ATF Director Fails To Explain Engelbrecht Persecution

ATF Director: ‘Wish I Had Better Answers’ About ATF Agents Probing A Tea Party Conservative

 

 

 

 

” B. Todd Jones, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, couldn’t tell Congress why his agents made two visits to a tea party conservative in a 13-month period — but only after she requested tax-exempt status for her conservative group, True the Vote.

  Catherine Engelbrecht had a Federal Firearms License (FFL) for 12 years. “And suddenly she applies for tax exempt status, and you’re knocking on her door twice in 13 months,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Jones at a hearing on Wednesday.

” Congressman, I wish I had better answers,” Jones said.

  Jordan noted that ATF generally does FFL compliance inspections only in cases with “high-risk indicators,” such as criminal activity — but none of those indicators applied to Engelbrecht:

” Imagine what this lady felt like,” a heated Jordan told Jones.”

 

Read more at CNS.News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lerner Emails/Documents To Be Given Up By IRS

IRS Handing Over Lerner Documents To Ways And Means

 

 

 

 

 

” The Internal Revenue Service will give documents and emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner to the House Ways and Means Committee, House Republicans announced Friday. 

  The news was released in a statement from committee Chairman Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, who said the IRS was finally handing over the documents he requested months ago, as his committee continues its investigation into the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups. 

” From the few Lerner documents we have received, we know that Washington, D.C., orchestrated the targeting of groups applying for tax-exempt status, surveillance of existing tax-exempt groups and formed the proposed 501(c)(4) rules designed to push conservative groups out of the public forum,” Camp said. 

” The remaining documents are key to determining the level of wrong doing and deception committed by this agency,” he added. “

Read on at Newsmax

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cleta Mitchell To Congress: “The IRS Investigation Is A Sham”

Cleta Mitchell To Congress: DOJ IRS Investigation Is A Sham, Non-Existent”

 

 

Published on Feb 6, 2014

” Cleta Mitchell told Congress today the IRS is still targeting conservative groups. Mitchell also said the “ongoing” DOJ investigation is a complete sham.

” I want to make three primary points here. First, the IRS scandal is real. It’s not pretend, it’s real. Number two, the IRS scandal is not just a bunch of bone-headed bureaucrats in some remote office contrary to what the President of the United States told the American People on Sunday. And, number 3, the IRS scandal is not over. It is continuing to this day. And, the Department of Justice Investigation is a sham. It is a nonexistent investigation.” “

 

HT/The Right Scoop

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Obama Administration Creates New Tools To Destroy Grassroots Tea Party Organizations

Obama Quietly Gives IRS “License To Kill” Tea Party Groups

 

 

” As Obama continues to deceive from behind the curtain of every day laws, it’s hard to tell whether ordinary laws are just that, or a cover for something a little more devious.  Obama’s latest law claims to redefine political organizations in a way that would allow for the government to tax contributions—but is that all?  It turns out that this new law may just put an end to over 100,000 small, grass-roots, Tea Party organizations.

  As Obama unleashes his, “IRS army of 90,000 workers, with 4,300 investigators, 13,000 revenue agents, 2,600 special agents, 9,500 tax examiners and 1,500 attorneys’ on-staff,” it hardly seems like a worthwhile effort to only target these minimally marginal groups.   That being said, it appears that despite yet another transparent passing of a “protective” law, this is exactly what Obama is setting out to do.

  The law will effectively place a gag order on all Tea Party organizations that will be financially bled dry and no longer able to afford operating expenses after being taxed.  Along with this, Obama’s administration set out a few “traps” to catch even more that do comply.

The law lines out:

“Anything that mentions or has any connection to a candidate or public official is deemed restricted speech (CRPA), even when it otherwise meets the organization’s goals. Details of all communications must be reported to the IRS whenever it occurs within 60 days of a general election or within 30 days of primaries.” “

 

Read on at Mr Conservative

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Orders For IRS “Special” Treatment Of Tea Parties Came From DC

IRS officials in Washington ordered special scrutiny: congressional investigation finds

” IRS employees have told congressional investigators that they were ordered by the agency’s Washington office to give extra scrutiny to tea party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, according to excerpts from interviews with the employees that were released by House committee chairmen Wednesday.

Carter Hull, a tax law specialist with 48 years of experience at the IRS, told investigators that Lois Lerner, the former head of the Exempt Organizations division, demanded he send some of the reviews of tea party groups to the IRS chief counsel’s office in Washington. The chief counsel is one of two political appointees in the IRS.”

