.
5/16/13, "The Nine Lies of Lois Lerner," NRO, Kevin D. Williamson
"Lie No. 1: Lois Lerner’s apology last Friday was a spontaneous
reaction to an unexpected question from an unknown audience member.
In fact, the question came from tax lawyer and lobbyist Celia Roady.... She is a longtime colleague of Lerner, who is director of
tax-exempt organizations. Ms. Roady has declined to comment on whether
her question was planted, but it obviously was. The IRS had contacted
reporters and encouraged them beforehand to attend the otherwise
un-newsworthy event, and it had an entire team of press handlers on
hand. So what we have is the staged rollout of what turns out to be —
given the rest of this list — a disinformation campaign.
------------------------------
Lie No. 2: Lerner said about 280 organizations were given extra
scrutiny, about 75 of them tea-party groups or similar organizations.
The actual number of organizations that were targeted is closer to 500.
---------------------------------
Lie No. 3: This was the work of low-level grunts in Cincinnati.
In truth, very senior people within the IRS, including its top lawyer,
were aware of the situation, and had been since at least 2011. The home
office in Washington was very much involved in the process.
------------------------------------
Lie No. 4: Lerner says that the situation came to her attention
through allegations from tea-party groups carried in media reports.
In fact, the matter has been under both internal and external investigation for some time.
-------------------------------------
Lie No. 5: Lerner says she put an end to the practice as soon as she found out about it.
In fact, the IRS continued to do precisely the same thing, only
monkeying a little bit with the language: Instead of targeting “tea
party” groups explicitly, it targeted those groups with an interest in
such esoterica as limited government, the Constitution, the Bill of
Rights, etc.
[Ed. note: "-As of Dec, 17, 2012, 160 applications were still open, "some for more than 3 years and crossing two election cycles." May 14, 2013, "TREASURY INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR TAX ADMINISTRATION," US Dept. of Treasury
"Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review" 54 pages
-"Inappropriate" IRS actions began in early 2010 -"No work was completed on the majority of these applications for 13 months."]
--------------------------------
(continuing): Lie No. 6: She says that the commissioner of the IRS didn’t know about the targeting project.
While the targeting was going on, Ms. Lerner’s boss was being asked some very pointed questions
by Congress on the subject of targeting tea-party groups. He
enthusiastically denied that any such thing was going on, in direct
contravention of the facts. Ms. Lerner says he didn’t know about the
situation, because it was confined to those aforementioned plebs in
Cincinnati. But given that this was not the case, her explaining away
the commissioner’s untrue statements to Congress is a lie based on
another lie — a compound lie, if you will. And acting commissioner
Steven Miller was briefed on the situation in May of 2012 — and then
declined to share his knowledge of it with Congress when asked about it
during a hearing in July.
--------------------------------------
Lie No. 7: Lerner says she came forward with her apology unprompted by any special consideration.
In fact, an inspector general’s report was about to be released, making the matter public.
--------------------------------------
Lie
No. 8: When Congress was investigating complaints from conservative
groups, Lerner told them that she could not release information about
organizations with pending applications.
But her group was in fact
releasing such information — to the left-leaning news organization
ProPublica, rather than to congressional investigators.
[Ed. note: 5/13/13, "IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups," Pro Publica, Barker and Elliott.
"Pro Publica was not contacted by the inspector general's office."]
----------------------------
Lie No. 9: Lerner says that there was no political pressure to investigate tea-party groups.
In fact, Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.) repeatedly pressed the agency
to investigate conservative groups falling under Lerner’s jurisdiction.
[Added: "From Max Baucus to Chuck Schumer to Jeanne Shaheen, key Senate
Democrats publicly pressured the IRS to target groups that held
differing political views and who, in their view, had the temerity to
engage in the political process. The IRS listened to them and acted.
And other Democrat senators like Kay Hagan and Mark Pryor said and did
nothing about it."]
------------------------------------------
What we have, then, is this: Under a Democratic administration, the IRS
was under pressure from Democratic elected officials to investigate
political enemies of the Democratic party. The agency did so. Its
commissioner lied to Congress about its doing so. When the inspector
general’s report was about to make these abuses public, the agency
staged a classic Washington Friday news rollout at a sleepy American Bar
Association tax-law conference, hoping to minimize the bad publicity.
Lerner lied to the public about the nature, scope, and extent of the IRS
intimidation campaign.
That she has a job today is a scandal in
itself. She’ll be receiving an award — for public service! — from the
Western New England University School of Law on May 18. An orange
jumpsuit would suit her better than academic robes." via Legal Insurrection commenter
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