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BREAKING: New Emails Show Lois Lerner Was in Contact With DOJ About Prosecuting Tax Exempt Groups

Katie Pavlich | Apr 16, 2014

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According to new IRS emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch, former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner was in contact with the Department of Justice in May 2013 about whether tax exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for "lying" about political activity.
"I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ ... He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who "lied" on their 1024s --saying they weren't planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS," Lerner wrote in a May 8, 2013 email to former Nikole C. Flax, who was former-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller's chief of staff.
"I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?" Flax responded on May 9, 2013.

After this email exchange, Lerner handed things off to Senior Technical Adviser and Attorney Nancy Marks, who was in charge of setting up a meeting with DOJ. Lois Lerner Emails reveal IRS plot to jail conservatives and it goes for as up the White House there is enough evidence against the obama regime he can go to jail now as well... And
Just a few short days later on May 10, 2013, Lerner admitted and apologized for the inappropriate targeting of conservative tea party groups during an American Bar Association Conference after answering a planted question. Further according to Judicial Watch, "In an email to an aide responding to a request for information from a Washington Post reporter, Lerner admits that she “can’t confirm that there was anyone on the other side of the political spectrum” who had been targeted by the IRS. She then adds that “The one with the names used were only know [sic] because they have been very loud in the press.”
In other words, only conservative groups were being looked at for criminal prosecution.
Last week news broke that Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings' staff was in contact with Lerner about the conservative group True the Vote, despite denying any contact occurred. In this specific instance of Lerner discussing possible criminal prosecution of tax-exempt groups through DOJ, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse seems to have been the person to get the ball rolling.
On April 9, 2013 during a Senate Judiciary Hearing, just one month before the targeting scandal broke, Whitehouse asked witnesses from DOJ and the IRS why groups that had possibly "made false statements" about their political activities had not been prosecuted. On March 27, 2013, just days before the hearing took place, Lerner described the purpose for the hearing to IRS staff in an email.
"As I mentioned yesterday -- there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn't feel so comfortable doing the stuff," she wrote. "So, don't be fooled about how this is being articulated – it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity."
Lerner later acknowledged pursuing prosecutions of these groups would not fit well with the law.
“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The IRS emails show Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal. No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents.”
This post has been updated.
Editors note/correction: A previous version of this post stated and implied Lois Lerner contacted the DOJ about criminal prosecution when the emails state she in fact got a phone call from DOJ about the issue. While she was clearly in contact with DOJ about criminal prosecution for tax exempt groups, DOJ initiated the contact in this specific instance. Emails also show Lerner and Flax responded to both recommendations by Senator Whitehouse and DOJ to look into criminal prosecution. The headline to this post has also been updated. 

Judicial Watch Obtains IRS Documents Showing 

Lerner in Contact With DOJ about Potential

Prosecution of Tax-Exempt Group

Posted By Ruth King on April 17th, 2014

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/judicial-watch-obtains-irs-documents-showing-lerner-in-contact-with-doj-about-potential-prosecution-of-tax-exempt-groups

Judicial Watch today released a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that former IRS official Lois Lerner communicated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013.
The newly released IRS documents contain an email exchange between Lerner and Nikole C. Flax, then-Chief of Staff to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller discussing plans to work with the DOJ  to prosecute nonprofit groups that “lied” (Lerner’s quotation marks) about political activities. The exchange includes the following:

• May 8, 2013: Lerner to Flax

I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who “lied” on their 1024s -saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs.
I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS…

• May 9, 2013: Flax to Lerner

I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?
Lerner then “handed off” scheduling the issue to Senior Technical Adviser, Attorney Nancy Marks, who was then supposed to set up the meeting with the DOJ.  Lerner also decided that it would be DOJ’s decision as to whether representatives from the Federal Election Commission would attend.
Democratic Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse had held a hearing on April 9during which, “in questioning the witnesses from DOJ and IRS, Whitehouse asked why they have not prosecuted 501(c)(4) groups that have seemingly made false statements about their political activities.”  Lerner described the impetus for this hearing in a March 27, 2013, email to top IRS staff:

As I mentioned yesterday – there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff.
So, don’t be fooled about how this is being articulated – it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity
But in an email sent a few minutes earlier, Lerner acknowledged prosecutions would evidently be at odds with the law:
Whether there was a false statement or fraud regarding an [sic] description of an alleged political expenditure that doesn’t say vote for or vote against is not realistic under current law. Everyone is looking for a magic bullet or scapegoat – there isn’t one. The law in this area is just hard.
The documents also include email exchanges showing that before Lerner’s May 10, 2013, speech to the American Bar Association blaming “low-level” employees in Cincinnati for targeting tax-exempt organizations, the IRS Exempt Organizations division was scrambling to defuse the emerging targeting scandal:

• May 1, 2013: After receiving an email from an assistant showing that 501(c)(4) applications had increased from 1591 in 2010 to 3398 in 2012 , Lerner wrote back, “Looks to me like 2010-2012 doubled too. Oh well – thanks.”
• May 2, 2013: Discussing an upcoming conference call with approximately 100 congressional staffers on May 22, Lerner cautions aides, “Need to be careful not to mention sequester/furlough unless asked although can allude to budget and resources restraints.”

