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Monday, May 20, 2013

IRS Scandal Grows: WH Logs Smoking Gun; Bushel Of Pinocchios; IRS Protects Lib Group From Investigation & More

By Susan Duclos

When Democratic Senator Max Baucus said he believes there is "a lot more" that is going to be revealed in the next weeks, regarding the IRS scandal, it seems his hunch was correct.

Morning headlines show:

•  Obama met with the anti-Tea Party IRS union chief the day before agency targeted Tea Party

• The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups

• The IRS actively protected a liberal group, the Humane Society from being investigated

• Washington Post's The Fact Checker has given the woman at the center of the IRS scandal a "bushel of  Pinocchios."

The American Spectaor and the smoking gun:

“For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House

 Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal?

Is the White House Visitors Log the trail to the smoking gun?

The stunning questions are raised by the following set of new facts.

March 31, 2010.

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st.
The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this way:
Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30
In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”
The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:
April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.
In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

The NTEU is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies. Kelley herself is a 14-year IRS veteran agent. The union’s PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles to anti-Tea Party candidates.

Read the Spectator's multi-page detailed report.


The Wall Street Journal "Obama's Counsel Was Told of IRS Audit Findings Weeks Ago":

In the week of April 22, the Office of the White House Counsel and its head, Kathryn Ruemmler, were told by Treasury Department attorneys that an inspector general's report was nearing completion, the White House official said. In that conversation, Ms. Ruemmler learned that "a small number of line IRS employees had improperly scrutinized certain…organizations by using words like 'tea party' and 'patriot,' " the official said.

President Barack Obama said last week he learned about the controversy at the same time as the public, on May 10, when an IRS official revealed it to a conference of lawyers. The president's statement drew criticism, focusing attention on his management style and whether he has kept himself sufficiently informed about the agencies under his authority.

The Washington Post's The Fact Checker provides multiple examples of key statements made by Lois G. Lerner, the IRS’s director of the exempt organizations division, being outright lies and gives her "A bushel of Pinocchios."

In some ways, this is just scratching the surface of Lerner’s misstatements and weasely wording when the revelations about the IRS’s activities first came to light on May 10. But, taken together, it’s certainly enough to earn her four Pinocchios.
Then, via video which will be show below, it is reported that Lois Lerner, is an active member of the Humane Society, and prevented a 2010 investigation from being conducted into their political activities.

Meaning, the IRS did not just target conservatives but protected liberal groups, specifically a liberal group Lerner was closely associated with.




Tell me again why Lerner is still employed and being paid by taxpayers?

Full Wake up America coverage on the IRS scandal can be found here.