Lois Lerner, the IRS, and the Department of "No Justice"

It's Saturday politics. In what seemed an effort to bury the news during the media frenzy over Hillary Clinton's testimony before the House Select Benghazi Committee, the Justice Department sent a letter ten days ago to Congress informing it that the DOJ is closing its two-year investigation into whether the IRS improperly targeted tea party and conservative groups. In the letter, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik wrote the probe found : “substantial evidence of and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints. But poor management is not 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. We also found no evidence that any official involved in the handling of tax-exempt applications or IRS leadership attempted to obstruct justice. Based on the evidence developed in this investigation and the recommendation of experienced career prosecutors and supervising attorneys at the department, we are closing our investigation and will not seek any criminal charges.” ~~~~~ So, Lois Lerner, who referred to tea party organizations in emails as “crazies” and said they were working to bring about “an end to America,” will not be prosecuted. The DOJ also said no one on Lerner's staff will be charged. She resigned from the IRS in September 2013 and has since received her full pension. When the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was investigating whether the IRS targeted organizations because of their political views, Lerner exercised her Fifth Amendment right not to testify in order not to incriminate herself. During the investigation, the IRS claimed to have lost many of the emails to and from Lerner, making congressional and DOJ probes difficult. ~~~~~ So, we now know what the Department of “Justice” did for Lois Lerner. Its investigation was headed by a Democrat donor, and its report declared that Lerner did not deserve to be charged criminally, even though Lerner, who has been held in contempt of Congress, called conservative talk radio hosts “a**holes” in a 2012 email, and violated privacy laws by giving IRS information to the FBI. Lerner herself, in a February 2012 email, noted she expected consequences if her actions came to light. The evidence led a judge to rule in April that 300 conservative nonprofit groups could join in a class action lawsuit against the IRS. National Review’s Kevin Williamson wrote, the situation leaves us “one banana short of a republic.” ~~~~~ But, refusing to be ridiculed by the Obama DOJ without a fight, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, began an impeachment process against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on Tuesday, accusing him of misleading the public and destroying documents sought under a congressional subpoena. Among the charges listed by Chaffetz and the Committee were that Koskinen, appointed by President Obama in December 2013 after the targeting scandal broke, misled Congress when he said he had turned over all of former IRS senior executive Lois Lerner’s emails and that he oversaw destruction of evidence when his agency destroyed backup tapes that contained the emails. The impeachment resolution says the IRS knew as early as February 2014 that Lerner’s messages were missing because of a reported computer hard drive crash, but the agency didn’t notify Congress until June, and the backup tapes were destroyed. ~~~~~ Governor Mike Huckabee said : "There are two sets of rules in this country, one for those in power and one for all the rest of America who are getting screwed...by their government whether it's their taxes, whether it's the criminal justice system, and Americans are fed up....the IRS is a criminal enterprise that should be put to death." ~~~~~ And, dear readers, are we ready for the same kind of Obama DOJ "justice" that Hillary Clinton will probably receive for her 2012 re-election Benghazi cover-up.