IRS: We Targeted Conservative, Tea Party Groups With Extra Scrutiny — 'Mistakes Were Made' Brett LoGiurato | May 10, 2013, 1:33 PM | 5,634 | 67
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images A Mitt Romney supporter at a campaign rally in Ohio. The Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday to targeting conservative and Tea Party groups with additional scrutiny during the 2012 campaign, the Associated Press first reported. IRS spokesperson Lois Lerner said at a conference in Washington that the agency apologized for the special emphasis and scrutiny in applications for tax-exempt status. According to the AP, she said that organizations containing the words "Tea Party" or "patriot" were targeted for additional review, blaming that on "low-level" workers in Ohio. Here is the full statement the IRS released later: Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS saw the number of applications for section 501(c)(4) status double. As a result, local career employees in Cincinnati sought to centralize work and assign cases to designated employees in an effort to promote consistency and quality. This approach has worked in other areas. However, the IRS recognizes we should have done a better job of handling the influx of advocacy applications. While centralizing cases for consistency made sense, the way we initially centralized them did not. Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale. We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system. To date, more than half of the cases have been approved or withdrawn. It is important to recognize that all centralized applications received the same, even-handed treatment, and the majority of cases centralized were not based on a specific name. In addition, new procedures also were implemented last year to ensure that these mistakes won’t be made in the future. The IRS also stresses that our employees - all career civil servants -- will continue to be guided by tax law and not partisan issues. In a conference call later Friday with reporters, the IRS reiterated that it was not engaging in any political attacks by targeting groups with "Tea Party" and "patriot." But it couldn't point to other non-conservative or political-sounding words. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for a government-wide review. "Now more than ever we need to send a clear message to the Obama administration that the First Amendment is non-negotiable, and that apologies after an election year are not an sufficient response to what we now know took place at the IRS. This kind of political thuggery has absolutely no place in our politics," McConnell said in a statement. At one point last year, 16 tea party groups joined together in claiming harassment by the IRS, something the agency denied at the time. The IRS said that roughly 75 groups were targeted. One of those groups, the Tea Party Patriots, called on President Barack Obama to apologize and demanded that Congress investigate. “The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power,” said Jenny Beth Martin, the group's national coordinator. “This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach. It is suspicious that the activity of these ‘low-level workers’ was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred. ... We reject a simple apology that does nothing to alleviate the danger of this happening again. Only immediate and public actions on the part of the IRS and the president will suffice. Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities, but it cannot be their primary activity. This post has been updated.
During a 2009 commencement address at Arizona State University, President Obama joked that he’d send the IRS after those who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him. For over 100 tea party groups, his comments are not amusing; they are a reality.
The tea party has had a profound impact on the national political debate, bringing the size and scope of the federal government to the forefront of the American dialogue. As voters increasingly connect with the tea party’s values, President Obama and Democrats have grown concerned about the movement’s grassroots energy. In a “Chicago style” attempt to smother the movement before the 2012 election, the Obama administration is using the IRS to attack tea party groups.
The Waco Tea Party submitted an application for tax-exempt status in 2010. Nearly two years after the IRS’s 90-day response window elapsed, the group finally received a reply — a list of over 50 demands. The three-year-old organization was asked to compile every Facebook post and tweet it had ever produced. It was told to submit transcriptions of its weekly radio show — a request that would cost $25,000 to comply with, more than twice the group’s annual budget. It was ordered to explain any “close relationships” with candidates. And when the Waco Tea Party asked the IRS to clarify “close relationship” and “candidate,” the IRS replied, “Send us everything.”
To make the demands even more egregious, the over 30,000 pages of demanded information was to be compiled in just 14 days.
The Waco Tea Party is not alone. While liberal organizations have been given a fast pass through the tax-exempt application process, hundreds of freedom-fighting groups have received these intrusive questionnaires, which consume time and money that could otherwise be used to protect constitutional liberties.
The IRS has demanded that an Ohio group produce a synopsis of each book it has recommended to members, along with the authors’ names, the books’ titles and details about the authors’ relationships with a local conservative activist.
Obama’s IRS has requested that a Kentucky group release information about its board’s family members — if they intend to run for office, if they have started up similar groups, if they have ever applied for a tax-exempt status.
