Guest post by Joe Hoft
The Obama Administration was behind the IRS Conservative Targeting Scandal that involved:
- Hundreds of conservative groups
- At least 5 pro-Israel groups
- Constitutional groups
- Groups that criticized Obama administration
- At least two pro-life groups
- An 83 year-old Nazi concentration camp survivor
- A 180 year-old Baptist paper
- A Texas voting-rights group
- A Hollywood conservative group
- Conservative activists and businesses
- At least one conservative Hispanic group
- The IRS continued to target groups even after the scandal was exposed
- 10% of Tea Party donors were audited by the IRS
- And… 100% of the 501(c)(4) Groups Audited by IRS Were Conservative
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform on March 26, 2014. Koskinen told Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) during the hearing that Lois Lerner’s emails were archived and it would take a long time to retrieve them.
In June 2014 the IRS told Congress Lois Lerner’s emails were lost in a computer crash.
But thousands of emails were later recovered by an Inspector General that were not previously produced for Congress.
The IRS leadership was targeting conservatives and lying about it to Congress.
The emails confirmed Lerner funneled information on conservative groups to at least one Democratic lawmaker.
The Obama DOJ later dropped charges against Lois Lerner.
She retired with full benefits.
But many years after the initial targeting of conservative groups was first reported — a judge awarded $3.5 million to a tea party groups that were targeted by the Obama IRS.
The AP reported:
A federal judge Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a $3.5 million settlement of a lawsuit against the IRS over alleged targeting of tea party groups and other conservative organizations.
U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett set a July 10 hearing in Cincinnati on making the settlement final, and scheduled deadlines for claims and objections.
The Justice Department had announced last year that the case had been settled, pending approval of terms.
The lead plaintiff was the California-based Norcal Tea Party Patriots. The case swelled into a class-action suit by hundreds of groups. The court will decide how much each gets after legal costs.
Now the same people that used the IRS to target conservatives are demanding that President Trump release his tax returns.
Dems want President’s tax returns for purely political purposes!
Frightening, but shouldn’t surprise us—same folks used the IRS to target Americans for their political beliefs!
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) April 6, 2019