• May 2, 2013: In response to an email reminding her about the upcoming conference call with congressional staffers, Lerner responded, “Arrgh – I just saw it. Sharon [White] could skate, but Cindy [Thomas] is the person who could answer that stuff. We need to give them some type of language in the event that type of question comes up” [apparently in reference to earlier email referencing "sensitive issues"].

The new documents obtained by Judicial Watch also include emails exchanged after Lerner’s May 10 ABA speech:

• May 10, 2013: In an email to an aide responding to a request for information from a Washington Post reporter, Lerner admits that she “can’t confirm that there was anyone on the other side of the political spectrum” who had been targeted by the IRS. She then adds that “The one with the names used were only know [sic] because they have been very loud in the press.”

• May 10, 2013: An email from former Cincinnati program manager Cindy Thomas excoriates Lerner for her comments blaming “low-level” employees in its Cincinnati office for targeting tax-exempt organizations that had “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in their names during the 2012 election. Highlighting the words “low-level workers” in bold-face type each of the seven times she used it in short, pungent email, Thomas asked, “How am I supposed to keep the low-level workers motivated when the public believes they are nothing more than low-level workers and now will have no respect for how they are working cases?” Lerner’s response nearly an hour later was a terse, “I will be back shortly and give you a call.”

• May 15, 2013: In an email from an aide to Lerner, the aide specifically mentions “Tea Party Organizations, the “Tea Party movement,” and “Tea Party Patriots” as organizations targeted by the IRS.

The Judicial Watch FOIA requests came on the heels of an explosive May 14, 2013, Treasury Inspector General report revealing that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status. The IG probe determined that “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status to (e.g., lists of past and future donors).” According to the report, the illegal IRS reviews continued for more than 18 months and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” preparing for the 2012 presidential election.
Lerner, who headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, refused to testify at a May 2013 hearing before Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Oversight Committee, demanding immunity concerning her role in the targeting scandal. Lerner retired from the IRS with full benefits on September 23 after an internal investigation found she was guilty of “neglect of duties” and was going to call for her ouster, according to news reports. On April 9, 2014, the Ways and Means Committee referred Lois Lerner to the DOJ for criminal prosecution. On April 10, 2014, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress.
“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The IRS emails show Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal.  No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents.”

Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach.

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/judicial-watch-obtains-irs-documents-showing-lerner-in-contact-with-doj-about-potential-prosecution-of-tax-exempt-groups#ixzz2z8ZtIwtE
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Lois Lerner Emails reveal IRS plot to jail conservatives

Posted on April 17, 2014 by http://www.townhall.com 

‘Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal’
April 16, 2014 by Bob Unruh
A series of emails from ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, who twice refused to answer questions from Congress about her targeting of conservative groups, reveals she was in contact with Eric Holder’s Department of Justice about prosecuting those organizations, according to the Washington watchdog group Judicial Watch.

