Late last Friday the Department of Justice announced attorneys would not be issuing criminal charges to Lois Lerner, the former head of tax exempt organizations at the IRS and the woman at the center of the IRS targeting scandal. The IRS has been obfuscating for years, first claiming emails were destroyed, computers were destroyed, etc., etc., then releasing selected dribbles of email followed by tons of useless information.
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“The Justice Department’s decision to close the IRS targeting investigation without a single charge or prosecution is a low point of accountability in an administration that is better known for punishing whistleblowers than the abuse and misconduct they expose”, Issa said in a statement. “But the American people know that there is”. The fact that this paper has printed nothing of this dismissal is curious at the least.
Jordan said “unfortunately”, there’s not much Republicans can do about the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute Lerner.
“Now, the Justice Department has told Congress it found no evidence of criminal intent at the IRS”.
The Justice Department sent a letter to Congress on Friday, informing Members that neither Lerner nor anyone else at the Internal Revenue Service will face criminal charges stemming from the way they delayed consideration of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. “After stating that their investigation confirms that tea party and conservative groups were improperly targeted, they dismiss it merely as a byproduct of gross mismanagement and incompetence – ignoring volumes of evidence in the public record and efforts to obstruct legitimate inquires”.
The disclosure set off investigations by the Justice Department and multiple congressional committees, with Republicans routinely pressing FBI and Justice Department officials for updates on the probe – as recently as Thursday – during their visits to Capitol Hill.
But former House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, said the DOJ’s decision gives the impression that “government officials are above the law”.
The IRS mishandled the processing of tax-exempt applications in a manner that disproportionately impacted applicants affiliated with the tea party and similar groups, leaving the appearance that the IRS’s conduct was motivated by political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives. And it found poor communication between employees in Cincinnati, who were responsible for identifying the applications for review, and headquarters in Washington – problems made worse by “oversight and leadership lapses by senior managers and senior executive officials”.
Now that DOJ has issued its non-punishment, individuals and groups targeted by the IRS, DOJ and Lerner are speaking out. “This is a woman, after all, who looked into the camera at a national television audience and directly at a congressional committee and refused to answer their questions for fear of incriminating herself”, Tea Party Patriots President Jenny Beth Martin said in a statement. DOJ faulted one official, Lois Lerner, for poor decision-making, but said her personal political views were not a factor.
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But prosecutors said none of the IRS employees they interviewed suggested that Lerner discriminated against conservatives while on the job.
