The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/florida">Florida</a> judge who reportedly signed off on the warrant permitting the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI</a> to raid the home of former <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">President Trump</a> — where they allegedly looked for classified documents —  was far more sympathetic back in the day when tens of thousands of emails of Democrat Lois Lerner, then head of a division of the IRS and harsh critic of conservatives, disappeared.
“There was a year-long Congressional investigation before the IRS finally admitted the 2009 through 2011 Lois Lerner’s emails ‘disappeared,’” Robert Wood noted in<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/11/22/lost-lois-lerner-emails-found-despite-no-backup-claims-irs-has-no-comment/"> Forbes</a>.
“On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service informed Congressional investigators that it could not recover two years of emails from Lois Lerner, the former head of the agency&#8217;s tax-exempt status department,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/06/16/heres-how-the-irs-lost-emails-from-key-witness-lois-lerner/">The Washington Post</a> reported in 2014, adding that Lerner was the focus of the investigation into the IRS forcing additional scrutiny on tax-exempt applications of Tea Party-affiliated organizations. Lerner was a registered Democrat, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/lois-lerner-breaks-silence-irs-scandal-111181">Politico.</a>
Judge Bruce Reinhart was asked about Lerner’s missing emails. He stated, “Let me put it this way: Incompetence doesn’t necessarily lead to criminality.” He suggested the reason for the disappearing emails was “incompetence,” contending, “The IRS has one of the most antiquated computer systems in the world, and the fact that emails could have disappeared without Ms. Lerner knowing about it or Ms. Lerner being involved is entirely credible to me.”
“And I’m sure that will be her explanation, is that she was a very high-level person in the Department,” Reinhart surmised. “When the subpoena came in from Congress, it was delegated down to people who did this for a living; they were instructed to find everything. Information came back up to her that said, ‘This is what we have,’ she reported what she was told, and it turns out to be not to be true, but that’s not a crime. If she didn’t know it wasn’t true, that’s not a crime.”
The host pointed out that an email written by Lerner read, “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.”
“It could be read one way to say, ‘Destroy what we already have,&#8217; which of course would be criminal, or it could be construed to say, &#8216;Going forward, recognize that Congress could ask for our emails, so be careful what you put in writing,&#8217;” Reinhart argued, concluding, “I think at the end of the day, what originally happened here is probably not a crime, and to the extent that there’s concerns about the non-production of the emails I think she has enough insulation between her and those production issues that barring some other smoking gun I don’t see it.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Watch the mental gymnastics that Bruce Reinhart (judge who signed off on Mar-a-Lago warrant) goes through to defend Lois Lerner deleting two years of emails during the IRS scandal. <a href="https://t.co/AOva9wnVF4">pic.twitter.com/AOva9wnVF4</a>
&mdash; Maze (@mazemoore) <a href="https://twitter.com/mazemoore/status/1557116112898342918?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
According to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-lois-lerner-called-republicans-crazies-in-email/">CBS News</a>, in some of Lerner’s emails she had referred to members of the GOP as “crazies” and “a**holes.” In response to the revelations from some of Lerner’s emails, Republican Rep. Dave Camp, who chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote then-Attorney General Eric Holder, “This new evidence clearly demonstrates why Ms. Lerner not only targeted conservatives, but denied such groups their rights to due process and equal protection under the law.”
In 2015, the IRS stated in a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/276042236/Judicial-Watch-FOIA-Lois-Lerner-IRS-Status-Report-8-24-2015" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-testid="standard-link">court filing</a> Lerner had utilized a personal e-mail using the alias “Toby Miles” to conduct IRS business.

Law.

Judge Who Signed Off On FBI Raid Was Far More Sympathetic When Democrat IRS Official’s 30,000 Emails Disappeared