“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton Wednesday.
Fitton said the IRS emails show the Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal.
“No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents,” he said.
The IRS has admitted creating special hurdles for conservatives opposing President Obama’s policies as they tried to acquire tax-exempt status leading up to the 2012 election. Among the hurdles were a demand to know the content of a group’s prayers and a promise not to protest the abortion business Planned Parenthood.
Now Judicial Watch has gone to court to get copies of the emails, which includes a May 9, 2013, message indicating the IRS planned to meet with the Department of Justice over whether to prosecute groups that “lied” about their political activity.
Judicial Watch said a new batch of internal IRS documents show Lerner, who has been referred to the full House of Representatives for a vote on contempt of Congress charges, “communicated with the Department of Justice about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities.”
The documents reveal an email from Lerner to Nikole C. Flax, at the time the chief of staff to acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller.
In it, the discussion focused on prosecuting nonprofits.
“I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who ‘lied’ on their 1024s –saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs,” Lerner wrote. “I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS.”
Flax responded: “I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?”
Judicial Watch said the documents show Lerner then passed the issue to attorney Nancy Marks, who was then supposed to set up the meeting with DOJ. Lerner also decided that it would be DOJ’s decision as to whether representatives from the Federal Election Commission would attend.
Judicial Watch explained Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had asked why the DOJ and IRS “have not prosecuted 501(c)(4) groups that have seemingly made false statements about their political activities.”
Lerner took up the issue in an email to IRS staff.
“As I mentioned yesterday – there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff.
“So, don’t be fooled about how this is being articulated – it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity,” she wrote.
Lerner seemed to be calling for the prosecutions even though she admitted in another email that they weren’t allowed under the law.
“Whether there was a false statement or fraud regarding an [sic] description of an alleged political expenditure that doesn’t say vote for or vote against is not realistic under current law. Everyone is looking for a magic bullet or scapegoat — there isn’t one. The law in this area is just hard,” she wrote.
The watchdog group said: “In an email to an aide responding to a request for information from a Washington Post reporter, Lerner admits that she ‘can’t confirm that there was anyone on the other side of the political spectrum’ who had been targeted by the IRS. She then adds that ‘The one with the names used were only know [sic] because they have been very loud in the press.’”
Another email from an aide specifically draws to Lerner’s attention “Tea Party Organizations,” the “Tea Party movement” and “Tea Party Patriots.”
Judicial Watch launched its federal Freedom of Information Act requests and eventual lawsuit after a May 14, 2013, Treasury Inspector General report revealing that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status.
The Treasury report found: “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status to (e.g., lists of past and future donors).”
The campaign, which critics believe traces to the highest levels of government, stretched on for months and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” preparing for the 2012 presidential election.
Lerner was director of the IRS branch that dealt with applications for tax-exempt status at the time, although she later left amid calls to remove her.
Congress now is reviewing its work with Lerner, since she refused to testify in May 2013 before the House Oversight Committee and again during another hearing just weeks ago.
WND reported recently when a member of Congress revealed the IRS also mounted Big Brother-type surveillance of groups that already were authorized to operate at the time.
The confirmation from Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, came days after WND reported the IRS even today sends small exempt organizations to a major progressive think tank to have tax information processed.
In a statement first released in the Wall Street Journal, Camp said his committee’s ongoing investigation discovered the federal government singling out established groups “for audits.”
“We now know that the IRS targeted not only right-leaning applicants, but also right-leaning groups that were already operating as 501(c)4s,” Camp said. “At Washington, D.C.’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)4s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information.”
Camp’s committee was to oppose IRS plans for a raft of new regulations that would target the speech rights of those right-leaning organizations, by determining that efforts such as candidate forums or voter information drives would be designated as “political” speech and therefore banned.
Camp said those rules “are a blatant attempt to legalize and institutionalize targeting by the IRS, and are designed to put conservative groups out of business. It is no wonder the IRS tried to develop this rule behind closed doors and out of the public’s view.”
“I want to be perfectly clear – this committee will fight any and all efforts to restrict the rights of groups to organize, speak out and educate the public, just as unions are allowed to do so,” he said. “We will get to the bottom of this, and I expect the IRS to produce – quickly – the outstanding documents the committee has requested.”
WND reported that those small exempt organizations are directed by the IRS itself to file confidential tax information through the Urban Institute, whose chief is linked to the Center for American Progress, the source for many of Barack Obama’s ultra-progressive agenda items as president.
Cleta Mitchell, a top Washington attorney, told WND: “If true, this is a violation of federal law. And since most of the tea-party groups have annual revenues of [$50,000] or less, this would redirect their filings to a group whose mission is fundamentally at odds with tea-party organizations.”
Mitchell said federal law “strictly prohibits the disclosure of confidential taxpayer information to persons outside the IRS.”
“It is a felony to disseminate the information,” she said.
“Surely this cannot be happening. Surely,” said Mitchell. “This would be well more than a ‘smidgen’ of corruption.”
Mitchell, a partner in the Washington-based law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, is well known for providing expert legal advice to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/lerner-emails-plotted-prosecuting-conservatives/

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A series of emails from ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, who twice refused to answer questions from Congress about her targeting of conservative groups, reveals she was in contact with Eric Holder’s Department of Justice about prosecuting those organizations, according to the Washington watchdog group Judicial Watch.

