, ‘Trust us.’ Not very convincing for civil liberties groups.”

Nate Wessler, a staff attorney with the speech, privacy and technology project at the ACLU, told the Guardian: “The info showing that they are using Stingrays is generally consistent with the kinds of investigative tactics that they are engaging in, and it shows the wide proliferation of this very invasive surveillance technology.”

“It’s used by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of local law enforcement, used by the usual suspects at the federal level, and if the IRS is using it, it shows just how far these devices have spread,” Wessler said.

Matthews said that he had not heard anything about Stingrays despite speaking to his contacts in the tax industry. “So this either hasn’t ripened yet in a tax case, 95% of which [end in a plea deal] so there would be no such disclosures, or this is saved more for money laundering/drug/terrorist-financing-like investigations.”

“[It] could be as silly as [they] got to the end of the year, had some extra funds, and somebody said, ‘We need some more of these devices,’” Matthews said. “It could literally be that silly. But it could be something different; it could be that they’ve decided to use them in cases where they’re the primary detective agency, and we haven’t seen it yet in the private sector.”


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/stingray-surveillance-technology-irs-cellphone-tower

Justice Dept.: No criminal charges for ex-IRS official


WASHINGTON (AP) — No IRS official would face criminal charges arising from the political controversy over the processing of applications for tax-exempt status, the Justice Department announced Friday.
In a letter to members of Congress, the department said that while investigators had found "mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia," there was no evidence of a crime.
"We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution," the letter stated.
The department also announced that Lois Lerner, who headed the division that processes applications for tax-exempt status at the time, would not face any charges.
A firestorm erupted more than two years ago with the release of an inspector general's audit that said IRS agents had improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The disclosure set off investigations by the Justice Department and multiple congressional committees.
The House voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress last year after she refused to answer questions at two House Oversight Committee hearings. She has since retired.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151023/us-irs-investigation-11e1446376.html

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NOT GUILTY. Meaning.. The White House is guilty.

IRS must say if White House sought taxpayers’ information: Judge


A federal judge Friday ordered the IRS to turn over the records of any requests from the White House seeking taxpayers’ private information from the tax agency, delivering a victory to a group that for two years has been trying to pry the data loose.

It’s not clear that there were any such requests — but Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the IRS cannot just refuse to say so by citing taxpayer confidentiality laws, known as section 6103 of the tax code.

“This court questions whether section 6103 should or would shield records that indicate confidential taxpayer information was misused, or that government officials made an improper attempt to access that information,” the judge wrote in denying the IRS’s request to close out the case.

The ruling marks yet another federal judge who has ordered the Obama administration to be more transparent when responding to open-records records. The State Department is facing a barrage of orders from federal judges demanding more cooperation in releasing former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails.

White House officials and federal agencies are allowed, under very select circumstances, to ask the IRS for protected information. But the requests must be carefully cleared.

Questions about potential White House meddling in taxpayers’ private information stretch back to the beginning of the Obama administration, when the then-White House chief economist seemed to describe the tax structure of Koch Industries during a briefing with reporters.

His description was apparently incorrect, but it left some watchdog groups wondering if the White House had quietly sought information on conservatives, such as the billionaire Koch brothers.

Cause of Action sued in 2013 to get a look at whatever requests the White House, or other federal agencies, had made.

The IRS refused, saying even the existence of those requests would be protected by confidentiality laws and couldn’t be released, so there was no reason to make the search.

The judge said Friday, however, that the agency couldn’t use the privacy protection “to shield the very misconduct it was enacted to prohibit.”

“As we have said all along, this administration cannot misinterpret the law in order to potentially hide evidence of wrongdoing,” said Dan Epstein, executive director at Cause of Action. “No administration is above the law, and we are pleased that the court has sided with us on this important point.”

The IRS declined to comment since the matter is still pending in court.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/28/irs-must-say-if-wh-sought-taxpayers-info-judge/

No.  Don't quote sources like this and advise people if you don't know tax law and practice.

People love their freedom and hate to be sleeping for years behind bars, in the same bunk beds with somebody nicknamed "Pocket Rocket"...

From http://www.tax-freedom.com/ta06019.htm regarding Title 26 Section 7806, the construction section of Title 26, that is, the construction definition to be applied throughout:
Further from the website:
Title 26, the IRS Code, isn't law by its own definition of how it is constructed.