Donald Trump

emails

Judge

Lois Lerner

Mar-a-Lago

The last group targeted in an ongoing, anti-conservative campaign within the Internal Revenue Service has received an official apology, bringing the saga that once starred Lois Lerner and other high-profile Obama Administration officials, to a close.
Pro-Israel non-profit group Z Street was swept up in the IRS dragnet that delayed or denied 501(c)(3) tax exempt status to hundreds of Tea Party, conservative, or conservative-sounding organizations while Obama officials searched for a &#8220;dark money&#8221; connection between the groups, and tried to force organizations to disclose major conservative donors.
Z Street applied for non-profit status in 2009, a review process that typically takes around six months. The group waited a shocking seven years for the IRS to handle their application. Around a year into the application process, Z Street&#8217;s executives asked the IRS what the problem was, only to learn that they&#8217;d been targeted for &#8220;heightened scrutiny&#8221; because officials were concerned that Z Street&#8217;s &#8220;policy positions conflicted with those of the Obama administration.&#8221;
Specifically, officials wanted to know whether Z Street was &#8220;funding terror&#8221; &#8212; a concern that&#8217;s not typically within the purview of the Internal Revenue Service.
<a href="http://www.govexec.com/oversight/2018/02/justice-department-settles-final-case-irs-targeting-dispute/145687/?oref=govexec_today_nl">Now Government Executive reports</a> that Z Street, the last remaining group of 427 organizations suing the IRS, has received its settlement and been issued a personal apology from Acting Internal Revenue Commissioner David Kautter. The apology is mostly complete, though it does mention that no court has yet found the IRS actually guilty of any kind of discrimination.
Z Street&#8217;s settlement follows two other &#8220;substantial&#8221; settlements, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups">inked back in October</a>.

Pro-Israel Group FINALLY Gets An Apology For IRS’ Anti-Conservative Targeting Program

Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

Former chief of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS, Lois Lerner, will not face charges following a re-examination of the case against her by the Trump Justice Department.
In a letter dated September 8, 2017, Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd responded to Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Rep. Peter Roskam&#8217;s (R-IL) April 12th request that the DOJ take a second look at the IRS targeting scandal.
The <a href="https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/09.08.17_doj_response_to_criminal_referral_request.pdf">letter</a> reads in part:
<blockquote>
Consistent with the Treasury Inspector General&#8217;s findings, the Department&#8217;s 2015 Letter informed the Committee that the Department&#8217;s investigation uncovered substantial evidence of mismanagement at the IRS. Further, the Department concluded that the IRS&#8217;s mishandling of tax exempt applications disproportionately impacted applicants affiliated with Tea Party groups and similar organizations. However, the Department reported that its investigation had not uncovered evidence of criminal intent by any IRS official. The Department therefore stated that it was closing the investigation and would not pursue criminal charges. &#8230;
Earlier this year, the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General met with leaders in the Department&#8217;s Criminal Division responsible for supervising this matter for a detailed review and extensive discussions regarding the investigation; the evidence, including the information the Committee provided to the Department; and the prosecutorial decisions that were made. In addition, attorneys who recently joined the Department in leadership positions, and who had no prior involvement with this case, independently reviewed the investigation and the facts and law at issue. After this process, the Department determined that reopening the criminal investigation would not be appropriate based on the available evidence.
In providing this information, we note that, in this context, the applicable criminal statutes require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a government employee intentionally discriminated against an applicant for tax-exempt status based upon viewpoint. &#8230;
I assure you that the Department has carefully studied the law, given the evidence the utmost consideration, and thoroughly reviewed the prior investigation from an objective perspective.
</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/us/politics/irs-apologizes-to-conservative-groups-over-application-audits.html">The New York Times</a> reports that in 2013, Lois Lerner admitted &#8220;that the agency had singled out nonprofit applicants with the terms &#8216;Tea Party&#8217; or &#8216;patriots&#8217; in their titles in an effort to respond to a surge in applications for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012.&#8221;
She denied, however, that the singling out of particular groups was politically motivated.
Lerner retired in September 2013, after having been placed on &#8220;administrative leave.&#8221; She was held in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/04/01/lois-lerner-escapes-criminal-contempt-charges-no-waiver-of-fifth-amendment/">contempt of Congress</a> in 2014 as a result of her pleading the Fifth in the IRS targeting investigation.
The story gets even more bizarre.
Months into an investigation into Lerner&#8217;s emails, &#8220;422 backup tapes from the crucial 2010-2011 period &#8230; were erased by IRS workers. The tapes were destroyed in March 2014, according to the Treasury inspector general for the IRS, J. Russell George. That is long after lawmakers started trying to obtain all of Ms. Lerner&#8217;s emails, and after the IRS issued instructions for employees to stop routine destruction of documents that might relate to the probes,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-irs-officials-email-lost-when-backup-tapes-routinely-erased-1435234390?mg=prod/accounts-wsj">The Wall Street Journal</a>.
In June 2016, the list of targeted organizations was finally made public, and <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/06/17/482500386/court-documents-show-the-irs-focused-scrutiny-on-conservative-groups">NPR</a> reported that it was &#8220;top-heavy with conservative groups,&#8221; adding that &#8220;in all, 282 conservative groups were on the IRS list, about two-thirds of the total number of groups that got additional scrutiny.&#8221;&#8203;
After all this, the Assistant AG, as well as the attorneys involved in the re-examination of the case, were allegedly unable to find proof beyond a reasonable doubt of discrimination against conservative organizations.

