Investigation on the IRS Scandal is a “Wakeup Call”

The Senate Finance Committee released its report on the long-time investigation into the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups. The report found that Lois Lerner, who oversaw the department that processes applications for tax-exempt status, waited almost two years before notifying her supervisors about delays in processing applications. Some groups waited five years to have their applications processed.

The Senate Finance Committee Report read:

Our investigation found that from 2010 to 2013, IRS management was delinquent in its responsibility to provide effective control, guidance, and direction over the processing of applications for tax-exempt status filed by Tea Party and other political advocacy organizations.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), chairman of the Finance Committee stated:

This bipartisan investigation shows gross mismanagement at the highest levels of the IRS and confirms an unacceptable truth: that the IRS is prone to abuse…The Committee found evidence that the (Obama) administration's political agenda guided the IRS's actions with respect to their treatment of conservative groups… Personal politics of IRS employees, such as Lois Lerner, also impacted how the IRS conducted its business.

Amid the investigation, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) together with Senator John Thune introduced the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Enhancement Act of 2015 to remedy the situation. Grassley, former Chairman of the Finance Committee responded to the report:

The findings are a wake-up call.” And he proposed  “extending a remedy to social welfare organizations to force answers in instances where the IRS fails to act on an application in a timely manner or makes a negative determination on their tax-exempt status."

Both sides agree that the IRS is unprepared to handle the request of non-profits seeking to raise funds for the 2016 election cycle.

“Mr. Koskinen should no longer be the IRS commissioner”

Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs, sent a letter to Obama requesting the firing of IRS chief John Koskinen. Chaffetz stated that Koskinen repeatedly “obstructed” congressional efforts to investigate the IRS’s political targeting taxpayers. Chaffetz quoted his letter in a Capitol Hill press conference,

At best, Commissioner Koskinen was derelict in his duties to preserve agency records. At worst, he and the IRS engaged in an orchestrated plan to hide information from Congress.

Back in 2013, Obama promised to “work hand-in-hand with Congress to fix the problem” when the public learned about the IRS targeting. In the 2013 House investigation, Lois Lerner, ex-IRS official, revealed that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups and other conservatives from April 2010 to April 2012 for higher scrutiny and auditing. However, in March 2014 Lerner asserted her Fifth Amendment rights, repeatedly refused to testify at trials, and was subsequently held in contempt.

When Lerner resigned as director of the Exempt Organizations unit In September 2013, Koshen was installed and confirmed. Unfortunately, Koshkinen has failed to restore any faith in the agency.

Chaffetz also emphasized that Koskinen failed to testify truthfully, comply with subpoenas and preserve up to 24,000 emails related to the investigation. If Obama does not remove Koskinen, Chaffetz vows to

pursue all constitutional remedies at our disposal, including potential contempt proceedings or perhaps impeachment.

Ultimately, Chaffetz calls the concealed facts surrounding the IRS targeting “an unacceptable outcome and one that demands those responsible be held accountable.” See the House Oversight Committee’s video “There Must Be Accountability” here.

IRS Targets Conservatives with No Consequence

New documents confirmed that the IRS targeted individual donors giving to those causes who aligned with lists of conservative tax-exempt organizations. Not only did the IRS use the donor lists of tax-exempt organizations for audits, but also the documents highlight that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may have come under “high scrutiny.” The IRS would not produce the documents until required by a Freedom of Information lawsuit, Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:15-cv-00220).

Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) to Speak at the RNLA Washington, D.C. Chapter Luncheon

The RNLA is pleased announce that Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) will address our June D.C. Luncheon June 11 at the Capitol Hill Club.

Rep. Chaffetz believes strongly in a constitutionally limited federal government. During his tenure in the House, Rep. Chaffetz has served on the most important committee for rural western communities, the House Natural Resources Committee, and continues to be a prominent member of the Congressional Western Caucus. He supports federal land management policies based on multiple-use and sustained yield and believes that state management and local control are the best long-term solutions for the land and rural communities. Rep. Chaffetz has been a tireless advocate of fiscal discipline, voting consistently to cut spending, eliminate earmarks, reduce duplication and retire outdated federal programs.

On some key issues:

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Lois Leaner Requests:

Rep. Chaffetz, and Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, sent a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen requesting further information on the “special project team” established outside of the normal agency process to respond to congressional subpoenas and requests for information, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and other investigative requests relating to Lois Lerner. The existence of the “special project team” was revealed earlier this week in testimony to the Committee from Mary Howard Director of the Privacy, Governmental Liaison and Disclosure at the IRS.