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The Nixon References Write Themselves

 

Obama Compared To Nixon In New Republican Campaign Ad

 

 

” Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell released a new campaign ad on Wednesday, hitting the Obama administration over the IRS scandal and using an infamous quote from disgraced former president Richard Nixon to suggest President Barack Obama is Nixonian.

After using news clips about the scandal involving the IRS’s specific targeting of conservative groups, the ad shows the jaw-dropping line from Nixon’s 1977 interview with journalist David Frost.

“When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” Nixon says.

 

 

 

 

 

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IRS/Tea Party Scandal Spawns Investigations Galore

 

Washington Launches Four Different Investigations Into IRS Scandal

 

 

 

 

 

” By the time lawmakers return to session next week, at least four different investigations will be underway.

As The Daily Caller has reported, at least five different IRS offices including Cincinnati, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois and El Monte and Laguna Niguel, California improperly targeted conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny between 2010 and 2012.

So for those of you keeping score at home (this reporter is still waiting for Ken Starr to send in his bracket picks) The Daily Caller presents a list of some of our favorite investigations into potential IRS wrongdoing. Which one will come up with the “Alexander Butterfield” quote?”

 

Read On

 

Illustration by Jeff Parker

 

 

 

 

 

 

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IRS Vision Of Tea Party vs Progressives Tax Exempt Status Explained

African-American Conservatives’s Page

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James Taranto On The Media Definition Of “Good Government” Groups

 

Taranto: ‘Obama Presidency Has Given Liberal Media Bias A New and Dangerous Form’

 

 

 

 

” As an example, he cited a Washington Post article, in which reporters Zachary A. Goldfarb and Kimberly Kindy described as a “good-government group” the left-wing Democracy 21 which pressured the IRS to scrutinize Tea Party groups, without any consideration that the Tea Party groups believe they, too, are working for good government.

Taranto: “Tea Party organizations conceive of themselves as good-government groups, just as Democracy 21 does. The Post accepts the latter characterization, but not the former, unquestioningly.”
An excerpt from Taranto’s May 20 post, “A Crisis of Authority: The deeper meaning of the Obama scandals.”

….Liberal media bias is an old complaint, but the Obama presidency has given it a new and dangerous form. Never has the prevailing bias of the media been so closely aligned with the ideological aims and political interests of the party in power. The American media remain free and independent, or you would not be reading this column. But to a large extent they have functioned for the past few years as if they were under state control.

“Good-government group” is a misleading designation for another reason. As we noted last week, Democracy 21 is itself a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) corporation. In lobbying the IRS to investigate nonprofits for engaging in political activity, Democracy 21, a nonprofit, was engaging in political activity….”

 

 

 

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Peggy Noonan On “I Don’t Know” Government

Noonan: A Battering Ram Becomes A Stonewall

 

 

 

 

” “I don’t know.” “I don’t remember.” “I’m not familiar with that detail.” “It’s not my precise area.” “I’m not familiar with that letter.”

These are quotes from the Internal Revenue Service officials who testified this week before the House and Senate. That is the authentic sound of stonewalling, and from the kind of people who run Washington in the modern age—smooth, highly credentialed and unaccountable. They’re surrounded by legal and employment protections, they know how to parse a careful response, they know how to blur the essential point of a question in a blizzard of unconnected factoids. They came across as people arrogant enough to target Americans for abuse and harassment and think they’d get away with it.

So what did we learn the past week, and what are the essentials to keep in mind?”

 

In December 2010 the FBI came to ask about a person who’d attended a King Street Patriots function. In January 2011 the FBI had more questions. The same month the IRS audited her business tax returns. In May 2011 the FBI called again for a general inquiry about King Street Patriots. In June 2011 Engelbrecht’s personal tax returns were audited and the FBI called again. In October 2011 a round of questions on True the Vote. In November 2011 another call from the FBI. The next month, more questions from the FBI. In February 2012 a third round of IRS questions on True the Vote. In February 2012 a first round of questions on King Street Patriots. The same month the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did an unscheduled audit of her business. (It had a license to make firearms but didn’t make them.) In July 2012 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration did an unscheduled audit. In November 2012 more IRS questions on True the Vote. In March 2013, more questions. In April 2013 a second ATF audit.

All this because she requested tax-exempt status for a local conservative group and for one that registers voters and tries to get dead people off the rolls. Her attorney, Cleta Mitchell, who provided the timeline above, told me: “These people, they are just regular Americans. They try to get dead people off the voter rolls, you would think that they are serial killers.”

 

 

Read More

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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IRS Exec In Charge Of Tea Party Mess Now In Charge Of Obamacare And Awarded 6 Figure Bonuses

IRS Tax Exemption/Obamacare Exec Got $103,390 In Bonuses

 

 

 

 

” Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harrassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.