IRS finds yet another Lois Lerner email account


‘Toby Miles’ account linked to government business



Lois Lerner had yet another personal email account used to conduct some IRS business, the tax agency confirmed in a new court filing late Monday that further complicates the administration’s efforts to be transparent about Ms. Lerner’s actions during the tea party targeting scandal.

The admission came in an open-records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm that has sued to get a look at emails Ms. Lerner sent during the targeting.

IRS lawyer Geoffrey J. Klimas told the court that as the agency was putting together a set of documents to turn over to Judicial Watch, it realized Ms. Lerner had used yet another email account, in addition to her official one and another personal one already known to the agency.

“In addition to emails to or from an email account denominated ‘Lois G. Lerner‘ or ‘Lois Home,’ some emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s request may have been sent to or received from a personal email account denominated ‘Toby Miles,’” Mr. Klimas told Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who is hearing the case.

It is unclear who Toby Miles is, but Mr. Klimas said the IRS has concluded that was “a personal email account used by Lerner.”

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said it was stunning the agency was just now admitting the existence of the address.

“It is simply astonishing that years after this scandal erupted we are learning about an account Lois Lerner used that evidently hadn’t been searched,” he said, accusing the IRS of hiding Lerner-related information throughout — including the existence of the backup tapes of her official email account, which the agency’s inspector general easily found once it went looking for them.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3328774/posts?page=2

Well, as long as it wasn’t partisan I guess.

All of those miraculously recovered IRS emails – 1.5 million pages at least – have been under the microscope at the Senate Finance Committee. They released a new preliminary report this week which has more bad news for Lois Lerner and company, including a few eye openers which were highlighted by Orin Hatch. One in particular should really catch the attention of those who, for some reason, still aren’t completely convinced of Ms. Lerner’s unbiased, bipartisan credentials. In it, she indicates that she considered opening an investigation into a charity who employed Bristol Palin as a celebrity spokesperson. (USA Today)

[...]
The entire “mission” of Lerner and her team as regards these investigations was to root out political organizations posing as charities to gain a tax benefit and other protections, wasn’t it? If you accept all of the campaign finance reform arguments, then you might agree that this was a noble cause. But she was talking about Candie’s Foundation. It’s an organization with the sole purpose of cutting down on the number of teen pregnancies. Extrapolating from that a bit, they no doubt are involved in the issue of getting contraception out there to sexually active teens and who knows where they come down on the abortion issue. First, how is that a political organization in any way shape or form? And second, even if they were, does that really sound like a conservative magnet group?

And yet they drew Lerner’s attention because of their relationship with Bristol Palin. Never mind for a moment that Bristol was not and is not a politician. But she’s associated with her famous mother and therefore provides a convenient target. Her personal politics are unknown to me and I doubt they are of much concern to Candie’s Foundation. But she definitely was famous and she was also a teenager who became pregnant. Sounds like a pretty good fit to me if you’re in the market for a celebrity endorsement, and still pretty much outside the realm of politics.

Should the IRS be investigating the ASPCA over their use of Sarah McLachlan and her tear jerking songs? (Well, they should be investigating them over some things, I’m sure, but not their tax status or who they have pitching for them.) It’s kind of ironic that Sarah Palin’s daughter might be the one who winds up bringing down Lerner because she was probably the least political person they could have investigated.

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/06/emails-reveal-lerner-considered-targeting-bristol-palin/

Lois Lerner Wanted To Audit A Group With Ties To Bristol Palin







Embattled ex-IRS official Lois Lerner inquired about auditing a pro-abstinence group with ties to Bristol Palin, the daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, according to a Senate report released on Wednesday.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, disclosed Lerner’s email — which she sent in April 2011 — in an addendum to a report detailing the results of a two-year investigation into whether the IRS unfairly targeted conservative groups.

The bi-partisan report concluded that Lerner and the IRS often ignored applications for tax-exempt status submitted by Tea Party organizations and other groups.

One example of this was an email Lerner sent to her supervisors asking whether an audit should be conducted on Candie’s Foundation, a nonprofit group which seeks to limit teen pregnancy.