“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton Wednesday.
Fitton said the IRS emails show the Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal.
“No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents,” he said.
The IRS has admitted creating special hurdles for conservatives opposing President Obama’s policies as they tried to acquire tax-exempt status leading up to the 2012 election. Among the hurdles were a demand to know the content of a group’s prayers and a promise not to protest the abortion business Planned Parenthood.
Now Judicial Watch has gone to court to get copies of the emails, which includes a May 9, 2013, message indicating the IRS planned to meet with the Department of Justice over whether to prosecute groups that “lied” about their political activity.
Judicial Watch said a new batch of internal IRS documents show Lerner, who has been referred to the full House of Representatives for a vote on contempt of Congress charges, “communicated with the Department of Justice about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities.”
The documents reveal an email from Lerner to Nikole C. Flax, at the time the chief of staff to acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller.
In it, the discussion focused on prosecuting nonprofits.
“I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who ‘lied’ on their 1024s –saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs,” Lerner wrote. “I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS.”
Flax responded: “I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?”
Judicial Watch said the documents show Lerner then passed the issue to attorney Nancy Marks, who was then supposed to set up the meeting with DOJ. Lerner also decided that it would be DOJ’s decision as to whether representatives from the Federal Election Commission would attend.
Judicial Watch explained Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had asked why the DOJ and IRS “have not prosecuted 501(c)(4) groups that have seemingly made false statements about their political activities.”
Lerner took up the issue in an email to IRS staff.
“As I mentioned yesterday – there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff.
“So, don’t be fooled about how this is being articulated – it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity,” she wrote.
Lerner seemed to be calling for the prosecutions even though she admitted in another email that they weren’t allowed under the law.
“Whether there was a false statement or fraud regarding an [sic] description of an alleged political expenditure that doesn’t say vote for or vote against is not realistic under current law. Everyone is looking for a magic bullet or scapegoat — there isn’t one. The law in this area is just hard,” she wrote.
The watchdog group said: “In an email to an aide responding to a request for information from a Washington Post reporter, Lerner admits that she ‘can’t confirm that there was anyone on the other side of the political spectrum’ who had been targeted by the IRS. She then adds that ‘The one with the names used were only know [sic] because they have been very loud in the press.’”
Another email from an aide specifically draws to Lerner’s attention “Tea Party Organizations,” the “Tea Party movement” and “Tea Party Patriots.”
Judicial Watch launched its federal Freedom of Information Act requests and eventual lawsuit after a May 14, 2013, Treasury Inspector General report revealing that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status.
The Treasury report found: “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status to (e.g., lists of past and future donors).”
The campaign, which critics believe traces to the highest levels of government, stretched on for months and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” preparing for the 2012 presidential election.
Lerner was director of the IRS branch that dealt with applications for tax-exempt status at the time, although she later left amid calls to remove her.
Congress now is reviewing its work with Lerner, since she refused to testify in May 2013 before the House Oversight Committee and again during another hearing just weeks ago.
WND reported recently when a member of Congress revealed the IRS also mounted Big Brother-type surveillance of groups that already were authorized to operate at the time.
The confirmation from Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, came days after WND reported the IRS even today sends small exempt organizations to a major progressive think tank to have tax information processed.
In a statement first released in the Wall Street Journal, Camp said his committee’s ongoing investigation discovered the federal government singling out established groups “for audits.”
“We now know that the IRS targeted not only right-leaning applicants, but also right-leaning groups that were already operating as 501(c)4s,” Camp said. “At Washington, D.C.’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)4s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information.”
Camp’s committee was to oppose IRS plans for a raft of new regulations that would target the speech rights of those right-leaning organizations, by determining that efforts such as candidate forums or voter information drives would be designated as “political” speech and therefore banned.
Camp said those rules “are a blatant attempt to legalize and institutionalize targeting by the IRS, and are designed to put conservative groups out of business. It is no wonder the IRS tried to develop this rule behind closed doors and out of the public’s view.”
“I want to be perfectly clear – this committee will fight any and all efforts to restrict the rights of groups to organize, speak out and educate the public, just as unions are allowed to do so,” he said. “We will get to the bottom of this, and I expect the IRS to produce – quickly – the outstanding documents the committee has requested.”
WND reported that those small exempt organizations are directed by the IRS itself to file confidential tax information through the Urban Institute, whose chief is linked to the Center for American Progress, the source for many of Barack Obama’s ultra-progressive agenda items as president.
Cleta Mitchell, a top Washington attorney, told WND: “If true, this is a violation of federal law. And since most of the tea-party groups have annual revenues of [$50,000] or less, this would redirect their filings to a group whose mission is fundamentally at odds with tea-party organizations.”
Mitchell said federal law “strictly prohibits the disclosure of confidential taxpayer information to persons outside the IRS.”
“It is a felony to disseminate the information,” she said.
“Surely this cannot be happening. Surely,” said Mitchell. “This would be well more than a ‘smidgen’ of corruption.”
Mitchell, a partner in the Washington-based law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, is well known for providing expert legal advice to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/lerner-emails-plotted-prosecuting-conservatives/#JGCY0OBpzR5er2JX.99