From others, the IRS has demanded sensitive information about leaders’ resumes, donors, groups’ future plans and whether any board members are thinking about running for political office.
10 crazy things the IRS asked Tea Party groups POSTED AT 8:01 PM ON MAY 10, 2013 BY MARY KATHARINE HAM
The Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday to improperly targeting conservative groups for aggressive applications processes for tax exempt status in 2012, using the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot” as flags. Here are some of the things they wanted to know about those groups.
1. We’re gonna need all your direct and indirect communication. “‘Direct and indirect communications’ is profoundly chilling of First Amendment rights, ” said David French, senior counsel for American Center for Law & Justice, which has been representing 27 conservative organizations met with IRS inquisitions. “It’s so vague as to be impossible to comply with.”
2. What do we need to know about your members? Nothing much. Just ALL THE THINGS!
3. Your present and past employees and their relationships, please.
4. No, family members of past and present board members and employees are not exempt, nor are their activities with other groups. Why do you ask?
5. If someone in this country’s free press has ever interacted with you in any way shape or form about your free speech activities, we’re going to need documentation of that.
6. By the way, all the insane, intrusive information we’re asking for is understood to be public once you’ve given it to us, so please include only the most flattering possible photos of your children and pets.
7. There are very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information we’re asking for. Does it feel like you’re running hurdles yet, Lolo?
8. Don’t forget to read the continued very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information.
9. If you do not comply with these very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive application, you will go directly back to Start, you will not pass Go, and let’s face it, we will probably collect $200.
10. Please predict the future reliably. Thank you for your time.
All of the examples above are taken from actual IRS correspondence received by ACLJ’s 27 clients. There were many versions of the in-depth questionnaire sent to different organizations, suggesting there was more than one agent or one office involved. Though IRS officials blamed “low-level” employees in the Cincinnati office, which is the central IRS office in charge of tax exemptions, French said the abuse was far more widespread. ACLJ’s clients dealt with inquiries from IRS offices from “coast to coast.” Of ACLJ’s 27 clients, 15 finally had their status approved after 6-7 months with legal help. There are 12 groups whose status remains in limbo.
In fairness to the subject, the IRS has had provable political involvement all the way back to John and Robert Kennedy with the formation of a thing called the Ideological Operations Project (IOP) targeting groups like the John Birch Society. Republicans have been notable in their use of the IRS to target left wing groups back to the early 1950's.... Nothing new but just as scandalous.... get rid of personal taxes at the federal level, tax according to the constitution and you do away with this sort of federal abuse....
Americans should remember that this same corrupt IRS will be in charge of enforcing Obamacare. And this same inept and corrupt government will supposedly secure our now unsecured borders in advance of immigration reform and will implement a completely ethical and non-political IPAB panel to make life and death health care decisions for you and your family. Forgive me for not trusting these big government promises any more than I trust the White House's latest Benghazi spin or the IRS' fairness.
Mike Kemp | Rubberball | Getty Images Get ready for the Internal Revenue Service to play a dominant role in health care. When Obamacare takes full effect next year, the agency will enforce most of the laws involved in the reform—even deciding who gets included in the health-care mandate.
"The impact of the IRS on health-care reform is huge," said Paul Hamburger, a partner and employee benefits lawyer at Proskauer.
"Other agencies like Social Security will be checking for mistakes, but the IRS is the key enforcer," Hamburger said. "It's also going to help manage who might get health care."
In its 5-4 ruling last year, the Supreme Court upheld the law's mandate that Americans have health insurance, saying that Congress can enforce the mandate under its taxing authority and through the IRS.
As a result, the agency has to administer 47 tax provisions under Obamacare. They include the right to levy a penalty against businesses and individuals who don't provide or acquire insurance. Noting that the IRS will collect the penalties, the decision labeled them a tax.
The IRS also has to determine how to distribute annual subsidies to 18 million people who make less than $45,000 a year and thus qualify for subsidies in buying health coverage, as well as how to deliver tax credits to small businesses that buy coverage for workers.
