In a 2011 exchange between Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the heart of the scandal and Cindy Thomas, a program manager at the tax agency’s Cincinnati office, Ms. Thomas admitted to sending further demands for information to a group to distract it from complaining to Congress. She expressed the fear that a judge would find out and force the IRS to deal with the backlog of applications it had deliberately created.
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In this current political climate, don’t expect the Republicans on the committee to back down from the fight.
Cruz and Sekulow weren’t the only ones who scolded the IRS Wednesday.
“We should not have a federal government agency that becomes an intimidator, going after citizens, going after citizen groups, violating their First Amendment rights”, Cruz said.
Cruz was referring to a scandal that erupted in 2013 in which the IRS acknowledged that agents had improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
Last week, Cruz raised the ire of fellow Republicans when he accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying.
The developments come in Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit seeking documents about the Obama IRS’ targeting and harassment of Tea Party and conservative opponents of President Obama (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)).
The Texas Republican and presidential candidate blasted the Obama administration in his opening remarks, saying “When Richard Nixon did it it, it was wrong and he rightly resigned from the presidency in disgrace”. The IRS disputed the accusation and the Treasury Department issued a statement supporting Koskinen. Officers of the Court who fail to comply with Court orders will be held in contempt. Also, in the event of non-compliance with future Court orders, the Commissioner of the IRS and others shall be directed to show cause as to why they should not be held in contempt of Court.
Judicial Watch announced that U.S District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan today threatened to hold the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department attorneys in contempt of court after the IRS failed to produce status reports and newly recovered emails of Lois Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS, as he had ordered on July 1, 2015.
After this statement, Klimas went on to explain that the additional number of hours and lack of IRS resources available to comply with weekly production of documents as the court order requires poses a hardship on the agency.
It’s no wonder, says Fitton, that the IRS “has had such little interest in preserving or finding Lois Lerner’s emails”.
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“While I greatly appreciate Commissioner Koskinen’s word that he will not target religious institutions for their religious beliefs”, Lee said after the hearing, “it worries me and it should worry every American that the IRS does not absolutely disavow the power to target religious institutions based on their religious beliefs, even if the current IRS commissioner has committed not to use that power for the time being”. Koskinen cited a recent report by the inspector general, that said the IRS has taken “significant actions” to improve the processing of applications for tax-exempt status.