ABSURD: Former IRS Chief Lois Lerner, Who Targeted Conservatives, Gets Off The Hook

This week, after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) introduced <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-resolution/828">H.Res.828</a>, the measure which would impeach Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John A. Koskinen, the GOP-led House <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/12/07/house-says-no-to-renewed-efforts-to-impeach-irs-commissioner/%23626fbd9a942d&amp;refURL=&amp;referrer=">failed to move the matter forward</a>, instead referring the matter back to the Judiciary Committee. The vote to throw the mater back to the Judiciary Committee passed 342-72, with 166 Republicans bailing out and joining 176 Democrats.
The bill &#8220;[r]esolves that John Andrew Koskinen, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that specified articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate.&#8221;
This isn&#8217;t the first time the House has chickened out when impeaching Koskinen was on the table; the House <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/09/15/house-skips-impeachment-vote-for-irs-commissioner-schedules-hearing-instead/#25413a83448d">failed </a>to pass Rep. Jason Chaffetz&#8217;s resolution to push for Koskinene&#8217;s impeachment; in autumn of 2015 another resolution <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/10/27/house-republicans-move-to-impeach-irs-commissioner-koskinen/#119877df46ec">failed</a>.
The Judiciary Committee decides if sufficient grounds for impeachment exist; Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte has scheduled hearings to investigate the matter, but even after the third was held <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/09/21/irs-commissioner-to-appear-before-congress-today-to-answer-allegations-of-misconduct/#42e128504dcf">in September</a>, no resolution or recommendation was forwarded.
House Speaker Paul Ryan<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-09-07/house-will-hold-vote-on-whether-to-impeach-irs-chief-ryan-says"> called </a>the impeachment process against Koskinen &#8220;more or less a conscience vote. Something that we all have to decide on our own.&#8221;
The case against Koskinen stems from his alleged obstruction of Congress&#8217; efforts to investigate how conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status were targeted by the IRS; he has been accused of purposefully lying to Congress as well as trying to cover up former IRS Tax Exempt Organization Director Lois Lerner&#8217;s 2011 hard drive failure.
Courtesy of <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/03/02/updated-timeline-of-irs-tax-exempt-organization-scandal/#2d3359bc7b2b">Kelly Phillips Erb of Forbes</a>, here is a timeline of events leading to the attempt to impeach Koskinen:
<blockquote>
July 2008: Citizens United, a conservative lobbying group, wanted to air a series of commercials promoting a film targeting Hillary Clinton. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia rules against Citizens United, which appealed the decision.
March 24, 2009. Oral arguments in the Supreme Court began in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310.
January 21, 2010. The Supreme Court <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">issued an opinion</a> reversing the original decision in part, remanding it back to the lower court. Because of the decision, As a result of the ruling, the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/05/13/congress-and-the-president-want-you-to-get-mad-at-irs-over-tax-exempt-targets-just-not-at-them/">number of nonprofit organizations applying for tax-exempt status</a> under <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501">section 501(c)(4) of the Tax Code</a> skyrocketed.
March 2010. Internal Revenue Service employees in the Cincinnati office were asked to further <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-talks-irs-targeting-investigation-previews-thursdays-irs-conference-spending-hearing-on-cnn-sotu/">scrutinize tax-exempt applications</a> that bore certain keywords.
August 2010. The IRS <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201310053fr.pdf">distributes its first formal BOLO</a> (Be on the Lookout) listing to those examining applications. The criteria were Tea Party organizations applying for section 501(c)(3) or section 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status.
June 2011. Other words were added to the BOLO listings, such as Patriots and 9/12 Project, in addition to policy positions such as government spending, taxes, and government debt. Acting Director of Exempt Organizations, Lois Lerner, is advised of the practice.
January 2012. The IRS sends additional information request letters to certain organizations.
March 22, 2012. <a href="http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/finalwaysandmeanscommissioner21march2012.pdf">Former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman testifies</a> before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight there was &#8220;absolutely no targeting&#8221; by the IRS of conservative and/or Tea Party organizations. 
May 2012. Shulman and former Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller are briefed by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) about what was happening.
June 2012. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) formally requests a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) inquiry.
July 2012. The TIGTA inquiry begins.
November 11, 2012. <a href="http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/finalwaysandmeanscommissioner21march2012.pdf">Shulman steps down at the end of his term</a> and is replaced by Miller.
May 10, 2013. <a href="http://electionlawblog.org/?p=50160">Lerner admits that organizations were targeted</a> because of their titles or beliefs, calling it &#8220;absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate.&#8221;
May 14, 2013. Attorney General Eric Holder <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/05/14/attorney-general-holder-orders-fbi-inquiry-into-irs-scrutiny-of-tax-exempt-applications/">announces an FBI investigation</a>.
May 15, 2013. IRS <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/05/15/irs-issues-statement-on-tax-exempt-scandal/">issues a statement</a> on the scandal. Acting IRS Commissioner <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/05/15/acting-irs-commissioner-miller-out-in-midst-of-irs-tax-exempt-scandal/">Steven Miller resigns</a>.
May 16, 2013. <a href="http://www.forbes.com/www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/05/16/president-obama-to-name-daniel-werfel-as-acting-irs-commissioner/">President Obama names 42-year-old Daniel Werfel</a> as Acting Commissioner of the IRS.
May 22, 2013. Lerner <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/05/22/we-know-she-can-count-to-five-irs-official-who-claimed-she-was-not-good-at-math-pleads-the-fifth/">refuses to testify</a> in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, pleading the Fifth Amendment.
May 23, 2013. Lerner is placed on <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/05/24/will-she-or-wont-she-d-c-holds-breath-as-irs-official-is-called-back-to-testify-after-possibly-pleading-the-fifth/">administrative leave</a>.
June 12, 2013. The use of BOLO lists is officially suspended.
December 23, 2013. John Koskinen is sworn in as the new IRS Commissioner following a 59-36 <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/12/20/irs-gets-new-boss-as-it-readies-for-the-2014-tax-filing-season/#19806391359d">confirmation vote</a>.
March 11, 2014. The Committee on House Oversight and Reform <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Lerner-Report1.pdf">issues a report</a> on &#8220;Lois Lerner&#8217;s Involvement in the Targeting of Tax-Exempt Organizations&#8221; (downloads as a pdf).
April 7, 2014. John Koskinen <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/04/07/new-irs-commissioner-talks-tax-scandal-and-congress/">confirms </a>six ongoing investigations, acknowledging the cost to taxpayers has been at least $14 million.
April 8, 2014. The Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform announces that it would <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/04/08/house-committee-gunning-for-criminal-charges-in-irs-scandal/">pursue contempt charges</a> against Lerner.
May 7, 2014. The House of Representatives passes H. Res. 574 by a vote of 231 to 187, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/07/house-finds-lerner-central-figure-in-tax-exempt-scandal-in-contempt-of-congress/">holding Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress</a>.
November 22, 2014. Up to 30,000 emails previously reported missing <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/11/22/those-not-so-lost-emails-up-to-30000-lerner-emails-may-have-been-recovered/">may have been found</a>.
March 31, 2015. The DOJ announces that it won&#8217;t file criminal contempt charges against Lois Lerner, as she did not waive her Fifth Amendment rights.
October 25, 2015. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/resolution-introduced-impeach-irs-commissioner/">introduced a resolution</a> to begin impeach proceedings against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
</blockquote>