Bristol Palin was paid $332,500 to serve as an “ambassador” for the organization, which was founded by an executive at Candie’s Inc., an apparel company.

After Lerner learned of the payment to Palin from a news article, she wrote in an April 8, 2011, email chain to David Fish, Judith Kindell — two IRS officials — and others:


Thoughts on the Bristol Palin issue? I’m curious that a [private foundation] can pay any amount to someone who is not a [disqualified person]? It is a [private foundation] right? Even if it were a [public charity] – would that be private benefit – what are the consequences? I’m asking because I don’t know whether to send to Exam as a referral.


Hatch noted how unusual it was for Lerner to consider an audit based upon a single news article. He noted that out of 1.5 million IRS records reviewed by his committee staff, there were no other instances where Lerner referred a progressive group for an audit based on a single news article.

“Lerner’s willingness to act on this particular news article – among many that reached her inbox each day – shows that she was paying close attention to conservative politicians and organizations,” Hatch stated in his report.

USA Today noted another partisan comment from Lerner that Hatch cited in his report.

In a March 6, 2014, email exchange Lerner and a friend were discussing the political landscape in Texas. Lerner’s friend criticized Rick Perry and Greg Abbott, the former and current governors of the state, respectively.

“As you can see, the Lone Star State is just pathetic as far as political attitudes are concerned,” the friend wrote to Lerner.

She responded by stating that Abraham Lincoln should have allowed the South to secede from the Union.

“Look my view is that Lincoln was our worst president not our best. He should’[v]e let the south go. We really do seem to have 2 totally different mindsets,” she wrote.



http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/05/lois-lerner-wanted-to-audit-a-group-with-ties-to-bristol-palin/


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Worse than The Camorra...

The Curious Case of Lois Lerner's Physically Damaged Hard Drive






New documentation released by the House Oversight Committee this week again raises questions on how Lois Lerner’s hard drive was physically damaged and whether there was some kind of deliberate act to destroy data on it.

The House Oversight Committee report cites an officially transcribed interview with John Minsek, senior investigative analyst with the IRS Criminal Investigations (CI) unit. Minsek examined the Lerner hard drive in 2011. In the transcribed interview, he notes Lerner's hard drive contained “well-defined scoring creating a concentric circle in the proximity of the center of the disk.” The Oversight Committee report states:

"Using the CI unit's digital forensic facilities, Minsek opened the hard drive and conducted additional tests. Once he opened the hard drive, Minsek noticed “well-defined scoring creating a concentric circle in the proximity of the center of the disk.”

So how did the scoring get there?

Last month, testimony from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) revealed that Lois Lerner’s hard drive had “scoring on the top platter of the drive.” The testimony also noted that the IRS technician that inspected the hard drive believed that additional steps could have been taken to recover data, although this did not occur and the hard drive was later destroyed by an industrial strength AMERI-SHRED AMS-750 HD shredder.

Given these facts, it is logical to question how the "scoring" occurred and whether there was foul play involved. Here it what is known thus far:

- According to TIGTA testimony submitted to the Oversight Committee on June 25, 2014, Lerner’s laptop stopped communicating with the IRS server on Saturday June 11, 2011, between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

- According to the same testimony,the laptop was likely physically located in Lerner's office the moment it stopped communicating with the server:

 "Based on consistent network reporting for more than a week, the laptop computer was likely located in Ms. Lerner’s office."

- On Monday June 13, 2011, Lerner reported the laptop inoperable.

- Lerner's laptop was initially serviced by an IRS IT staff technician and a Hewlett-Packard contractor. Of note, the HP contractor thought the hard drive crashed due to a physical impact. According to the TIGTA testimony:

“When asked about the possible cause of the hard drive failure, the HP technician opined that heat-related failures are not seen often, and based on the information provided to him, the hard drive more than likely crashed due to an impact of some sort. However, because the HP technician did not examine the hard drive as part of his work on the laptop, it could not be determined why it crashed.”

- As the testimony states, TIGTA was unable to determine whether anyone had entered Lois Lerner’s office during the date in question because entry logs had been destroyed after a year in keeping with the vendor's operating procedures:

“Attempts were made to determine if anyone entered Ms. Lerner’s office prior to the hard drive crash on June 11, 2011; however, the entry logs that would have recorded any entry into the building were destroyed by the building security vendor     after one year of retention, or sometime in 2012. The destruction of the logs after one year falls within the vendor’s standard operating procedures.”

