Obama : "Not a Smidgen of Corruption" in the IRS Targeting...Right, Mr. President.

Chris Wallace should have waited a few days before raving on TV that the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee has spent a year and found nothing to indicate that senior Obama administration officials were involved in the illegal IRS targeting of conservative groups. Because newly uncovered emails show that Lois Lerner, the key figure in the IRS scandal, was talking with the Justice Department about going after groups seeking tax-exempt status days before she publicly acknowledged the IRS was targeting Tea Party and other groups. The emails are a major breakthrough in the Committee investigation, suggesting that the targeting stretched deep into the Obama administration. Lerner, the director of the agency’s Exempt Organizations division before retiring last year, initially said the targeting was limited to agents working in the IRS’ Cincinnati field office. But, a series of inspector general and congressional probes since the scandal broke last year indicate that the targeting of mostly conservative-leaning groups seeking tax-exempt status was orchestrated in Washington. In a just-released May 2013 email, Lerner responded to a Justice Department inquiry about whether tax-exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for lying about political activity. "I got a call today from Richard Pilger, Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ,” Lerner reportedly wrote to the office of Steven Miller, the agency’s acting director at the time. “He wanted to know who at IRS the DO folk s [sic] could talk to about Democrat Senator Whitehouse's idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who lied on their submissions -- 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." Nikole Flax, Miller’s chief of staff, answered Lerner : "I think we should do it -- also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?" In another email, Lerner discussed with agency staffers the purpose of an upcoming 9 April 2013 hearing that also suggests the targeting went beyond the IRS. “There are several groups of folks from the [Federal Election Commission] world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are)," she wrote. “One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn't feel so comfortable doing the stuff. So, don't be fooled about how this is being articulated -- it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity." ~~~~~ House Republicans said after the emails were published that they are further proof of coordination among various agencies to target conservatives. "The release of new documents underscores the political nature of IRS Tea Party targeting and the extent to which supposed apolitical officials took direction from elected Democrats," House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said in a statement. "These e-mails are part of an overwhelming body of evidence that political pressure from prominent Democrats led to the targeting of Americans for their political beliefs." Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said that if the targeting hadn't been stopped, "Eric Holder's politicized Justice Department would likely have been leveling trumped up criminal charges against Tea Party groups to intimidate them from exercising their Constitutional rights." The administration at the highest level denied that the targeting - from 2010 through the 2012 presidential election cycle - was illegal or politically motivated. President Obama told Fox News in February there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in connection with the targeting. ~~~~~ And in a major revelation,other emails obtained by the House Committee show that the office of the committee's top-ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, contacted the IRS in January 2013 about True the Vote, one of the conservative groups that was targeted. A Lerner staffer responded to Cummings by sending the group’s related 990 IRS forms to Cummings and his staff. So, the released emails show that Cummings and his staff communicated with Lerner while the IRS allegedly targeted True the Vote for abuse, indicating that two branches of government were colluding to target and silence private citizens. "America has come to a tipping point,” according to Catherine Engelbrecht, the conservative activist who heads True the Vote. Engelbrecht was interviewed by the House Committee and said the questions Cummings asked her during the February hearing sounded "eerily similar" to what the IRS asked her after her organization applied for nonprofit status. "It was just a little too close for comfort," Engelbrecht told "Fox & Friends" Wednesday. Committee Chairman Issa said that the released emails suggest that Cummings contacted the IRS urging it to investigate Engelbrecht's organization after it applied for nonprofit status. Cummings has said the House was wasting its time with the investigation and told CNN last year "the case is solved," according to an editorial in Investor's Business Daily. The editorial said Cummings "had been working hand in glove with the IRS to target conservative groups and wanted the fact to remain a secret." Media reports say that Engelbrecht first applied for nonprofit status for her group True the Vote in 2010. She said five agencies subsequently contacted her "in very rapid succession over a three-year period. Once I filed my nonprofit application with the IRS back in July of 2010, it seems as though that set into motion a series of events that ultimately would bring five government agencies to my door," adding there was "no doubt" the agencies were working in a "collaborative effort to target and silence me." She said her story was "just beginning to be told," and said the targeting likely happened to other groups. Engelbrecht’s attorney, Cleta Mitchell, told WND/Radio America in an interview that President Obama clearly inspired the mistreatment of conservative groups with his public comments : “Let’s not forget where this IRS scandal began. People say, ‘Oh, you’re looking for a smoking gun and there’s no smoking gun.’ Yeah, there’s a smoking gun. There are about a dozen smoking guns. They’re just lying all over the streets of Washington, D.C. You had the President of the United States going around the country giving speeches, attacking private citizens groups and demanding that something be done about them. Why should something be done about them? Because he disagrees with them." Mitchell went on : "Then you had 31 House members and nine senators, all Democrats writing to the IRS and demanding the IRS 'do something’ to crack down on these conservative groups.” Another House Committee - Ways and Means - recommended that Attorney General Eric Holder prosecute Lerner on three charges, one for violation of privacy for allegedly using government property to release confidential private taxpayer information and a second for allegedly using her influencial position to improperly influence IRS action against tea party groups, possibly for political purposes. Issa's Oversight Committee is considering a motion to refer charges against Lerner to Holder, asking for a grand jury probe. ~~~~~ Dear readers, that the IRS probe is being attacked by Democrats is to be expected. Every congressional probe is made by the party that stands to gain from it. The Democrats have conducted probes against the GOP often enough to know whereof they speak. And you can be sure that their attitude would change instantly if the groups being harassed by the IRS had been left-wing organizations that usually support Democrats. But this particular congressional investigation is not about party politics. It is about constitutional limits on government. The political use of a government agency to silence or harass political opponents is gravely serious - it cuts to the heart of the abuse of presidential power - in this case on Barack Obama's watch as President. Americans might not be surprised to learn about such political evils in Russia or China - but not in the United States. The Justice Department must find out what Lerner is hiding, with or without the cooperation of Attorney General Holder. Neither the Justice Department nor the IRS may take the unconstitutional step of becoming the political operative for any party.