GOP Chickens Out On Impeaching IRS Commissioner

House Republicans

John Koskinen

New documents obtained by Judicial Watch reveal that the Department of Justice knew back in 2011 that the Internal Revenue Service was targeting Tea Party groups, and yet they did nothing about it.
The documents show that a senior IRS official had <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/28/obama-administration-knew-of-irs-scandal-2-years-before-congress-but-did-nothing/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=tds-tw">told the FBI</a> that &#8220;Cincinnati was categorizing cases based on name and ideology, not just activity.&#8221; Another IRS official told the bureau that he had seen the document that specifically mandated targeting groups that were labeled as &#8220;Tea Party.
<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/04/justice-dept-had-powerful-case-for-irs-targeting-charges/">The Daily Caller News Foundation</a> reports: 
<blockquote>
One tax exempt case in March or April 2011 &#8220;seemed to be pulled because of the applicant&#8217;s political affiliation and screening is not supposed to occur that way,&#8221; an unidentified IRS senior tax law specialist noted. &#8220;When organizations&#8217; applications are pulled, you have to stay away from their political affiliations and your own.&#8221;
&#8220;She has been taught from day one by her manager that you need to avoid personal views and look at legal criteria,&#8221; FBI documents show. &#8220;She wanted to alert the managers about the way the cases were being pulled.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Lois Lerner, who ran the IRS at the time, was eventually alerted about the practice and reportedly told the agency to end the targeting because it was &#8220;extraordinarily inappropriate and dangerous to use names as a way to refer to and select cases,&#8221; but the targeting continued for two years. (A full timeline of the IRS scandal can be seen <a href="http://www.campaignfreedom.org/external-relations/irs-and-the-tea-party/irs-scandal-timeline/">here</a>.)
At best, Lerner incompetently mismanaged the agency; at worst, Lerner didn&#8217;t have that big of a problem with the targeting that went on. After all, Lerner has reportedly shown disrespect for the law, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437280/irs-tea-party-harassment-may-have-broken-law">evidence</a> indicating that she illegally gave tax documents containing sensitive information to the DOJ.
Regardless, she was never held to account for what the IRS did, as she &#8220;retired with her pension and raked in a $129,300 bonus,&#8221; notes the DCNF.
Despite evidence of the abuses of the IRS, the DOJ did nothing about it. Instead, they claimed the agency had done nothing wrong.
&#8220;We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt or other inappropriate motive,&#8221; the DOJ announced back in October 2015.
The DOJ continues to undermine the rule of law in favor of politics, the kind of thing that is seen in banana republics.

