New Evidence in IRS Scandal – Lerner Held in Contempt

Barbara Cook April 12, 2014

211 1 minute read

Conservatives have wondered how deep the IRS scandal is and how many people have lied. At one time Obama informed the American people that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” involving the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS—but not surprisingly, it appears he was not completely honest.

Thursday morning, the House Oversight Committee charged the Lois Lerner, former head of the IRS’ tax-exempt division, with contempt of Congress in a 21-12 vote. During the Congressional hearings held recently, Lerner plead the Fifth and said nothing; some debate that when she made a statement before invoking the Fifth Amendment, she waived her amendment rights.

From WSJ.com:

“The most troubling new evidence are documents showing that Ms. Lerner actively corresponded with liberal campaign-finance groups Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, which had asked the IRS to investigate if conservative groups including Crossroads GPS were violating their tax-exempt status. After personally meeting with the two liberal outfits, Ms. Lerner contacted the director of the Exempt Organizations Examinations Unit in Dallas to ask why Crossroads had not been audited.

“You should know that we are working on a denial of the application,” Ms. Lerner wrote in an email. “Please make sure all moves regarding the org are coordinated up here before we do anything.” The Cincinnati agent assigned to the case at the time, Joseph Herr, noted on his timesheet, “[b]ased on conference, begin reviewing case information, tax law and draft/template advocacy denial letter, all to think about how best to compose the denial letter.”’