Rotten to the core....as we have seen time and time again with this administration.

Covering for the IRS

New details on the Administration's spin and stall strategy.

168 Comments

     

Updated Sept. 15, 2014 12:32 a.m. ET

The IRS targeting of conservative groups has now become a story about the cover-up. More than a year after the scandal became public, the most transparent Administration in history has done everything in its power to spin the story, stymie Congressional investigators and run out the clock.

Take the latest moment of hilarity, er, clarity from the Justice Department, in which a communications aide to Attorney General                                                 Eric Holder                                           mistakenly called Republicans on the HouseOversight and Government Reform Committee when he meant to call Democrats. The aide,                                               Brian Fallon,                                           told staffers he was calling to see if they could leak information to friendly reporters and give the Justice Department a chance to comment before the majority got their hands on it.

 

              Lois Lerner emails obtained from the House Ways and Means Committee are displayed in Washington, Wednesday, July 30, 2014.               

When he realized his error, committee staffers say Mr. Fallon came back on the line to say, oh, sorry, there has been a change of plans and Justice wouldn't share the information after all. Mr. Fallon has since said it is perfectly normal to call Congressional Republicans and Democrats, though he does deserve a place in the dimwit government hall of fame.

Mr. Fallon wanted to leak something about                                               Andrew Strelka,                                           the former Justice Department lawyer who was assigned to a case brought against the IRS by Z Street, a pro-Israel group that says its application for tax-exempt status was delayed in 2009 because of a policy giving special scrutiny to groups whose missions conflicted with the White House line.

Before becoming the Justice Department's lawyer on the case, Mr. Strelka was a presidential management fellow working in the IRS office that handled the case, presenting a conflict of interest. To wit: Mr. Strelka is likely to be interviewed as a witness in the discovery phase of the trial he was previously litigating. Mr. Strelka has since resigned from the case and left the Justice Department, but the department has provided Congressional investigators with no forwarding address.

The cloak and dagger operation also raises questions about the Administration's attempts to delay the Z Street case from moving into discovery after federal Judge Ketanji                                               Brown Jackson                                           ruled it could proceed. First the Justice Department waited until the last hour to file a motion to appeal, then it failed to check a box (literally) when it withdrew its appeal to note that the withdrawal motion was uncontested, a technicality that left the case to moulder for another month before discovery can get underway.

Even allowing for dimwits, count us skeptical that this legal slowrolling is any more coincidental than the congressional version. Judicial Watch President                                               Tom Fitton                                           says that when federal Judge                                               Emmet Sullivan                                           ordered the IRS to produce documents in Judicial Watch's FOIA lawsuit against the agency, the IRS produced them in reverse chronological order—the better to withhold the most sensitive for as long as possible.

Judge Sullivan has been riding herd on the government's gamesmanship, calling the IRS responses to questions about former Treasury official                                               Lois                                           Lerner's missing emails deficient and ordering the agency to provide more complete information. When long-withheld documents do surface after long delays, they are invariably pertinent to the questions conservatives have been asking for more than a year. It was after one such request by Judge Sullivan that the IRS fessed up to wiping Ms. Lerner's Blackberry after the investigation into IRS targeting had begun.

Another such moment happened earlier this month, when the Judicial Watch lawsuit produced a document that raises questions about an IRS "secret research project" related to donor names. In a heavily redacted email chain from May 2012, Ms. Lerner asks how to return some donor lists that the IRS should not have had.

In a June 2012 email to IRS official Holly Paz, IRS Acting Director of Rulings and Agreements David Fish wrote that "                                              Joseph Urban                                           [IRS Technical Advisor, Tax Exempt and Government Entities] had actually started a secret research project on whether we could, consistent with 6104, argue that [REDACTED]                                               Joe                                           was quite agitated yesterday when I told him what we were doing." The email continues: "At one point he started saying that this was a decision for                                               Steve Miller                                           . . . Would not be surprised if he already started working on Lois." Mr. Miller is the former IRS Acting Commissioner who resigned shortly after the scandal broke.

Another batch of emails from the FOIA lawsuit also showed that Ms. Lerner was talking to the Justice Department in 2013 about the possibility of prosecuting some of the same politically active groups that the agency had been targeting.

This is the same Justice Department that is now conducting what by all available evidence is its non-investigation into the IRS's behavior in the scandal. Your tax dollars at work.