Report: DOJ Knew In 2011 That IRS Targeted Tea Party Groups And Didn’t Do Anything About It

Department of Justice

Obama Administration

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) sent a <a href="http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=2499">letter</a> on Tuesday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking the Department of Justice to keep documents related to the investigation of the Internal Revenue Service&#8217;s targeting of Tea Party groups.
As The Daily Wire previously <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/652/surprise-irs-official-who-targeted-conservatives-michael-qazvini">reported,</a> Lois Lerner, the former director of the IRS Exemption Organization Unit, was cleared of any wrongdoing by the DOJ on Oct. 23. Cruz was unhappy about this, saying the next presidential administration would give a more impartial investigation into the issue.
&#8220;Bluntly stated, your decision is disappointing but also not surprising, and only confirms suspicions that the current Department is equipped to neither handle an appropriate investigation nor make appropriate judgments regarding existing conflicts of interest, based on its failure to appoint a special prosecutor,&#8221; Cruz wrote. &#8220;Despite numerous requests for a fair and impartial process, you, your predecessor, and this Administration generally have been dismissive of congressional and other calls for an appropriate accounting of the IRS&#8217;s abusive behavior.&#8221;
&#8220;Make no mistake: the IRS&#8217;s targeting of ordinary citizens for their political viewpoints under this Administration is not a minor issue, and represents a significant breach of the public trust,&#8221; Cruz continued. &#8220;Even a casual observer of the IRS targeting scandal could not help but come to the conclusion that there is a strong appearance that the IRS, under this Administration&#8217;s political leadership, used the coercive tools available to the tax collection agency to harass people with conservative viewpoints. The little information that is available in the public domain about what happened at the IRS also makes it appear that laws, including criminal laws, may have been broken.&#8221;
Cruz then called for a special prosecutor to be appointed, and told Lynch that a request to keep documents was necessary because of &#8220;this Administration&#8217;s poor track record for recordkeeping.&#8221;
<blockquote>
&#8220;I have previously warned Treasury and IRS officials that such consequences could also result for any such destruction of records within their control, and those warnings stand.&#8221;
Ted Cruz
</blockquote>
&#8220;I will also take this moment to remind you, your fellow political appointees within the Department, and any other Department employees, advisors, or contractors that destruction of any of the requested documents or information could subject those responsible for such destruction to criminal prosecution in the future,&#8221; Cruz warned. &#8220;I have previously warned Treasury and IRS officials that such consequences could also result for any such destruction of records within their control, and those warnings stand. One&#8217;s position as a past or present federal employee does not afford immunity from the federal criminal justice system. It is my hope that a future administration would pursue justified prosecutions with all due energy.&#8221;
Cruz then made the following requests:
<blockquote>
1. Preserve all paper-based documents, e-mail-based communications, e-mail-based calendar appointments, electronic documents, electronic communications (including voicemails, SMS (i.e., text) messages, and instant messages), and all other electronic data regardless of format, created since January 1, 2010, that:
 a. Are records, regardless of content, that were originally produced or possessed by the IRS or any of its employees, contractors, subcontractors, grantees, subgrantees, or consultants;
 b. Are communications, regardless of author, source, or content, that in any way address the IRS or any of its past or current employees; and
 c. Include or reference the names Douglas Shulman, John Koskinen, Lois Lerner, William Wilkins, Holly Paz, Judy Kindell, and/or Carter Hull, or any versions of these names, including initials or nicknames.
For the purposes of this request, &#8220;preserve&#8221; means taking any and all reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, overwriting, formatting, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, revision, or mutation of electronic and non-electronic documents, records, and logs, as well as negligent or intentional handling that would make such records incomplete or inaccessible.
2. Exercise any and all reasonable efforts to identify and notify former Department employees, contractors, subcontractors, grantees, subgrantees, and consultants who may have access to such electronic or non-electronic records that these records are also to be preserved.
3. If it is a practice of the Department, any Department component, any federal employee, any contract employee, any grantee or subgrantee, or any consultant to destroy or otherwise alter such electronic or non-electronic records, either halt such practices immediately, or arrange for the preservation of complete and accurate duplicates or copies of such records, suitable for production if requested.
</blockquote>
Cruz also asked for the DoJ to give copies of the records to the Inspector General and Archivist of the United States.
The presidential candidate is right about the administration&#8217;s recordkeeping, given that there are important emails from Lerner&#8217;s server that have gone missing. The idea that Lerner did not act out of political motives and that the IRS was simply mismanaged&#8211;as the DOJ has said&#8211;is bogus. <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/30/lois-lerner-hated-conservatives-new-emails-show/?page=all">Emails</a> show that Lerner hated the Tea Party, referring to them as &#8220;crazies&#8221; and &#8220;a**holes.&#8221; Conservatives groups were solely targeted, and <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Darrell-Issa-tea-party-IRS-Lois-Lerner/2015/07/24/id/658797/">it&#8217;s still happening</a>.
Cruz is right to request that these documents be preserved and open the door for a new investigation in the next presidential administration.

