The IRS Scandal: A Case Study in Government Tyranny | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Contributor Diane Rufino primarily publishes under the Titled space of For Love of God of Country, and those many contributions can be found here.

Thomas Jefferson - When the People Fear Government, there is Tyranny

    "The Obama administration and its fronts in the Senate accomplished what Richard Nixon wasn't able to accomplish, which was the suppression of an entire movement against him. That's how you steal an election; you make sure your political opponents can't open an office." - Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which has sued the IRS to obtain documents related to the controversy

    From 2010 until 2013, the IRS, under President Barack Obama, intentionally targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups applying for 501(c) tax-exemption by delaying the processing of their applications, requesting burdensome information from them that was later deemed unnecessary, and by intimidating them into withdrawing their applications. The scheme was intended to intimidate and/or stop Tea Party and other conservative groups from engaging in political activity in the 2012 presidential election and in subsequent mid-term elections. The abuse by the IRS was orchestrated in response to the growing Tea Party/ conservative/ grassroots movement (which all of a sudden were applying in great numbers for tax-exempt organization status and which were donating in large amounts to Republican candidates and elections). The actions of the government, spearheaded by President Obama, were a clear example of government tyranny - using terror and intimidation (the full resources of the federal government) to silence political opposition.

    As Rep. Darrell Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan of the House Oversight Committee explained in a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koshinen: "This revelation that the IRS sent 1.1 million pages of nonprofit tax-return data - including confidential taxpayer information - to the FBI confirms suspicions that the IRS worked with the Justice Department to facilitate the potential investigation of nonprofit groups engaged in lawful political speech."

    To date, and there is no surprise here, the IRS and its officials, have escaped justice and punishment. Its aggressive 3-year campaign against conservative grassroots organizations to suppress their first amendment rights of speech, expression, and assembly, and its illegal leaking of private tax information for political purposes, and its turning of the executive branch of the federal government into a thug ring for the Democratic Party has been explained away as mere incompetency and a lack of proper oversight.

    The fact that Lois Lerner escaped prison, that records were destroyed in a campaign to obstruct justice and allow other guilty parties to escape punishment, and that John Koskinen retain his job as the IRS commissioner are scandals in and of themselves. Last fall, House Republicans took steps to have John Koskinen removed by impeaching him for his role in covering up Lerner's crimes, his misleading a congressional investigation, his obstruction of Congress (defying a subpoena), and outright lying to Congress. Unfortunately, on December 6, House GOP leaders managed to derail impeachment, forcing the debate back to a committee for more study, where it silently died when Congress adjourned at the end of the year.

    While most believe the scandal and the government abuse subsided in 2013 when the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released an audit report concluded that the IRS had in fact used inappropriate criteria to identify, target, and then harass Tea Party and other conservative organizations in their applications for 501(c) tax-exempt status, the fact is that the IRS continued to improperly use its power to influence the 2016 presidential campaign and apparently still has hold-over rogue elements from the Obama administration who are secretly trying to undermine Donald Trump's presidency. How else could Donald Trump's tax returns have been leaked? How else was it possible that Trump's 1995 tax information was leaked during the 2016 presidential election season to Clinton's team, just in time for the presidential debates? How can we forget her accusation and then the ensuing political pressure from the media for Trump to release his tax returns. Remember what she said in the September 2016 debate; "You've gotta ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told, through investigative reporting that, he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes. Because the only years that anybody has ever seen, were a couple of years where he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license. And they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax."

    And how was it that an "anonymous" package with Trump's 2005 tax return and tax info was mailed to the New York Times in early March? [See my article "How Quickly Trump's Tax Return Story Has Disappeared," April 23, 2017]. Someone at the IRS, apparently still having the capability of treating it as a rogue agency, committed a felony. And Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, who received the tax returns from the Times and who was salivating over the chance to humiliate Trump, chose to insinuate that our President was the criminal and not the felon from the federal government.

