Senator Carl Levin (D-MI)
"Your glasses are falling off, Senator."
For you Kool Aid drinkers who still accept President Obama's assertion to Bill O'Reilly that there was "not a smidgen of corruption" in the IRS-Tea Party scandal, here is the latest batch of documents that Judicial Watch had to go to court to receive under a Freedom of Information request.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-documents-show-irs-hq-control-tea-party-targeting/
Rogue agents in Cincinnati?
"EOT is working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases in EOT and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob."
(For all you UC Santa Cruz Community Studies and History of Consciousness majors, Cincy is slang for Cincinnati).
Here's another smidgen:
"Because the BOLO only contained a brief reference to “Organizations involved with the Tea Party movement applying for exemption under 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4)” in June 2011, the EO Determinations manager asked the manager of the screening group, John Shafer [IRS Cincinnati field office manager], what criteria were being used to label cases as “tea party ” cases. (“Do the applications specify/state ‘ tea party’? If not, how do we know applicant is involved with the tea party movement?”) The screening group manager asked his employees how they were applying the BOLO’s short –hand reference to “tea party.” His employees responded that they were including organizations meeting any of the following criteria as falling within the BOLO’s reference to “tea party” organizations: “1. ‘Tea Party’, ‘Patriots’ or ’9/12 Project’ is referenced in the case file. 2. Issues include government spending, government debt and taxes. 3. Educate the public through advocacy/legislative activities to make America a better place to live. 4. Statements in the case file that are critical of the how the country is being run. . . “
So, we believe we have provided information that shows that no one in EO “developed” the criteria. Rather, staff used their own interpretations of the brief reference to “organizations involved with the Tea Party movement,” which was what was on the BOLO list."
-Lois Lerner
And now that we have learned that Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was himself trying to obtain Tea Party tax information, we can now also add Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to that roll.
"A series of letters between Senator Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations, and top IRS officials throughout 2012 discuss how to target conservative groups the senator claimed were “engaged in political activities.” In response to a Levin March 30 letter citing the “urgency of the issue,” then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller assured the senator that IRS regulations were flexible enough to allow IRS agents to “prepare individualized questions and requests” for select 501(c)(4) organizations."
Is it really so hard to connect the dots? We have Democratic members of Congress trying to get their hands on tax returns for conservative and Tea Party groups and members of the IRS Hqs in Washington doing their utmost to satisfy them, sending directives to those "rogue agents" in Cincy while coordinating their findings with people in the Obama White House.
And there is not a smidgen of corruption here.
1 comment:
Applications for tax exemption are not tax returns.
And a general review of whether "Tea Party" organizations might be generally unsuited to tax exempt status is a legitimate question.
They were a new set of players on the scene, after all.
One would think that people who are opposed to an over-powerful government would despise the very idea of applying for a tax exemption from the hated government, which would give the government reason to investigate them.
Real rebels would disdain to even apply. (I speak from experience -- I volunteered almost exclusively on the basis "We don't take government funding or apply for tax exemptions, if you donate, do so because you believe in what we are accomplishing, your donation is NOT tax deductible.")
These Tea Party crybabies are as phony as a $3 bill.
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