- TIGTA’s testimony states that the laptop as a whole appeared undamaged. When Lerner’s laptop was first inspected by both an assigned IT specialist and Hewlett Packard contractor they both stated that “they did not note any visible damage to the laptop computer itself.”

The testimony does not speculate how the hard drive was “scored” while the computer itself remained visibly undamaged. However, given these facts it seems logical to question what -- or who -- caused the damage to the hard drive.

In August and September, the Oversight Committee is expected to release more information from the millions of reviewed documents and 50 transcribed interviews. All Americans expecting honest government hope more light will be shed on how Lerner’s hard drive mysteriously received "scoring."






http://www.atr.org/curious-case-lois-lerners-physically-damaged-hard-drive

Federal Judge Threatens To Hold IRS Commissioner, DOJ Lawyers in Contempt of Court over Lerner


(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced that U.S District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan today threatened to hold the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department attorneys in contempt of court after the IRS failed to produce status reports and newly recovered emails of Lois Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS, as he had ordered on July 1, 2015.

During the a status hearing today, Sullivan warned that the failure to follow his order was serious and the IRS and Justice Department’s excuses for not following his July 1 order were “indefensible, ridiculous, and absurd.”  He asked the IRS’ Justice Department lawyer Geoffrey Klimas, “Why didn’t the IRS comply” with his court order and “why shouldn’t the Court hold the Commissioner of the IRS in contempt.”  Judge Sullivan referenced his contempt findings against Justice Department prosecutors in the prosecution of late Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and reminded the Justice Department attorney he had the ability to detain him for contempt.  Warning he would tolerate no further disregard of his orders, Judge Sullivan said, “I will haul into court the IRS Commissioner to hold him personally into contempt.”

After the hearing, Judge Sullivan issued the following “minute order”:

At the July 29, 2015 status hearing, the Government agreed that the Court’s July 1, 2015 oral order from the bench was clear and enforceable.  Nonetheless, the Government reasoned it inappropriate to file a motion for reconsideration until a written order was issued.  As expressed at the hearing, the Government’s reasoning is nonsensical.  Officers of the Court who fail to comply with Court orders will be held in contempt.  Also, in the event of non-compliance with future Court orders, the Commissioner of the IRS and others shall be directed to show cause as to why they should not be held in contempt of Court.  The Court’s July 1, 2015 ruling from the bench stands: (1) the Government shall produce relevant documents every Monday; (2) the Government’s document production shall be accompanied by a status report that indicates (a) whether TIGTA has turned over any new documents to the IRS, (b) if so, the number of documents, and (c) a timeframe for the IRSs production of those documents. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on July 29, 2015.

At a July 1, 2015, status conference, Sullivan ordered the IRS to begin producing, every week, the nearly 1,800 newly recovered Lerner emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.  Despite the court order, the IRS did not produce any Lerner emails until July 15.  The IRS also failed to provide Judicial Watch a status report of the Lerner email production issues, as also ordered by Sullivan.  Last week, Judge Sullivan ordered sua sponte the parties to appear for a status hearing today after Judicial Watch raised concerns about the IRS’ failure to comply with his orders to release the newly discovered Lerner emails and status updates on its production of previously “missing” documents.

The developments come in Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit seeking documents about the Obama IRS’ targeting and harassment of Tea Party and conservative opponents of President Obama (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)).  Judicial Watch’s litigation forced the IRS first to admit that Lerner’s emails were supposedly missing and, then, that the emails were on IRS’ back-up systems.

Yesterday, Judicial Watch released the first batch believed to be newly recovered emails of Lerner. The new documents show that Lerner and other top officials in the IRS, including soon-to-be Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller, closely monitored and approved the controversial handling of tax-exempt applications by Tea Party organizations.  The documents also show that at least one group received an inquiry from the IRS in order to buy time and keep the organization from contacting Congress.

