Does Seeking to Jail Political Opponents Count as a ‘Smidgen of Corruption’?
Judicial Watch has uncovered some Soviet-level collusion.
There was “not even a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS, Barack Obama told us in February 2014, though he conceded “there were some bone-headed decisions.” That was a bald-faced lie at the time, and new information only reinforces that conclusion.
While the mainstream media turns a blind eye and deaf ear, Judicial Watch has continued digging for information regarding IRS targeting of Tea Party and Patriot groups leading up to (and almost surely aiding in) Obama’s re-election in 2012. And they discovered some serious collusion that sounds more like something out of Soviet Russia or Red China than here in the U.S.
“Judicial Watch … released new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents that include an official ‘DOJ Recap’ report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.”
In other words, imprisoning political opponents.
Remember when the IRS initially blamed the whole fiasco on a couple of low-level employees in Cincinnati? Good times.
The documents reveal numerous conversations between the three agencies, including Lois Lerner, about creative ways to charge and jail conservatives for the “crime” of political activity opposing Obama. To do so, the DOJ and FBI needed to illegally obtain taxpayer information from the IRS. So the IRS sent the FBI more than one million pages of taxpayer information on 113,000 non-profit groups.
And they wonder why people don’t trust the NSA’s mass metadata collection.
The conversations that began at least in 2010 continued for three years. In fact, two days before Lerner “apologized” and outed the whole conspiracy, she wrote an email to the acting IRS commissioner’s chief of staff detailing ongoing discussions with DOJ officials.
“These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
The answer to that last, albeit rhetorical, question is that they can’t and they aren’t. Any “investigation” by the DOJ or FBI will no doubt exonerate anyone of importance in the Obama administration. If any guilt is unavoidable, it will be hung around the necks of those rascals in Cincinnati or some other unfortunate scapegoat. All while Lerner continues to enjoy her comfortable retirement, and Obama himself remains untouched.
On top of the serious breach of law and abuse of power in targeting Obama’s political opponents, the agencies’ carefully crafted stonewall blocked the timely release of information. As with Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Benghazi cover-up, the slow bleed of information leaves the public tired of hearing “old news” and makes it all the more certain the perpetrators won’t face real accountability, much less justice.
Finally, we’re reminded of a commencement speech Obama delivered in 2009 at Arizona State University, after university officials declined to give Obama an honorary doctorate. Obama “joked” that “[university president Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.” Clearly, that wasn’t much of a joke.