In addition, the agency will collect taxes on medical devices and a Medicare surtax on people making more than $200,000 a year, as well as conducting compliance audits of tax-exempt hospitals.
The financial burden for all this IRS enforcement is expected to total $881 million for fiscal years 2010 through 2013, according to the Treasury Department.
But former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress last year that he would need another $13.1 billion for the job in 2014. It's uncertain as to whether the funds will be forthcoming from Congress, which has cut the IRS's budget in each of the past two years.
Group Demands Special Prosecutor Be Appointed to Investigate
IRS Scandal; Suggests Obama Administration Could Be Implicated
Philadelphia, PA (May 13, 2013) -- The Independence Hall Tea Party Association, the largest independent Tea Party group in the Tri-State region, is calling on the Obama Administration to appoint a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the recent IRS scandal.
A rather peculiar and curiously-timed statement issued this past Friday, by mid-level IRS administrator Lois Lerner, said that the agency had been singling out Tea Party and Patriot groups who filed for 501c tax-exempt status by forcing them to undergo additional burdensome scrutiny above and beyond the standard application process.
IRS intimidation of conservative groups has been ongoing since 2010.
"None of this is news to the Independence Hall Tea Party Association," said Association President Teri Adams. "Due to our concerns with the Obama Administration's influence over the IRS, the Association decided not to file for federal tax-exempt status."
"In addition, unlike most Tea Party groups across the nation, we formed a federal PAC to handle political endorsements and activities--making it less likely that we would become targets of an IRS inquiry.
"The harassment of conservative groups by an arm of the US government is frightening, un-American, and Nixonesque," said Ms. Adams.
"We call on the Obama Administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS and any other government entity or official linked to this brewing scandal. This would include anyone directly or indirectly connected to the Obama Administration.
"As for the IRS, the Association, like everyone else, is waiting for the full report of the Treasury Department's Inspector General--which is expected in the next few days.
"The Inspector General's report, we insist, should signal the beginning of a more thorough investigation--not the last word in this highly explosive affair."
With Benghazi, IRS illegal activities and now illegal AP News Reporter wire taps, will Obama overcome these? GOVT TAPS PRESS PHONE RECORDS FOR MONTHS
20 phone lines monitored...
AP: 'Massive and unprecedented intrusion'...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
AP blasts feds for phone records search By Matt Smith and Joe Johns, CNN updated 8:33 AM EDT, Tue May 14, 2013
(CNN) -- The Justice Department secretly collected two months of telephone records for reporters and editors at The Associated Press, the news service disclosed Monday in an outraged letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
The records included calls from several AP bureaus and the personal phone lines of several staffers, AP President Gary Pruitt wrote. Pruitt called the subpoenas a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into its reporting.
"These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," wrote Pruitt, the news agency's CEO.
Senior tax officials knew of extra Tea Party scrutiny By Kim Dixon and Kevin Drawbaugh
WASHINGTON | Mon May 13, 2013 11:49pm EDT
(Reuters) - Higher-level Internal Revenue Service officials took part in discussions as far back as August 2011 about targeting by lower-level tax agents of "Tea Party" and other conservative groups, according to documents reviewed by Reuters on Monday.
WHEN DID IRS LEADERS KNOW?
How much the IRS leadership knew about the targeting, and when, are two of many questions still unanswered in the controversy.
IRS agents in a Cincinnati field office in 2010 started using keywords - such as "Tea Party" and "Patriot" - to sift through thousands of groups' applications for tax-exempt status and pick out ones for possible closer scrutiny.
A lawyer for Tea Party groups told Reuters on Monday that some clients had been contacted from IRS offices not only in Cincinnati, but also in Washington, D.C., and two offices in California - Laguna Niguel and El Monte.
IRS: We Targeted Conservative, Tea Party Groups With Extra Scrutiny — 'Mistakes Were Made'
ReplyDeleteBrett LoGiurato | May 10, 2013, 1:33 PM | 5,634 | 67
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A Mitt Romney supporter at a campaign rally in Ohio.
The Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday to targeting conservative and Tea Party groups with additional scrutiny during the 2012 campaign, the Associated Press first reported.