More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency’s Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS’ regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today.

Ingram received a $7,000 bonus in 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner from the IRS, then a $34,440 bonus in 2010, $35,400 in 2011 and $26,550 last year, for a total of $103,390. Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period.

Go here for a spreadsheet of the salary and bonus data for IRS employees getting bonuses between 2009 and 2012.”

 

 

 

 

 

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Related articles

• IRS Exec In Charge Of Unit Targeting Conservatives Received Over $42K In Bonuses Since ’09 (patdollard.com)
• IRS tax exemption exec Sarah Hall Ingram got $103,390 in bonuses (riehlworldview.com)
• IRS Official Who Managed Tea Party Targeting Now Running IRS Obamacare Office (nationalreview.com)
• IRS executive who targeted Tea Party got more than $100k in bonuses in last four years (utsandiego.com)
• New Irs Bombshell – Irs Boss Who Ran Division for Tax-exempt Applications Now Heads Up Obamacare Division of the Irs (libertynews.com)
• IRS Tax Exemption Exec Was Richly Rewarded For Her Efforts (breitbart.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Soros Funded Groups Behind IRS Scandal ?

 

Soros Gave $6.1 Million To Groups Linked To Pressure On IRS To Target Conservative Nonprofits

 

 

 

 

” Several Soros-funded groups including the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and Alternet have worked to pressure the IRS to target conservative nonprofit groups. The subsequent IRS investigation flagged more than 100 tea party-related applications for higher scrutiny, including applications that included the words “Tea Party” and “patriot.”

The IRS scandal can be traced back to a series of letters that the liberal groups Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy 21 sent to the IRS back in 2010 and 2011. Both groups were funded by George’s Soros’s Open Society Foundations. The CLC received $677,000 and Democracy 21 got $365,000 from the Soros-backed foundation, according to the Foundation’s 990 tax forms.”

 

 

 

Related articles

• Soros-Funded Group Linked to IRS Abuses (pjmedia.com)
• Liberal Organization With Ties To George Soros Got Documents From IRS (freedomoutpost.com)
• IRS Gave Preferential Treatment to Liberal Nonprofits (dprogram.net)
• The Real IRS Scandal: A Blurry Line Between Social Advocacy and Politics (swampland.time.com)
• Communist Organization With Ties To George Soros Got Documents From IRS (itmakessenseblog.com)
• George Soros funded ProPublica ties to IRS attacks on tea party and patriot groups (theglobaldispatch.com)
• Soros Gave $6.1 Million to Groups Linked to Pressure on IRS to Target Conservative Nonprofits (patriotupdate.com)
• IRS Enforcement and the Misuse of Nonprofits to Hide Political Spending (commondreams.org)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Treasury Inspector General’s Report

The Treasury’s Inspector General Just Released A Damning Report About the IRS Targeting Tea Party Groups

 

 

” On Friday of last week a representative of the IRS admitted that the agency had singled out conservative groups seeking nonprofit status for extra scrutiny. A new report released this afternoon by the Office of Inspector General of the Treasury–which you can read in full below–confirms that Tea Party groups were in fact being targeted for their politics. Here’s the summary of findings: 

The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention.  Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued.”

 

 

 

Read More

 

 

Here is the official report .

 

 

View this document on Scribd

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From DC To Ohio To California , IRS Neck Deep In Scandal

Lawyers: Targeting Of Conservatives More Vast Than Just Cincinnati, Also Involved DC Office

 

 

” “We’ve dealt with two offices in California, the one in Cincinnati of course , and one in Washington, D.C. So when that story came out on Friday, we knew instantaneously it was false, because we had personal dealings with four different IRS offices from coast to coast and that was in connection with our representing 27 Tea Party groups and conservative groups in 19 states,“ French said, adding that the two California offices were located in Laguna Niguel and El Monte.

“We knew from the beginning that this was not just a low-level Cincinnati employee operation,” French said.

Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP who represents conservative groups, echoed French’s concerns and experience.

“That’s a cover-up,” she told TheDC of the IRS’ claim Friday that the practice was initiated by the Cincinnati unit of the IRS.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Fish Rots From The Head

AP Exclusive: IRS Knew Tea Party Targeted In 2011

 

 

 

” Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general’s report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.

But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog’s report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with “Tea Party,” ”Patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.

Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”

On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says.”

 

      Changing the criteria from “tea party” and “patriot” to “limiting government” and “educating on the Constitution/Bill of Rights” is an improvement ?

     We are in the hands of a amateurish tyrant and the Chicago way has now become the Washington way .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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