    Why do I suggest that the "leaked" tax information during the presidential campaign season and the anonymous package to the NY Times containing Trump's 2005 tax return came from a rogue element still entrenched in the IRS? Oh geeeezz, let me see... All one needs to do is recall the 2012 targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups by the IRS for the purpose of reelecting President Obama. The thought of someone at the agency doing a similar favor for Obama's successor doesn't seem so far-fetched. The tendency to hold on to power is natural. Machiavelli explained this to us. The link between the IRS and Trump's leaked tax returns is persuasive.

    Furthermore, the history and modus operandi of both Hillary Clinton and Lois Lerner, head of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS and mastermind of the Tea Party targeting scandal, appear very similar similar.... break rules, skirt the law, and then destroy evidence by deleting emails and destroying hard drives and servers. It's a Democrat thing. They benefit from the lawbreaking but escape justice by destroying evidence, which is itself a crime. Both used their positions in government not to genuinely and constitutionally serve the legitimate interests of the American people in general, but rather to advance personal and/or political goals. Lerner targeted the Tea Party. And Hillary collected lots of money by making personal deals while as Secretary of State to enrich her presidential campaign. And then she had officials of the government "provide" her with ammunition (Trump's tax returns) to beat Donald Trump. Both "lost" or destroyed the emails that would have proven their crimes.

    The New York Times says "someone" sent the documents to a reporter so it has no criminal liability in publishing it. Constitutional law is fairly firm on this point. But as a lawyer, I find that at times it fails to pass the "smell test." In other words, the policy sometimes stinks!! How is an ordinary citizen supposed to reconcile this reality: "If a private citizen receives stolen property, they go to jail. But if a reporter receives stolen documents, they receive the Pulitzer Prize." [Daniel John Sobieski, "Rogue IRS Felons Vindicate Trump." American Thinker]. To the very end, the Obama administration, through the officials he put in place, used the power of the federal government for strictly political purposes - for the purpose of assassinating the character of a presidential candidate, helping Hillary Clinton win the election, and to further entrench the agenda of the Democratic party in government. The IRS had never ceased serving as the nefarious arm of the political left to target conservatives and lessen their chances in the political arena. And even as a new administration is taking over the federal government, Obama officials still in remaining at the agency are using the same power to obstruct the efforts of a legitimately-elected president of another (an opposing) political party.

    Think about this - Hillary Clinton, as a candidate for president, continued to receive the highest levels of support from the government (including control of the media and access to illegally-disclosed confidential information) even after she had abused that government's power and prestige and had clearly broken many of the laws put in place to provide transparency to the American people. And, the President of the United States and the Democratic Party (the party having full control and power in government) co-opted all the functions, resources, and instrumentalities of t government, and their influence/pressure as well, in order to help her and to interfere in the campaign of a presidential candidate that threatened their power. It wasn't the Russians. It was the Obama administration itself. If this isn't the definition of government tyranny or the definition of government corruption, I don't know what is.

    It's about time the American people learned the true extent to which the government had turned on them, had violated their precious liberties, sought to target and silence them, and threatened their voice in government. This investigation is necessary so that We the People, and conservative watchdog groups, can seek protections to make sure it never happens again.

    We exercise the First Amendment so that we don't have to exercise the Second !!

    INTRO -

    We all know how fundamental the rights of conscience, religion, and speech are. The rights of conscience and religion are the beginnings of thought. Speech is how we express that thought.

    More than that, from a liberty point of view, it is our first amendment right that protects all the others by giving voice and publication when government violates them. It alerts the People to weigh for themselves how much they value their rights and liberties. And then it is the second amendment that ultimately secures all other rights from tyranny in government.

    In the IRS scandal, we had the Obama administration using the IRS as a tool of terror, of intimidation to silence the Tea Party - his party's political opposition. In theory and practice, it was much like Hitler and his gestapo. Political speech was frozen by government action, first and foremost, and then there were the Tea Party groups and folks who self-censored for fear of having the IRS target them, audit them, and god-forbid come up with some trumped-up charge to make their lives a living hell, fine them, or imprison them.

    Why? Because he was working to win the 2012 election for himself and his party and to win mid-term elections. In fact, documents released just last week by Judicial Watch confirm that President Obama's IRS improperly targeted conservatives in order to help him win the 2012 presidential election.

