
I
have spent a considerable amount of time and energy on the
investigation—which included 38 daylong interviews of IRS and Treasury
employees ranging from line employees in Cincinnati to the IRS
commissioner to the chief of staff of the U.S. Treasury. The real news
has been revealed at the
Lois Lerner
hearing on March 5 and in the report of the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform on March 11: "Lois Lerner's Involvement
in the IRS Targeting of Tax-Exempt Organizations."
The
evidence brought to light in that hearing and report completely
discredited Ms. Lerner's claims about her involvement in what went on.
It also eviscerated the notion that liberal and conservative groups were
targeted.
When Ms. Lerner appeared before Congress in
May 2013, she made this statement: "I have done nothing wrong. I have
not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations."
But Ms. Lerner, we discovered, forwarded confidential taxpayer
information to her personal email account in early May 2013, which is a
violation of IRS rules. About the infamous "Be on the Lookout" targeting
list—a document used to identify conservative groups for additional
scrutiny—she told Congress that the criteria for screening tax-exempt
groups for extra scrutiny never changed. In fact, she personally ordered
it changed in July 2011 according to documents and testimony received
by the committee.
Ms. Lerner was most
certainly driven by politics. One email of June 11, 2011, shows that she
directed her subordinate to focus on the issues surrounding the
application of Karl Rove's group, Crossroads GPS. In another email of
Feb. 1, 2011, she frets about the Supreme Court "overturning the ban on
corporate spending" as it applies to nonprofits. (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission also overturned the ban on union political spending, but she expressed no concern about that.)
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