Cruz Puts IRS On Notice: Preserve Your Documents

Ted Cruz

Charles Krauthammer, who often understands the gestalt of any situation well, misses the point in a column written for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/skip-the-investigations-win-the-election/2015/10/29/fdfafd2e-7e70-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html">The Washington Post</a>.
Noting the articles of impeachment <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/resolution-introduced-impeach-irs-commissioner/">introduced </a>against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, and referencing the recent Benghazi hearing featuring Hillary Clinton, the House Oversight Committee&#8217;s investigation of the IRS&#8217; Lois Lerner and the hearings revolving around the infamous Planned Parenthood videos, Krauthammer decries the GOP&#8217;s efforts, asserting, &#8220;In each of these cases, Republicans had the facts and the argument. And yet in every one, they failed. What makes them think that they will fare any better in the next iteration, the impeachment of a minor official in an expiring administration?&#8221;
Krauthammer writes of the Koskinen impeachment, &#8220;But impeachment is no ordinary move. No agency chief or Cabinet officer has been impeached since 1876. And even proponents admit that there is no chance of Koskinen being removed from office because the Senate will never convict.&#8221;
Krauthammer points out that for Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), &#8220;the purpose is public education, &#8216;to demonstrate to the American people&#8217; that &#8216;executive branch officials who violate the public trust will be held accountable.&#8217;&#8221; He adds, &#8220;Chaffetz says that the purpose is to rein in the IRS. I&#8217;m all for that. You know how you do it? Win the presidency. Appoint honest new IRS leadership. And get your own Justice Department to do a real investigation.&#8221;
Here&#8217;s the essential point Krauthammer either misses or ignores: in order to win the presidency, the GOP will need pull quotes that they can utilize to attack Democrats, a la &#8220;What difference does it make?&#8221; To think that the GOP will be able to convict anyone in an administration that casually ignores legality for its own purposes is foolhardy; the best the GOP can do is hold Democrats&#8217; feet to the fire in hopes of eliciting a comment useful for TV ads.
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To think that the GOP will be able to convict anyone in an administration that casually ignores legality for its own purposes is foolhardy; the best the GOP can do is hold Democrats&#8217; feet to the fire in hopes of eliciting a comment useful for TV ads.

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With a media complicit in virtually all of the Obama machine&#8217;s machinations, it is a pipe dream to believe that hearings such as the 1970&#8217;s Watergate hearings would ever gain enough steam in the media to strip a Democrat from power; the only way to win the presidency and keep the Senate in 2016 will be to mine verbal gems from the testimony of those Democrats under attack.

Krauthammer Says Republicans Should Drop Investigations. He’s Wrong.

