Monday, October 26, 2015

The fix was in

The FBI & Hillary’s e-mails: A Lois Lerner precedent?

By Post Editorial Board

October 26, 2015 | 2:11pm

Former IRS official Lois LernerPhoto: AP

The fix was in: Lois Lerner will walk away scot-free.

On Friday, the Justice Department closed its two-year investigation into the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status and decided to charge . . . no one.

This, when Lerner admitted the IRS had singled out righty groups, but blamed the “absolutely inappropriate” actions on “front-line people” — that is, lower-level folks. And then refused to answer more questions by pleading the Fifth.

Questions about, say, her orders to hold up applications from any outfit with “Tea Party” or “patriot” in its name.

In a letter Friday, Justice told Congress: “We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.”

In other words, exactly what President Obama ordered up — er, predicted. Back when the “investigation” had barely started, Obama told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly there wasn’t “even a smidgen of corruption” in the case. On “The Daily Show,” he explained that the “real scandal” is that the IRS lacks the budget to do more audits.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the House Oversight Committee, notes: “Here’s a lady who systematically and for a sustained period of time targeted people for exercising their most fundamental rights, their First Amendment free-speech rights. … The chief investigator, the chief lawyer assigned to the Justice Department to evaluate this, was Barbara Bosserman — a maxed-out contributor to the president’s campaign.”

“So it shouldn’t be any surprise the Justice Department said there’s nothing wrong here. But the American people know that there is.”

Wondering what the FBI probe will conclude about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private account and server for all her State Department e-mails? Well, Obama already told CBS’s Steve Kroft that it didn’t make for a “national security problem. . . I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”

If the Lois Lerner case is any precedent, the FBI might as well wrap up its Clinton probe right now.

11 comments:

  1. The USSR had nothing on Obama’s so called justice department.

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  2. If you were really paying attention William the FBI could not prove that any particular group was illegally targeted. Just more whining from the right. Did you ever consider that maybe your far right website and talking heads might be lying to you about what Lois Lerner said?

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  3. I'm sure she took the 5th after explaining how innocent she was for a reason pollyanna.

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    1. LOL, not much they can do to a retired person.

      When a problem is discovered, the guilty retire.

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  4. "Ms. Lerner and Justice Department officials met in 2010 about going after conservative organizations after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case. In August 2010, the IRSdistributed a ‘be on the lookout’ list for Tea Party organizations. By March 2012, amid reports of targeting, former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman testified there is “absolutely no targeting” by the IRS."

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  5. "On November 9, 2012, Mr. Shulman stepped down, replaced by Steven Miller. On May 10, 2013, Ms. Lerner admitted targeting, calling it “absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate.” Four days later, on May 14, 2013, the Inspector General issued a report confirming targeting. Attorney General Eric Holder announced an FBI investigation, and Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller resigned."

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  6. "May 22, 2013, Ms. Lerner professed her innocence, then took the Fifth. Next day, she was placed on administrative leave. On September 24, 2013, Ms. Lerner’s retirement was announced with full pension. President Obama said there is “not a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS, but the Committee on House Oversight and Reform issues a report on Lois Lerner."

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  7. "On April 8, 2014, the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform said it would pursue contempt charges against Ms. Lerner. On May 7, 2014, the House of Representatives held Ms. Lerner in contempt of Congress. On June 13, 2014, the IRS first stated that it lost Ms. Lerner’s emails from 2009 to 2011.

    The IRS said hard drives and backups are destroyed for six other IRS employees too. The IRS spent $10 million unsuccessfully trying to recover them, but much later, the Inspector General found them, noting that IRS IT professionals said no one ever asked for them. It is still possible Ms. Lerner could be queried over the hearings revealing 32,000 more emails, and possible criminal activity."

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  8. "But on his last day in office, U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen concluded that Ms. Lerner’s statement was not a waiver of her constitutional right against self-incrimination. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz complained that, “Mr. Machen attempted to absolve Ms. Lerner of her actions by substituting his judgment for that of the full House of Representatives. It is unclear whether the Administration directed Mr. Machen not to prosecute Lois Lerner, or whether he was motivated by an ideological kinship with IRS’s leadership.”"

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  9. "Ms. Lerner will probably not face any further action. Yet while she presided over alleged discrimination against conservative nonprofits, Ms. Lois Lerner received $129,000 in bonuses. Some people have asked but for what."

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  10. A movement was targeted by the governments tax collecting agency. And you ask why the movement is going underground.

    Think about it.

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