Emails Tie Lois Lerner to Justice Department in IRS Abuse of Power Scandal

16 Apr, 2014 by Dave Blount

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The weaponized IRS has officially been linked to the weaponized Department of Social Justice in the campaign to persecute nonprofits likely to resist the liberal agenda. Katie Pavlich breaks the news:

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.

The smoking gun:

Some context:

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.

That is, the criminal prosecution was only for conservative outfits, like Obama nemesis Catherine Engelbrecht’s anti-fraud group True the Vote — through which Congress has already been implicated in this abuse of power scandal:

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.

In other words, the hard left Senator from Rhode Island didn’t just want Tea Party groups denied tax-exempt status; he wanted people thrown in jail.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton explains why these emails have been enshrouded in Obama’s ballyhooed “transparency”:

“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. 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.”

We are at a tipping point. Either the people involved are held responsible and we turn back toward being Americans, or Obama et al. get away with using the federal government to destroy groups deemed unhelpful to their agenda, and we plunge forward into banana republic Hope & Change.