“In a dramatic court hearing today, Judge Sullivan made it clear he would personally hold accountable the IRS Commissioner Koskinen and Justice Department attorneys for any further contempt of his court orders in Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “The missing and-then-not missing Lois Lerner saga is a stark example of the Obama administration’s contempt for a federal court and the rule of law.  That Obama administration officials would risk jail rather than disclose these Lerner documents shows that the IRS scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse.”


http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/federal-judge-threatens-to-hold-irs-commissioner-doj-lawyers-in-contempt-of-court-over-lerner/

Judicial Watch: IRS Produces Recovered Lerner Emails







Judicial Watch released 906 pages of newly recovered Lois Lerner emails from the IRS that are believed to recently have been recovered by the IRS’ internal watchdog – the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The IRS released the emails under a court order by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. The new documents show that Lois Lerner and other top officials in the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including soon-to-be Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller, closely monitored and approved the controversial handling of tax-exempt applications by Tea Party organizations. The documents also show that at least one group received an inquiry from the IRS in order to buy time and keep the organization from contacting Congress.

At July 1, 2015, status conference, Judge Sullivan ordered the IRS to begin producing, every week, the nearly 1,800 newly recovered Lois Lerner emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Despite the court order, the IRS did not produce any Lois Lerner emails until July 15. The IRS also failed to provide Judicial Watch a status report of the Lois Lerner email production issues, as also ordered by Judge Sullivan. Last week, Judge Sullivan ordered sua sponte the parties to appear for a status hearing for tomorrow (July 29) shortly after Judicial Watch raised concerns about the IRS’ failure to comply with his orders to release the newly discovered Lerner emails and status updates on its production of previously “missing” documents.

The developments come in Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit seeking documents about the Obama IRS’ targeting and harassment of Tea Party and conservative opponents of President Obama (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)). Judicial Watch’s litigation forced the IRS first to admit that Lerner’s emails were supposedly missing and, then, that the emails were on IRS’ back-up systems.


http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-irs-produces-recovered-lerner-emails/

IRS Failed to Search Five of Six Locations for Lois Lerner Emails


The IRS failed to search five of six possible sources of electronic media for Lois Lerner’s emails, according to documentation released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday.

Over the course of investigations into the Lois Lerner targeting scandal, Commissioner John Koskinen repeatedly assured Congress that he would provide all of Lois Lerner’s emails. But based on testimony from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), this did not occur. The agency’s ineptness -- or corruption -- resulted in 24,000 Lerner emails being lost when they were “accidently” destroyed.

According to TIGTA official Timothy Camus, the IRS had six possible sources to search for Lois Lerner’s emails:

“The hard drive would have been a source, Blackberry source, backup tapes a source, the backup tapes for the server drives and then finally the loaner lap tops.”

When asked how many of these sources the IRS searched, Camus says was unable to say for certain whether the IRS had searched any. Although Camus acknowledged that the agency employees initially checked her hard drive, it appears that more could have been done to recover data from this source. Instead, the hard drive was briefly checked and all data was deemed unrecoverable:

“We’re not aware that they searched any one in particular. They did – it appears they did look into initially whether or not the hard drive had been destroyed, but they didn’t go much further than that.”

The agency’s refusal to conduct due diligence in its search for Lerner’s emails meant that 1,000 emails were not found until TIGTA searched backup tapes. When asked why the IRS did not give these emails to Congress, Camus said it was because the agency never looked for them in the first place:

“To the best we can determine through the investigation, they just simply didn’t look for those emails.”

Commissioner Koskinen stated that the IRS took “extraordinary efforts” to recover any emails, but this is clearly not the case. Years after the investigations into the Lois Lerner targeting scandal began, the agency’s unprecedented obstruction has meant Americans are no closer to the truth.



https://www.atr.org/irs-failed-search-five-six-locations-lois-lerner-emails

Lois Lerner Used Instant-Messaging System Because It Didn’t Save Her Messages



The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) used an instant-messaging system that did not automatically save the messages they sent, according to newly released emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Disgraced former IRS official Lois Lerner loved the agency’s “Office Communication Server” (OCS) specifically because it left no record of her messages during the period in which her department was targeting conservative and tea party groups.

“I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails — so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails,” Lerner wrote in an email to co-workers.

Lerner asked colleagues whether the OCS system automatically archives its messages. A colleague advised that it does not, but that the “save” function does exist within OCS, and “to treat the conversation as if it could/is being saved somewhere.”