LOIS LERNER: 'I didn't do anything wrong'...

Says she's not worse than Jeffrey Dahmer...

Targeting the Constitution

By Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz September 23

It is now well known that the IRS targeted tea party organizations. What is less well known, but perhaps even more scandalous, is that the IRS also targeted those who would educate their fellow citizens about the United States Constitution.

According to the inspector general’s report (pp. 30 & 38), this particular IRS targeting commenced on Jan. 25, 2012 — the beginning of the election year for President Obama’s second campaign. On that date: “the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] criteria were again updated.” The revised criteria included “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

Grass-roots organizations around the country, such as the Linchpins of Liberty (Tennessee), the Spirit of Freedom Institute (Wyoming), and the Constitutional Organization of Liberty (Pennsylvania), allege that they were singled out for special scrutiny at least in part for their work in constitutional education. There may have been many more.

The tea party is viewed with general suspicion in some quarters, and it is not difficult, alas, to imagine the mindset of the officials who decided to target tea party organizations for special scrutiny. But federal officers swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is chilling to think that these same officials who are suspicious of the tea party are equally suspicious of the Constitution itself.

What is most corrosive about this IRS tripwire is that it is triggered by a particular point of view; it is not, as First Amendment scholars say, viewpoint-neutral. It does not include obfuscating or denigrating the Constitution; only those “involved in … educating on the Constitution” are captured by this criterion. This viewpoint targeting potentially skews every national debate about politics or government. And the skew is not strictly liberal; indeed, it should trouble liberals as much as conservatives. The ultimate checks on executive power are to be found in the United States Constitution. Insidiously, then, suppressing those “involved in … educating on the Constitution” actually skews national debate in favor of unchecked executive power.

For example, this IRS tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the NSA should collect the phone records of every American citizen. But it would be triggered by teaching that the Fourth Amendment forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should unilaterally suspend politically inconvenient provisions of federal law, like ObamaCare. But it would be triggered by teaching that, under Article II, section 3, the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should appoint NLRB members unilaterally. But it would be triggered by teaching that, under Article II, section 2, such appointments require “the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should target and kill U.S. citizens abroad. But it would be triggered by teaching that, per the Fifth Amendment, no person shall “be deprived of life … without due process of law.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should declare war unilaterally. But it would be triggered by teaching that, under Article I, section 8, “Congress shall have Power … To declare War.” In short, the IRS was “on the lookout,” not for those who preach unlimited executive power, but for those who would teach about constitutional constraints.

Even more to the point, perhaps, this IRS tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the IRS should discriminate against the tea party. But it would be triggered by teaching that such discrimination constitutes unfaithful execution of the tax laws. And thus, alas, there is a perverse logic to targeting constitutional educators alongside tea party organizations. Political discrimination in the administration of the tax laws is not merely “outrageous,” as Obama has said; it is an assault on our constitutional structure itself. For an official who has chosen to go down this road and target the tea party, there is an Orwellian logic to targeting constitutional educators as well. After all, they are the ones who might shed light on this very point.

This is a new low for American government — targeting those who would teach others about its founding document. Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon went to great lengths to try to conceal the facts of his constitutional violations, but it never occurred to him to conceal the meaning of the Constitution itself, by targeting its teachers. Politicians have always been tempted to try to censor their political adversaries; but none has been so bold as to try to suppress constitutional education directly. Presidents have always sought to push against the constitutional limits of their power; but never have they targeted those who merely teach about such limits. In short, never before has the federal government singled out for special scrutiny those who would teach their fellow citizens about our magnificent Constitution. This is the new innovation of Obama’s IRS.

“We the People” do not yet know who first decided to target “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” But there is at least one person who does know. Ironically, though, Lois Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS, is making full use of her own constitutional education: “I have been advised by my counsel to assert my constitutional right not to testify …. One of the basic functions of the Fifth Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection I’m invoking today.”

Five years ago, Obama, our constitutional law professor-in-chief, presented his first, ringing Constitution Day proclamation: “To succeed, the democracy established in our Constitution requires the active participation of its citizenry. Each of us has a responsibility to learn about our Constitution and teach younger generations about its contents and history.” Quite so. Perhaps this year, Obama could explain why his IRS would target those who answered this call.