IRS spokesperson Lois Lerner said at a conference in Washington that the agency apologized for the special emphasis and scrutiny in applications for tax-exempt status.
According to the AP, she said that organizations containing the words "Tea Party" or "patriot" were targeted for additional review, blaming that on "low-level" workers in Ohio.
Here is the full statement the IRS released later:
Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS saw the number of applications for section 501(c)(4) status double. As a result, local career employees in Cincinnati sought to centralize work and assign cases to designated employees in an effort to promote consistency and quality. This approach has worked in other areas. However, the IRS recognizes we should have done a better job of handling the influx of advocacy applications.
While centralizing cases for consistency made sense, the way we initially centralized them did not. Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale. We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system. To date, more than half of the cases have been approved or withdrawn.
It is important to recognize that all centralized applications received the same, even-handed treatment, and the majority of cases centralized were not based on a specific name. In addition, new procedures also were implemented last year to ensure that these mistakes won’t be made in the future. The IRS also stresses that our employees - all career civil servants -- will continue to be guided by tax law and not partisan issues.
In a conference call later Friday with reporters, the IRS reiterated that it was not engaging in any political attacks by targeting groups with "Tea Party" and "patriot." But it couldn't point to other non-conservative or political-sounding words.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for a government-wide review.
"Now more than ever we need to send a clear message to the Obama administration that the First Amendment is non-negotiable, and that apologies after an election year are not an sufficient response to what we now know took place at the IRS. This kind of political thuggery has absolutely no place in our politics," McConnell said in a statement.
At one point last year, 16 tea party groups joined together in claiming harassment by the IRS, something the agency denied at the time. The IRS said that roughly 75 groups were targeted.
One of those groups, the Tea Party Patriots, called on President Barack Obama to apologize and demanded that Congress investigate.
“The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power,” said Jenny Beth Martin, the group's national coordinator.
“This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach. It is suspicious that the activity of these ‘low-level workers’ was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred. ... We reject a simple apology that does nothing to alleviate the danger of this happening again. Only immediate and public actions on the part of the IRS and the president will suffice.
Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities, but it cannot be their primary activity.
This post has been updated.
During a 2009 commencement address at Arizona State University, President Obama joked that he’d send the IRS after those who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him. For over 100 tea party groups, his comments are not amusing; they are a reality.
ReplyDeleteThe tea party has had a profound impact on the national political debate, bringing the size and scope of the federal government to the forefront of the American dialogue. As voters increasingly connect with the tea party’s values, President Obama and Democrats have grown concerned about the movement’s grassroots energy. In a “Chicago style” attempt to smother the movement before the 2012 election, the Obama administration is using the IRS to attack tea party groups.
The Waco Tea Party submitted an application for tax-exempt status in 2010. Nearly two years after the IRS’s 90-day response window elapsed, the group finally received a reply — a list of over 50 demands. The three-year-old organization was asked to compile every Facebook post and tweet it had ever produced. It was told to submit transcriptions of its weekly radio show — a request that would cost $25,000 to comply with, more than twice the group’s annual budget. It was ordered to explain any “close relationships” with candidates. And when the Waco Tea Party asked the IRS to clarify “close relationship” and “candidate,” the IRS replied, “Send us everything.”
To make the demands even more egregious, the over 30,000 pages of demanded information was to be compiled in just 14 days.
DeleteThe Waco Tea Party is not alone. While liberal organizations have been given a fast pass through the tax-exempt application process, hundreds of freedom-fighting groups have received these intrusive questionnaires, which consume time and money that could otherwise be used to protect constitutional liberties.
The IRS has demanded that an Ohio group produce a synopsis of each book it has recommended to members, along with the authors’ names, the books’ titles and details about the authors’ relationships with a local conservative activist.
Obama’s IRS has requested that a Kentucky group release information about its board’s family members — if they intend to run for office, if they have started up similar groups, if they have ever applied for a tax-exempt status.
From others, the IRS has demanded sensitive information about leaders’ resumes, donors, groups’ future plans and whether any board members are thinking about running for political office.
4/11/2012 Daily Caller
1773-2009 Our freedoms are under attack. Join Us!