Ms. Howard’s testimony could explain the interminable delays related to the IRS’s responses to the Lerner requests.  In fact, the Committee has been waiting to receive all of Ms. Lerner’s emails for more than two years.  It has been almost a year since the IRS last produced documents to the Committee, and it is just now coming to light that the IRS Privacy, Governmental Liaison and Disclosure team was stripped of its ordinary responsibility to respond to the Lerner requests.  That information might never have come to light at all without Ms. Howard’s testimony, which had to be compelled through the issuance of a subpoena.

Permanent Inspector General at DOI:

The Department’s last permanent inspector general left on February 23, 2009—more than six years ago.  Since then, the office has been managed by an acting inspector general whose tenure has been the subject of recent, significant congressional oversight and controversy… Because acting inspectors general are inherently less independent than their permanent counterparts, however, stakeholders do not have full confidence that their work is credible.  Additionally, some acting inspectors general are candidates for the permanent job, which creates an incentive to conduct less aggressive oversight of the administration.  In any event, taxpayers suffer the consequences.

National Security

:

I am committed to fighting waste, fraud, and abuse within the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of State.  Exposing waste, fraud, and abuse allows our fighting forces and diplomatic personnel to perform their missions with efficiency, effectiveness, and safety, while also ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. 

With questions or to RSVP for a pay at the door tickets (note prices increase at the door), email dc515@republicanlaywer.net.

We Need a Special Counsel to Investigate IRS Targeting of Conservatives

On May 7, 2014, a bipartisan House Resolution was passed, calling for Eric Holder to appoint a Special Counsel in the investigation of the IRS targeting of conservative groups.

On July 30, 2014, a hearing was held by the House Judiciary Committee entitled, “The IRS Targeting Scandal: the Need for a Special Counsel.” This hearing dealt with the question of whether United States Attorney General Eric Holder should appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS targeting scandal, to discover how far it went, and to determine who exactly was involved in the cover-up of the scandal.

In August of 2014, Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan launched an independent inquiry into the recent issue of missing emails from Lois Lerner’s account.

As of today, we are still unsure of many things revolving around this disgusting abuse of power by Obama’s Administration. Even after the aforementioned resolution, hearing, and independent investigation launched by a federal judge, we still do not have an independent counsel investigating the IRS scandal and subsequent cover-up.

Chapman Law Professor Ronald D. Rotunda was a witness at the July 30 hearing, and wrote an article on this appointment of special counsel, stating:

There is no longer a special statute that provides for a Special Prosecutor or Independent Counsel. However, the Attorney General does not need a statute to appoint a Special Counsel. There was a Special Counsel in the Teapot Dome scandal despite a lack of statutory authorization. Similarly, there was no statutory authorization for the Special Counsel in the Watergate scandal.

What we have now, as in the case of Watergate, is a regulation. In Title 28 of Code of Federal Regulations, Section 600.1. It provides that the Attorney General “will appoint a Special Counsel” when he determines that “criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted,” and the Department of Justice has a “conflict of interest” and “it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.”

Further substantiating the need for a special counsel to investigate this case is a letter signed by 47 out of 73 federal government Inspectors General (including many who were appointed by Obama!). This August 4, 2014 letter explains that the Obama administration is obstructing their investigations into government corruption and mismanagement.

Professor Rotunda offers further proof of the current extraordinary circumstances, stating

Emails disappear. IRS backup disks are destroyed, while the IRS is involved in litigation to turn over those backup disks. The IRS does not appear to keep the records that the law requires it to keep. The President assures us that there this is no hint, “not a smidgen of corruption,” before the DOJ completed its purported investigation. That prejudgment undermines the investigation. There is also the appearance of a conflict when Department of Justice lawyers who are political appointees of the President are in charge of the investigation that involves the national co-chair of President Obama’s Reelection Campaign. The Washington, D.C., Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyers, Rule 1.7(b)(4), provides there is a conflict if a lawyer’s professional judgment “may be adversely affected” by his own “personal interests.”

Professor Rotunda ends his article by explaining that while the Special Counsel regulation is not a statute, it is still the law.

As the Supreme Court explained in United States v. Nixon, when referring to the regulations that governed the Attorney General’s appointment of a Special Counsel: “So long as this regulation is extant it has the force of law.” The Court went on to summarize the precedent as holding that “so long as the Attorney General’s regulations remained operative, he denied himself the authority to exercise the discretion delegated to the Board even though the original authority was his and he could reassert it by amending the regulations.”

This Administration should appoint a special counsel immediately so we can continue investigating in a non-partisan way.