“Perfect,” Lerner replied.

Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Ron DeSantis co-wrote an op-ed Tuesday for The Wall Street Journal calling for IRS commissioner John Koskinen’s firing.

“Unfortunately, Commissioner Koskinen, who took over in the wake of the IRS targeting scandal, has failed the American people by frustrating Congress’s attempts to ascertain the truth,” Jordan and DeSantis wrote. “A taxpayer would never get away with treating an IRS audit the way that IRS officials have treated the congressional investigation. Civil officers like Mr. Koskinen have historically been held to a higher standard than private citizens because they have fiduciary obligations to the public. The IRS and Mr. Koskinen have breached these basic fiduciary duties.”


http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/28/lois-lerner-used-instant-messaging-system-because-it-deleted-her-messages/

Judicial Watch: New Documents Show IRS Used Donor Lists to Target Audits








Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that confirm that the IRS used donor lists to tax-exempt organizations to target those donors for audits.  The documents also show IRS officials specifically highlighted how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may come under “high scrutiny” from the IRS.  The IRS produced the records in a Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking documents about selection of individuals for audit-based application information on donor lists submitted by Tea Party and other 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations (Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:15-cv-00220)).

A letter dated September 28, 2010, then-Democrat Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) informs then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman: “I request that you and your agency survey major 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) organizations …”  In reply, in a letter dated February 17, 2011, Shulman writes: “In the work plan of the Exempt Organizations Division, we announced that beginning in FY2011, we are increasing our focus on section 501(c)(4), (5) and (6) organizations.”

In 2010, after receiving Baucus’s letter, the IRS considered the issue of auditing donors to 501(c)(4) organizations, alleging that a 35 percent gift tax would be due on donations in excess of $13,000.  The documents show that the IRS wanted to cross-check donor lists from 501(c)(4) organizations against gift tax filings and commence audits against taxpayers based on this information.

A gift tax on contributions to 501(c)(4)’s was considered by most to be a dead letter since the IRS had never enforced the rule after the Supreme Court ruled that such taxes violated the First Amendment.  The documents show that the IRS had not enforced the gift tax since 1982.

But then, in February 2011, at least five donors of an unnamed organization were audited.

The documents show that Crossroads GPS, associated with Republican Karl Rove, was specifically referenced by IRS officials in the context of applying the gift tax.  Seemingly in response to the Crossroads focus, on April 20, IRS attorney Lorraine Gardner emails a 501(c)(4) donor list to former Branch Chief in the IRS’ Office of the Chief Counsel James Hogan. Later, this information is apparently shared with IRS Estate Gift and Policy Manager Lisa Piehl while Gardner seeks “information about any of the donors.”


http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-irs-documents-used-donor-lists-to-target-audits/

New Documents Show Extensive Collaboration Between IRS, DOJ to Criminally Prosecute Conservative Groups



(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents that include an official “DOJ Recap” report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.

The newly obtained records also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress. Records also detail how the Obama IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing 1.25 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit social 501(c)(4) welfare groups  – or nearly every 501(c)(4) in the United States – as part of its prosecution effort. According to a letter from then-House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, “This revelation likely means that the IRS – including possibly Lois Lerner – violated federal tax law by transmitting this information to the Justice Department.”

The documents were produced subsequent to court orders in two Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits: Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:14-cv-1956) and Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 1:14-cv-1239).

The new IRS documents include a October 11, 2010 “DOJ Recap” memo sent by IRS Exempt Organizations Tax Law Specialist Siri Buller to Lerner and other top IRS officials explaining an October 8 meeting with representatives from the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and “one representative from the FBI” to discuss the possible criminal prosecution of nonprofit organizations for alleged political activity:

On October 8, 2010, Lois Lerner, Joe Urban [IRS Technical Advisor, TEGE], Judy Kindell [top aide to Lerner], Justin Lowe [Technical Advisor to the Commissioner of Tax-Exempt and Government Entities], and Siri Buller met with the section chief and other attorneys from the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, and one representative from the FBI, to discuss recent attention to the political activity of exempt organizations.