Delete10 crazy things the IRS asked Tea Party groups
ReplyDeletePOSTED AT 8:01 PM ON MAY 10, 2013 BY MARY KATHARINE HAM
The Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday to improperly targeting conservative groups for aggressive applications processes for tax exempt status in 2012, using the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot” as flags. Here are some of the things they wanted to know about those groups.
1. We’re gonna need all your direct and indirect communication. “‘Direct and indirect communications’ is profoundly chilling of First Amendment rights, ” said David French, senior counsel for American Center for Law & Justice, which has been representing 27 conservative organizations met with IRS inquisitions. “It’s so vague as to be impossible to comply with.”
2. What do we need to know about your members? Nothing much. Just ALL THE THINGS!
3. Your present and past employees and their relationships, please.
4. No, family members of past and present board members and employees are not exempt, nor are their activities with other groups. Why do you ask?
5. If someone in this country’s free press has ever interacted with you in any way shape or form about your free speech activities, we’re going to need documentation of that.
6. By the way, all the insane, intrusive information we’re asking for is understood to be public once you’ve given it to us, so please include only the most flattering possible photos of your children and pets.
ReplyDelete7. There are very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information we’re asking for. Does it feel like you’re running hurdles yet, Lolo?
8. Don’t forget to read the continued very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive information.
9. If you do not comply with these very specific requirements for completing and submitting this insane, intrusive application, you will go directly back to Start, you will not pass Go, and let’s face it, we will probably collect $200.
10. Please predict the future reliably. Thank you for your time.
All of the examples above are taken from actual IRS correspondence received by ACLJ’s 27 clients. There were many versions of the in-depth questionnaire sent to different organizations, suggesting there was more than one agent or one office involved. Though IRS officials blamed “low-level” employees in the Cincinnati office, which is the central IRS office in charge of tax exemptions, French said the abuse was far more widespread. ACLJ’s clients dealt with inquiries from IRS offices from “coast to coast.” Of ACLJ’s 27 clients, 15 finally had their status approved after 6-7 months with legal help. There are 12 groups whose status remains in limbo.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/10/10-crazy-things-the-irs-asked-tea-party-groups/
DeleteIn fairness to the subject, the IRS has had provable political involvement all the way back to John and Robert Kennedy with the formation of a thing called the Ideological Operations Project (IOP) targeting groups like the John Birch Society. Republicans have been notable in their use of the IRS to target left wing groups back to the early 1950's.... Nothing new but just as scandalous.... get rid of personal taxes at the federal level, tax according to the constitution and you do away with this sort of federal abuse....
ReplyDeleteDid the IRS investigate the CPUSA? Probably not since they endorsed Obama..............
DeleteAmericans should remember that this same corrupt IRS will be in charge of enforcing Obamacare. And this same inept and corrupt government will supposedly secure our now unsecured borders in advance of immigration reform and will implement a completely ethical and non-political IPAB panel to make life and death health care decisions for you and your family. Forgive me for not trusting these big government promises any more than I trust the White House's latest Benghazi spin or the IRS' fairness.
DeleteSarah Palin
DeleteMike Kemp | Rubberball | Getty Images
Get ready for the Internal Revenue Service to play a dominant role in health care. When Obamacare takes full effect next year, the agency will enforce most of the laws involved in the reform—even deciding who gets included in the health-care mandate.
"The impact of the IRS on health-care reform is huge," said Paul Hamburger, a partner and employee benefits lawyer at Proskauer.
"Other agencies like Social Security will be checking for mistakes, but the IRS is the key enforcer," Hamburger said. "It's also going to help manage who might get health care."
In its 5-4 ruling last year, the Supreme Court upheld the law's mandate that Americans have health insurance, saying that Congress can enforce the mandate under its taxing authority and through the IRS.
As a result, the agency has to administer 47 tax provisions under Obamacare. They include the right to levy a penalty against businesses and individuals who don't provide or acquire insurance. Noting that the IRS will collect the penalties, the decision labeled them a tax.
The IRS also has to determine how to distribute annual subsidies to 18 million people who make less than $45,000 a year and thus qualify for subsidies in buying health coverage, as well as how to deliver tax credits to small businesses that buy coverage for workers.