Benghazi

Charles Krauthammer

Hillary Clinton

Jason Chaffetz

On Tuesday, House Republicans, using their best CYA maneuver for their <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/gop-leaders-try-sell-debt-budget-pact-obama-090808686--finance.html">surrender</a> on the two-year budget deal, suddenly introduced articles of impeachment on Tuesday against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz introduced four articles of impeachment, stating Koskinen &#8220;engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as an Officer of the United States,&#8221; according to <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/impeaching-the-irs-director-1445975237">The Wall Street Journal</a>.
The four charges against Koskinen include 1) a failure to obey subpoenas; Congress told Koskinen in February 2014 to supply all emails related to Lerner, but Koskinen never responded; 2) &#8220;a pattern of deception&#8221; and three &#8220;materially false&#8221; statements Koskinen made to Congress, e.g. insisting none of Lerner&#8217;s emails were lost, although her hard drive had crashed and employees erased tapes; 3) delaying to inform Congress of Lerner&#8217;s emails until June 13 though he knew they were missing as early as February 2014, and 4) &#8220;incompetence,&#8221; as his department refused to search disaster backup tapes, a Lerner Blackberry and laptop, the email server and its backup tapes.
The Journal acknowledges, &#8220; &#8230; no Presidency in decades has treated Congress with the disdain that President Obama has,&#8221; adding that even if the House votes to impeach Koskinen, the Senate is unlikely to muster the two-thirds vote to convict him. But the Journal then writes loftily, &#8220;Yet the exercise will have the salutary effect of reminding executive-branch officials that they are not a government unto themselves.&#8221;
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And what does the act of filing fruitless articles of impeachment by the House GOP achieve?

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In the very next breath, the Journal admits, &#8220;The U.S. Attorney has refused to honor Congress&#8217;s contempt charge against Ms. Lerner for refusing to testify, the Justice Department has closed its investigations into IRS targeting without prosecutions, and the press corps winks at abuses of power when conservatives are the targets. With an executive who refuses to honor the normal separation of powers, Congress is obliged to use its authority to hold government accountable.&#8221;
And just what does that noble sentiment achieve? Nothing. And what does the act of filing fruitless articles of impeachment by the House GOP achieve?
Distracting true conservatives from noticing their cowardly capitulation on the budget, that&#8217;s what.

House Files Pointless Impeachment Charges Against IRS Head to Cover for Budget Surrender

On Friday, President Obama&#8217;s Justice Department told members of Congress that it will officially close its two year investigation into illegal IRS targeting of conservative and tea party organizations. The DOJ will not pursue charges against former IRS chief Lois Lerner for her central involvement in IRS criminal impropriety.
In a letter abruptly passed to members of Congress, Assistant Attorney general Peter Kadzik <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/23/politics/lois-lerner-no-charges-doj-tea-party/">said</a>:
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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.
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While the DOJ admitted its <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/23/politics/lois-lerner-no-charges-doj-tea-party/">probe</a> found &#8220;substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia,&#8221; it chose to drop its charges against Obama&#8217;s IRS, claiming that &#8220;poor management is not a crime.&#8221;
The conflict of interest here is self-evident to a layman, let alone legal authorities. However, in the Age of Obama, feudal lords are protected with all the corruption a kingdom can possibly bestow.
The Washington Times <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/23/lois-lerner-will-not-face-charges-after-justice-de/">notes</a>, &#8220;The decision comes more than two years after the IRS&#8217;s internal watchdog reported that auditors singled out tea party groups&#8217; applications for special scrutiny and delayed those applications beyond reasonable timelines, preventing the groups from being able to say they were officially recognized nonprofits.&#8221;
The <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/23/lois-lerner-will-not-face-charges-after-justice-de/">letter</a> suggests that Lerner &#8220;recognized that it was wrong,&#8221; and purportedly did not act out of political motives. The fact that Lerner&#8217;s IRS exclusively targeted conservative groups was apparently not factored in this equation of clemency.
The Times <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/23/lois-lerner-will-not-face-charges-after-justice-de/">adds</a> that, &#8220;Lerner, a senior executive in charge of approving the groups&#8217; applications&#8230;had authored a number of emails that suggested a bias against the tea party movement.&#8221;
The extraordinary allegations and sheer body of evidence mounted against Lerner amount to a prima facie case of corruption.
As the Obama administration directs his partisan legal operatives to launch a full-scale witch-hunt against conservatives like <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/us/dsouza-is-spared-prison-time-for-campaign-finance-violations.html?_r=0">Dinesh D&#8217; Souza</a>, Lerner and her liberal lackeys escape the claws of justice entirely unscathed.
Hillary Clinton and her effortlessly hackable personal email server, containing some of the country&#8217;s top national security secrets, likely enjoy the same unjust rewards. It pays to be a friend of Obama.

