With the latest email revelation concerning Lois Lerner, one of two things MUST now happen, if we are in fact living in a democracy where government is accountable to the people: Either the Justice Department must name a special prosecutor to focus on potential IRS abuses, or the House must appoint a select committee to investigate the matter. Or both.
The whiff of crime and coverup are now everywhere and undeniable except to those drunk in partisanship or blinded by delusion.
Here are the new facts.
On April 9 of last year, Lerner emailed IT specialist Maria Hooke, asking about whether Congress could gain access to an internal IRS chat system called the Office Communications Server.
Hooke said the agency should treat each chat message “as if it could/is being saved [somewhere], as it is possible for either party of the conversation to retain the information and have it turn up as part of the electronic search.”
“Perfect” Lerner replied.
Most damningly, Lerner also wrote:
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.
The questioned begged here is what needed to be hidden from Congress, and and why did Lerner, and other “folks” she mentions, need to hide it?
Other fun facts which supplement the basic, known problem, which is that the IRS targeted Obama’s enemies in the Tea Party:
- Lerner’s emails for the period covering her targeting of Tea Party groups were lost in a computer hard drive “crash” during the summer of 2011. The hard drives of other IRS officials also crashed.
Lerner’s system went down just ten days after the Republican Ways and Means Committee chairman sent a letter to the IRS commissioner saying, “the IRS appears to have selectively targeted certain taxpayers who were engaged in political speech.”
Protestations that she tried to retrieve the hard drive data hold no weight. That’s exactly what I would do if I decided to pretend my hard drive crashed.
- The man appointed by President Obama to lead the IRS, John Koskinen, has donated more than $100,000 to Democratic causes over the last 30 years.
- The IRS, days before the 2010 election, shipped a 1.1 million page database about tax-exempt groups to the FBI. According to the Wall Street Journal:
Emails turned up by Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee show Department of Justice officials worked with Ms. Lerner to investigate groups critical of President Obama . . .
Ms. Lerner, by contrast, shipped a database of 12,000 nonprofit tax returns to the FBI, the investigating agency for Justice’s Criminal Division. The IRS, in other words, was inviting Justice to engage in a fishing expedition, and inviting people not even licensed to fish in that pond.
- There is evidence of collusion between Lerner and the Federal Election Committee.
If this were a Republican administration and the IRS was potentially being used in this matter, the press would be howling about a second Watergate.
The press won’t do its job. Either the Justice Department or Congress must.
12 thoughts on “Lerner Case Now Requires a Special Prosecutor”
I disagree.
While LoisLerner is the face of this IRS scandal, dozens of Dems in high office are involved and the fallout would be catastrophic. Certain US Senators sent letters advising the IRS to “investigate” the tea party, but their testimony, if allowed, would be a circus of political gamemanship.
We should assume that someone, or a lot of someones, working out of the WhiteHouse was involved, if not just aware of the lawless actions of the IRS.
If a special proscecutor is named, given the power to really do his job, the ranks of the Dems will close so hard and fast I’ll be able to hear the clang out here in fly-over country.
Unlike the Watergate inquiry or even MrClinton’s impeachment hearing this investigation will have no same party support at all. The Repubs were appalled at MrNixon’s actions, just as the Dems cringed at the thought of MrClinton’s behaviour inside the Oval Office.
Today, the leading Dems think the IRS didn’t do enough to finally quash the tea party activists, and a lot of Repubs feel the same way.
IMO, the more pressure put on MsLerner, the sooner she’ll be forced to take-one-for-the-team and beg for mercy from the Repubs
Then, it will be over, for now anyway.
We have enough scandals that could use a special prosecutor and this one, while a slam-dunk, won’t make a difference while, for instance, bringing the evil-doers at the VA to light will make all the difference of life or death to many Americans..
Regarding the IRS I don’t know what the correct thing to do is.
The path should be to expose all or most of the people, individuals, responsible — Lerner, WH or Administration and IRS, Congress — and to punish them accordingly. Loss of jobs,benefits, resignation, jail.
Then to clean house at the IRS — put up safeguards to prevent such abuse in the future.
How to do this? Don’t have a clue as to the best way to proceed. srd65 is correct — it is deep and pervasive.
And as we all know, with our gut, the IRS is not the only agency so thoroughly ridden with corruption. But it can do the most harm — in terms of individual lives — and clearly in influencing our electoral and political process.
Apparently Issa subpoened a WH aide according to a National Journal article. I am assuming it is in conjunction with the IRS “not a smidgeon of scandal” scandal, but the article — about 5 paragraphs long — never says. It hints, in a very strong way, that this is somehow — unclear — and Issa is over reaching and biased etc. It is the strangest thing.
The two cases before the courts are forcing the IRS to put in writing under oath how the e-mails disappeared. Congress committee has issued a warrant for Learners arrest.
I can just hear Elijah Cummings saying, “No, you’re taking Ms. Lerner’s words out of context.” And with a straight face.
Cummings tried to intimidate true the vote founder Catherine Englebrecht before the 2012 election. He sent her a threatening letter on his house letterhead stationary, she went thru IRS audits, the EPA targeted her husbands business. This is an inter agency thing and so many corrupt people are involved I don’t know how we can clean house. Even the repubs are involved.
I predict it will never happen.
I still do not understand why we do not have the brave people to come out with the truth. Someone (some people) have those Emails still on their computer. Someone either threaten them, or they do not want their children living in a free Country.
That is along with ALL the other scandels.
A secretary
A friend
A person in office
A grandmother
A bartender
A spouse
There is to much information to keep one’s mouth shut.
In other words all the people who know the truth, had to tell someone outside of the loop. Does anyone agree with me?
Lee, I hope you’re right, and someone will have the courage to come forward. Even better, if someone shows up with a folder full of those pesky emails – printed, on paper.
Exactly. Also the paperwork showing proof of why they held off so long.
Why is Congress delaying this issue with Lerner? They’ve gone back and forth and evidence points to her deliberate destruction of evidence.
This is like the Benghazi story, which continues on and on and nothing is done, as well other issues with the Obama administration.
I can only guess that they all said if we throw so much &%^ at the fan (us) at one time, they will not be able to keep up with the wrong doing.
It is if everyone is still running around picking up the papers.sarc
But the president said there’s not a shred of evidence of wrong doing at the IRS. That’s good enough for me hahaha.
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