Judge Demands Answers from IRS After Contradictory Testimony

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan (AP)

"U.S. District court Judge Emmet Sullivan Thursday ordered the Internal Revenue Service to come up with new answers after IRS employees contradicted sworn testimony about damage to Lois Lerner's hard drive," reports the Daily Caller.

Sullivan ruled that “the IRS is hereby ORDERED to file a sworn Declaration, by an official with the authority to speak under oath for the Agency, by no later than August 22, 2014″ on four issues: the IRS’ attempted recovery of Lerner’s lost emails after her computer allegedly crashed, bar codes that could have been on the hard drive, IRS policies on hard drive destruction, and information about an outside vendor who worked on IRS hard drives.

Recent documents from nonprofit group Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the IRS, which Sullivan is presiding over, showed that IRS technology officials contradicted sworn testimony about damage to Lerner’s hard drive.

Aaron Signor, an IRS technician that looked at Lerner’s hard drive in June 2011, said in IRS court filings that he saw no damage to the drive before sending it off to another IRS technician, leading some in the media to suggest that the lost emails scandal is basically over. But Signor’s statement, issued in response to the Judicial Watch lawsuit, does not jibe with sworn congressional testimony. ...

Sullivan's order seems to have been motivated by the obvious contradiction. 

See also Judge Orders IRS to Turn Over More Info on Lois Lerner Emails.

IRS Abuse Directed By Washington After All

"New documents obtained by Judicial Watch demonstrate conclusively that the IRS policy of targeting tea party and conservative groups came directly from Washington D.C., not a rogue office in Cincinnati," writes Paul Mirengoff at powerlineblog.com. "They also show that Sen. Carl Levin was working with the IRS to make sure tea party and conservative groups were targeted for harassment."

As to the first point, a July 2012 email from IRS Attorney Steven Grodnitzky confirms that tea party group applications for exempt status were being handled in Washington. Grodnitzky wrote:

[We are] working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases.

Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases. . .and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob.

“Rob” is believed to be Rob Choi, then-Director of Rulings and Agreements in IRS’s Washington, DC, headquarters.

On Fox New's Special Report, Charles Krauthammer said the emails reveal "a major abuse of power" and "gives lie to the Administration claim that it had nothing to do with the election, nothing to do with targeting the opponents of the Administration."



For a timeline of key dates and revelations on the IRS scandal, see Pepperdine law professor Paul L. Caron's article in USA Today.

See also: 
NEW: IRS office in D.C. Heavily Involved in Tea Party Assault (Washington Times)
Documents Reveal Lies on IRS Scandal (American Thinker)

White House Benghazi Scandal Spin Falling Apart

A single email obtained by Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act request sums up the Benghazi scandal, writes John Hinderaker:

This one, by Benjamin Rhodes, a White House political operative, shows the administration’s priorities on the Friday before Susan Rice’s infamous tour of the Sunday talk shows. ... The overriding imperative was to deflect attention from the 'broader failure of policy' that led to the disaster.

"In an effort to spin the situation, [White House press secretary Jay] Carney claimed the talking points provided to Rice [in the above email] were about the numerous protests occurring in the Middle East and weren't specifically about Benghazi," reports the Washington Free Beacon.

Fox News' Bret Baier calls Carney's performance "surreal" in his description of the White House press conference to Gretchen Carlson in this Fox News video, which also contains clips of a back-and-forth between Carney and ABC reporter Jonathan Karl:

Breitbart: New Docs Show IRS, DOJ Collusion to Prosecute Tax Exempt Groups

The IRS abuse of conservatives has expanded to the Department of Justice. From breitbart.com:

Judicial Watch obtained a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that Lerner directly communicated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities.

The documents were dragged out of the Obama administration thanks to our October 2013 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the IRS, after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013.

The newly obtained IRS documents contain a revealing 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 tell-tale 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 her old co-conspirators from the Federal Election Commission would attend.