    On April 14, 2015, Judicial Watch announced it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the IRS seeking "any and all records" related to the selection of both individuals and organizations for audits based upon applications filed requesting nonprofit tax status.

    Political speech and expression is the most protectable form of speech; it was intended to help We the People flesh out ideas, assess honestly and fully what the government is doing, figure out which candidates are best to govern on our behalf, and to see that government operates as best and as responsibly as possible from our end. Our Founding Fathers appreciated the importance of protected political speech from the lessons taught throughout the colorful history of England. We can never forget that the government is OUR government and not the government of a political party. It operates on us, as individuals, in our lives, our property, our revenue, our liberty, and in our ability to live freely. Political parties are merely political organizations looking for power, not human results.

    THE IRS and TAX-EXEMPTION -

    US federal tax law, specifically Section 501(c)(4) of the IRS code (26 U.S.C. § 501(c)), exempts certain types of nonprofit organizations from having to pay federal income tax. The statutory language of IRC 501(c)(4) generally requires civic organizations described in that section to be "operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare". Treasury regulations interpreting this statutory language apply a more relaxed standard, namely, that the organization "is operated primarily for the purpose of bringing about civic betterments and social improvements." As a result, the IRS traditionally has permitted organizations described in IRC 501(c)(4) to engage in lobbying and political campaign activities if those activities are not the organization's primary activity.

    TIMELINE of the IRS SCANDAL -

    (1) On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) is a U.S. constitutional law and corporate law case dealing with the regulation of campaign spending by organizations. The United States Supreme Court held (5-4) that freedom of speech prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation. The principles articulated by the Supreme Court in the case have also been extended to for-profit corporations, labor unions and other associations.

    All of a sudden, non-profit groups could spend money to engage in political activity and to influence elections. At the time, the Tea Party movement had just taken off, and:

    Most of the applications to the IRS for tax-exempt 501(c) status were conservative groups, and

    Most of the money pouring into TV and radio ads to influence elections were from conservative groups to benefit Republican candidates

    (2) Beginning in March 2010, when the Tea Party movement was the rage, the IRS more closely scrutinized certain organizations applying for tax-exempt status under sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code by focusing on groups with certain words in their names. IRS staffers began flagging applications from groups with politically themed names like "We the People" and "Take Back the Country." Staffers also targeted groups whose names included the words "Tea Party," "patriots," and "912" (a movement started by Glenn Beck). Those flagged applications were then sent to specialists for a more rigorous review than is typical. (This info, this timeline, came from a draft report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, May 2013).

    In May 2010, some employees of the "Determinations Unit" of the Cincinnati office of the IRS, which is tasked with reviewing applications pertaining to tax-exempt status, began developing a spreadsheet that became known as the "Be On the Look Out" ("BOLO") list.

    The list, first distributed in August 2010, suggested intensive scrutiny of applicants with names related to a number of political causes, including names related to the Tea Party movement and other conservative causes. Eventually, IRS employees in Ohio, California, and Washington, DC applied closer scrutiny to applications from organizations that:

    referenced words such as "Tea Party", "Patriots", or "9/12 Project", "progressive," "occupy," "Israel," "open source software," "medical marijuana" and "occupied territory advocacy" in the case file;[34][35]

    outlined issues in the application that included government spending, government debt, or taxes;

    involved advocating or lobbying to "make America a better place to live";

    had statements in the case file that criticized how the country is being run;

    advocated education about theConstitution and the Bill of Rights;

    were focused on challenging thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act-known by many as Obamacare;

    questioned the integrity of federal elections.

    Over the two years between April 2010 and April 2012, there was an increase of applications for 501(c) tax-exempt status - from 1,500 applications to more than double that amount, 3,400. The government (controlled by Democrats) took notice. The IRS essentially placed on hold the processing of applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exemption status received from organizations with "Tea Party", "patriots", or "9/12" in their names. While apparently none of these organizations' applications were denied during this period, only 4 were approved. During the same general period, the agency approved applications from several dozen presumably liberal-leaning organizations whose names included terms such as "progressive", "progress", "liberal", or "equality. Only 3 groups were targeted had the word "occupy" in their name.