In addition, the agency will collect taxes on medical devices and a Medicare surtax on people making more than $200,000 a year, as well as conducting compliance audits of tax-exempt hospitals.
The financial burden for all this IRS enforcement is expected to total $881 million for fiscal years 2010 through 2013, according to the Treasury Department.
But former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress last year that he would need another $13.1 billion for the job in 2014. It's uncertain as to whether the funds will be forthcoming from Congress, which has cut the IRS's budget in each of the past two years.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100711119
Group Demands Special Prosecutor Be Appointed to Investigate
ReplyDeleteIRS Scandal; Suggests Obama Administration Could Be Implicated
Philadelphia, PA (May 13, 2013) -- The Independence Hall Tea Party Association, the largest independent Tea Party group in the Tri-State region, is calling on the Obama Administration to appoint a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the recent IRS scandal.
A rather peculiar and curiously-timed statement issued this past Friday, by mid-level IRS administrator Lois Lerner, said that the agency had been singling out Tea Party and Patriot groups who filed for 501c tax-exempt status by forcing them to undergo additional burdensome scrutiny above and beyond the standard application process.
IRS intimidation of conservative groups has been ongoing since 2010.
"None of this is news to the Independence Hall Tea Party Association," said Association President Teri Adams. "Due to our concerns with the Obama Administration's influence over the IRS, the Association decided not to file for federal tax-exempt status."
"In addition, unlike most Tea Party groups across the nation, we formed a federal PAC to handle political endorsements and activities--making it less likely that we would become targets of an IRS inquiry.
"The harassment of conservative groups by an arm of the US government is frightening, un-American, and Nixonesque," said Ms. Adams.
"We call on the Obama Administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS and any other government entity or official linked to this brewing scandal. This would include anyone directly or indirectly connected to the Obama Administration.
"As for the IRS, the Association, like everyone else, is waiting for the full report of the Treasury Department's Inspector General--which is expected in the next few days.
"The Inspector General's report, we insist, should signal the beginning of a more thorough investigation--not the last word in this highly explosive affair."
With Benghazi, IRS illegal activities and now illegal AP News Reporter wire taps, will Obama overcome these?
ReplyDeleteGOVT TAPS PRESS PHONE RECORDS FOR MONTHS
20 phone lines monitored...
AP: 'Massive and unprecedented intrusion'...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
read:www.drudgereport.com
I think it would be a simple task for an investigative reporter to do a cross check of former ACORN employees and IRS hires over the past few years.
DeleteThings are rotten ladies and gentlemen.
1773-2009
AP blasts feds for phone records search
DeleteBy Matt Smith and Joe Johns, CNN
updated 8:33 AM EDT, Tue May 14, 2013
(CNN) -- The Justice Department secretly collected two months of telephone records for reporters and editors at The Associated Press, the news service disclosed Monday in an outraged letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
The records included calls from several AP bureaus and the personal phone lines of several staffers, AP President Gary Pruitt wrote. Pruitt called the subpoenas a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into its reporting.
"These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," wrote Pruitt, the news agency's CEO.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/13/us/justice-ap-phones/index.html
Senior tax officials knew of extra Tea Party scrutiny
ReplyDeleteBy Kim Dixon and Kevin Drawbaugh
WASHINGTON | Mon May 13, 2013 11:49pm EDT
(Reuters) - Higher-level Internal Revenue Service officials took part in discussions as far back as August 2011 about targeting by lower-level tax agents of "Tea Party" and other conservative groups, according to documents reviewed by Reuters on Monday.
WHEN DID IRS LEADERS KNOW?
How much the IRS leadership knew about the targeting, and when, are two of many questions still unanswered in the controversy.
IRS agents in a Cincinnati field office in 2010 started using keywords - such as "Tea Party" and "Patriot" - to sift through thousands of groups' applications for tax-exempt status and pick out ones for possible closer scrutiny.
A lawyer for Tea Party groups told Reuters on Monday that some clients had been contacted from IRS offices not only in Cincinnati, but also in Washington, D.C., and two offices in California - Laguna Niguel and El Monte.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/14/us-usa-tax-irs-idUSBRE94B08I20130514