The section’s attorneys expressed concern that certain section 501(c) organizations are actually political committees “posing” as if they are not subject to FEC law, and therefore may be subject to criminal liability. The attorneys mentioned several possible theories to bring criminal charges under FEC law. In response, Lois and Judy eloquently explained the following points:

Under section 7805(b), we may only revoke or modify an organization’s exemption retroactively if it omitted or misstated a material fact or operated in a manner materially different from that originally represented.
 

If we do not have these misrepresentations, the organization may rely on our determination it is exempt. However, the likelihood of revocation is diminished by the fact that section 501(c)(4)-(c)(6) organizations are not required to apply for recognition of exemption.
 

We discussed the hypothetical situation of a section 501(c)(4) organization that declares itself exempt as a social welfare organization, but at the end of the taxable year has in fact functioned as a political organization. Judy explained that such an organization, in order to be in compliance, would simply file Form 1120-POL and paying tax at the highest corporate rate.
Lois stated that although we do not believe that organizations which are subject to a civil audit subsequently receive any type of immunity from a criminal investigation, she will refer them to individuals from CI who can better answer that question. She explained that we are legally required to separate the civil and criminal aspects of any examination and that while we do not have EO law experts in CI, our FIU agents are experienced in coordinating with CI.

The attorneys asked whether a change in the law is necessary, and whether a three-way partnership among DOJ, the FEC, and the IRS is possible to prevent prohibited activity by these organizations. Lois listed a number of obstacles to the attorneys’ theories:

[REDACTED]

She pointed to Revenue Ruling 2004-6, which was drafted in light of the electioneering communication rules before they were litigated.

Just prior this meeting, the IRS began the process of providing the FBI confidential taxpayer information on nonprofit groups. An IRS document confirms the IRS supplied the FBI with 21 disks containing 1.25 million pages of taxpayer records:

FROM: Hamilton David K

SENT: Tuesday, October 5, 2010  2:49 PM

TO: Whittaker Sherry [Director, GE Program Management], Blackwell Robert M

SUBJECT: RE: Question

There are 113,000 C4 returns from January 1, 2007 to now. Assuming they want all pages including redacted ones, that’s 1.25 million pages … If we get started on it right away, before the 10th when the monthly extracts start, we can probably get it done in a week or so….

The DOJ documents also include a July 16, 2013, email from an undisclosed Justice Department official to a lawyer for IRS employees asking that the Obama administration get information from congressional witnesses before Congress does:

One last issue. If any of your clients have documents they are providing to Congress that you can (or would like to) provide to us before their testimony, we would be pleased to receive them. We are 6103 authorized and I can connect you with TIGTA to confirm; we would like the unredacted documents.

“These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”

On April 16, 2014, Judicial Watch forced the IRS to release documents revealing for the first time that Lerner communicated with the DOJ in May 2013 about whether it was possible to launch criminal prosecutions against targeted tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained due to court order in an October 2013 Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit filed against the IRS.

Those documents contained an email exchange between Lerner and Nikole C. Flax, then-chief of staff to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller discussing plans to work with the DOJ to prosecute nonprofit groups that “lied” (Lerner’s quotation marks) about political activities. The exchange included a May 8, 2013, email by Lerner:

I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who “lied” on their 1024s –saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS…

Democratic Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse held a hearing on April 9, 2013, during which, “in questioning the witnesses from the DOJ and IRS, Whitehouse asked why they have not prosecuted 501(c)(4) groups that have seemingly made false statements about their political activities…”

The House Oversight Committee followed up on these Judicial Watch disclosures with hearings and interviews of Pilger and his boss, DOJ Public Integrity Chief Jack Smith. Besides confirming the DOJ’s 2013 communications with Lerner, Pilger admitted to the committee that DOJ officials met with Lerner in October 2010. Judicial Watch obtained new documents about these meetings in December 2014 showing the Obama DOJ initiated outreach to the IRS about prosecuting tax-exempt entities.

Following Judicial Watch’s lead, the House also found out about the IRS transmittal of the confidential taxpayer information to the FBI. Because of this public disclosure, the FBI was forced to return the 1.25 million pages to the IRS.


http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-documents-reveal-doj-irs-and-fbi-plan-to-seek-criminal-charges-of-obama-opponents/

Lerner must have some serious serious stuff they can't touch for her to sleep so soundly while everything goes around.. I hope I am wrong but they are betting to delay this into a clinton presidency and definitely put an end to it all...