Surprise! IRS Official Who Targeted Conservatives Not Going To Jail

Barack Obama

A question asked of Hillary Clinton during a Facebook Q&amp;A on Monday looks suspiciously as if it was planted as a part of her campaign&#8217;s effort to limn her as a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/us/politics/hillary-clinton-to-show-more-humor-and-heart-aides-say.html?_r=0">spontaneous, humorous humanoid</a>. 
Claire Celsi, a self-described <a href="http://www.publicrelationsprincess.com">public relations practitioner</a> in West Des Moines, Iowa, who volunteered for Clinton&#8217;s 2008 campaign, asked Clinton if she were a &#8220;pumpkin spice latte kind of gal&#8221; on Facebook. Clinton replied, &#8220;Ha! The true answer is I used to be until I saw how many calories are in them,&#8221; prompting a <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/hillarys-spontaneous-pumpkin-spice-latte-question-came-from-former-staffer/">frenzy</a> of news coverage from the MSM, including The Hill, Fox News, The New York Daily News, TIME, and Reuters, changing the narrative from Clinton&#8217;s emails to her culinary habits.
The Washington Free Beacon <a href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/pumpkin-spice-latte-question-was-asked-by-former-clinton-staffer/">reported </a>that Celsi has been quoted by WeAreIowa.com and again in August by NBC News supporting Clinton; she told NBC, &#8220;She&#8217;s the most qualified candidate we&#8217;ve had other than a sitting president, why would we not give her our full support? Sorry Bern boy. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I love Senator Sanders&#8212;but she&#8217;s the Eleanor Roosevelt of our time.&#8221;
Clinton&#8217;s campaign staffers have planted questions before, notably in her failed quest for the 2008 presidential nomination. In three separate incidents, questions were planted to ensure Clinton could stage-manage her responses. ABC news reported that a Clinton staffer used Geoff Mitchell, a 32-year-old minister, at an Iowa event on April 2, to ask a question about Iraq;the same month, according to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/clinton-under-fire-planting-fake-questions/">The Nation</a>, a Clinton staffer &#8220;suggested that audience members ask the Senator a question about her confrontation with President Bush over Iraq deadlines.&#8221; In November 2007, Clinton&#8217;s campaign admitted that it arranged for a senior Clinton staffer to address a college student, Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, and tell her to ask a question about Clinton&#8217;s energy plan. A Clinton spokesperson acknowledged, &#8220;On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton&#8217;s energy plan at a forum&#8230; this is not standard policy and will not be repeated again.&#8221; Patrick Caldwell, a writer for Scarlet and Black, the student newspaper at Grinnell College, who broke the story, alleged that the Clinton campaign attempted to plant numerous questions at the event.
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Clinton&#8217;s campaign staffers have planted questions before, notably in her failed quest for the 2008 presidential nomination.

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Barack Obama responded to questions about the Clinton campaign&#8217;s admission soon after the revelation became public, <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/11/12/obama-we-dont-plant-questions/">asserting</a>, &#8220;When I go into a town hall meeting, I never know what questions to expect and that&#8217;s a good thing because the people of New Hampshire should expect that their candidates are going to hear what&#8217;s on the voters&#8217; minds and not what&#8217;s been concocted by the candidate&#8217;s staff.&#8221; He continued that planting questions is &#8220;not a practice that we&#8217;ve ever engaged in and it&#8217;s not a practice that we ever plan to engage in.&#8221;
Yet in 2013, Lois Lerner, the director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, told Celia Roady, a Washington tax lawyer who served on the IRS Advisory Committee on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities, to <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/18/irs-scandal-planted-question/2216747/">ask her a question</a> after Lerner&#8217;s remarks at the ABA Tax Section&#8217;s Exempt Organizations Committee Meeting, enabling Lerner to publicly apologize for her actions, and head off an inspector general report that lambasted the IRS for its handling of tax exemptions for Tea Party groups,. Roady admitted, &#8220;On May 9, I received a call from Lois Lerner, who told me that she wanted to address an issue after her prepared remarks at the ABA Tax Section&#8217;s Exempt Organizations Committee Meeting, and asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks. I agreed to do so, and she then gave me the question that I asked at the meeting the next day.&#8221;
As far back as 2009, reporters suspected that Obama might have pre-briefed certain reporters before press conferences. They <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2009/06/102115/">asked</a> his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, &#8220;Is this going to become a regular feature of President Obama&#8217;s news conference, that you all are going to bring people in here that you select to ask questions?&#8221; Gibbs responded, &#8220;I don&#8217;t have any &#8211; I won&#8217;t make any apologies for that.&#8221;

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