NBC NEWS: IRS higher-ups requested info on conservative groups

From: NBC News

Additional scrutiny of conservative organizations’ activities by the IRS did not solely originate in the agency’s Cincinnati office, with requests for information coming from other offices and often bearing the signatures of higher-ups at the agency, according to attorneys representing some of the targeted groups. At least one letter requesting information about one of the groups bears the signature of Lois Lerner, the suspended director of the IRS Exempt Organizations department in Washington.

Jay Sekulow, an attorney representing 27 conservative political advocacy organizations that applied to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status, provided some of the letters to NBC News.  He said the groups’ contacts with the IRS prove that the practices went beyond a few “front line” employees in the Cincinnati office, as the IRS has maintained.

“We've dealt with 15 agents, including tax law specialists -- that's lawyers -- from four different offices, including (the) Treasury (Department) in Washington, D.C.,” Sekulow said. “So the idea that this is a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati is not correct.”

Among the letters were several that bore return IRS addresses other than Cincinnati, including IRS headquarters in Washington, and the signatures of IRS officials higher up the chain. Lerner’s signature, which appeared to be a stamp rather than an actual signature, appeared on a letter requesting additional information from the Ohio Liberty Council Corp.

Lerner has become one of the public faces of the controversy after refusing to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last Wednesday, citing her Constitutional Fifth Amendment rights after reading a brief statement: “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws, violated IRS regulations or provided false information to this or any other committee.”

She was put on administrative leave at the end of last week after reportedly refusing to resign at Obama administration’s request. She is continuing to collect federal paychecks on her almost $180,000 annual salary, though at least one Republican senator, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, is urging the agency to speed up the process and fire her.

In the two weeks since the IRS acknowledged it targeted conservative organizations seeking status as tax-exempt "social welfare" organizations for additional scrutiny, many Republicans have sought to link the agency’s actions to the White House. In an Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post on May 22, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wrote that “the administration has been extremely creative in employing throughout the federal government the sorts of intimidation tactics that were used at the IRS.”

The White House has dismissed suggestions it was aware of the targeting, saying President Barack Obama only learned of the issue when it broke in the news on May 10. White House spokesman Jay Carney has since deflected most questions about the scandal, saying it would be inappropriate to comment until an FBI inquiry into the agency’s actions – one of five separate government investigations -- is concluded.

For its part, the IRS has declined additional comment beyond its congressional testimony -- including former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller's testimony that IRS employees didn’t have partisan motives and only made "foolish mistakes ... trying to be more efficient” -- and other previously released public statements, including its response to a Treasury inspector general  (see pages 49-51) and a Q&A on 501 (c) groups it published on its website.

But attorneys for some of the targeted groups’ provided documentation and two IRS employees in the Cincinnati office made statements to NBC News that call into question parts of the official explanation Americans have heard from the IRS so far.

Sekulow, who worked with the office of the chief counsel of the IRS in the early 1980s as a trial lawyer representing the IRS on tax-exempt cases, said the number of groups he’s heard from, and the scope of the requests for information the IRS sent them, persuaded him “that this was not something that was just created at an agent level, that this was certainly higher up.”

After reviewing all the IRS communications his clients received, Sekulow said he believes the IRS was engaged in a coordinated and deliberate attempt to silence, or at least stifle conservative organizations, he told NBC News.

Sekulow also said the practices continued well after May 2012, when the IRS has claimed they had stopped. Sekulow said 10 of the organizations he represents still have not received determinations from the IRS on their applications for tax-exempt status as 501 C (1)(4) organizations. He provided NBC News with a letter the IRS sent to one of his clients on May 6 requesting more information.

'Decisions ... made in Washington'

Cleta Mitchell, another attorney representing conservative groups that allege they were targeted, said an IRS agent in Cincinnati told her a “task force” IRS office in Washington, D.C., was making the decisions about the processing of applications, and that she subsequently dealt with IRS representatives there.

“(The IRS agent in Cincinnati) told me that in fact the case would be transferred to a special task force out of Washington, and that he was told – he was the originally assigned agent – that he wasn't allowed to make decisions, the decisions were all going to be made in Washington,” Mitchell said. “I know that this process was going on in Washington because I've dealt with those people.”

One of Mitchell’s clients, Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, a conservative elections monitoring organization, applied for tax-exempt status for the group in July 2010.  She said that when she asked the IRS two years later why it was taking so long to get a decision, agents told her Washington was to blame.

“We’ve dealt with four separate analysts and their explanation for the way our case has been handled runs the gamut from their not having another organization like True the Vote to compare to – so they had to develop new questions and new criteria -- all the way through to the fact that they were taking their orders from Washington and were waiting for Washington’s direction as to what steps to take next,” she said. “They were caught up in a process that seemed to be much bigger than Cincinnati and bigger than any single individual.”

Mitchell, Engelbrecht’s attorney, said Engelbrecht’s case also raised questions about whether the IRS had subjected some applicants to other federal government scrutiny and action, beyond their IRS application.

Engelbrecht told NBC News that soon after she filed for tax-exempt status for True the Vote, the IRS audited her personal and business taxes for the first time, and her manufacturing business was visited by two other federal agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Her tax-exempt application still hasn't been approved after three years. She's now suing the IRS.
Sekulow said he also is preparing to sue the IRS in federal court this week, on behalf of the 16 groups he represents.

“The only way to get this resolved is to go to federal court,” Sekulow said, “because that's the only thing that's going to compel the IRS to comply with the law.”

Two IRS Cincinnati employees who have talked to NBC News dispute one part of the IRS’ explanation, saying that application of inappropriate selection criteria and the extra scrutiny for Tea Party and other conservative political advocacy organizations was not the work of a few low-level “rogue” employees.

But they also have told NBC News that they believe there was no political or partisan motivation for the targeting or scrutiny.

"We're outstanding public servants, dedicated to our craft and to the public we serve,” said one current IRS Cincinnati employee contacted at home over the weekend, who agreed to speak to NBC News on the condition of anonymity. “To suggest that we're 'rogue' should be considered slander.”

Asked about the motivations for the targeting, the employee said, “I trust my management team."

Bonnie Esrig, a 38-year IRS veteran and a manager in the Cincinnati office until she retired from the IRS in January, also has told NBC News that decisions about how to handle cases came from management, and that all employees were subjected to considerable oversight. She also said that she believes there was no political or partisan motivation for the added scrutiny.

Grassley: IRS Told Pro-Life Group to Swear It Would Not Protest Planned Parenthood

From: CNS

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that a pro-life group in Iowa was told by an IRS agent that its application would not be approved until the group’s board of directors swore it would not protest Planned Parenthood. “This comes directly from Iowa, one of my constituents attempted to establish 501(c)(3) charity called Coalition for Life of Iowa. She told my staff that an IRS agent told her ‘Your application’s ready to go. However, it will not be approved until you send a letter signed by your entire board under penalty of perjury saying that you will not protest at Planned Parenthood,’” Grassley said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

Grassley called it “outrageous” that the statement would even be “made by anybody in government that somehow you’ve got to compromise your First Amendment rights.”

In addition to the order that the group promise not to protest Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, Grassley’s constituent received a letter from the IRS with “several invasive questions, including the details of the group’s prayer meeting,” he said.

“Now stop to think about it – the government getting involved in somebody having a prayer meeting. It appears that the IRS essentially offered this group a quid pro quo – You can become a charity if you don’t protest in front of a Planned Parenthood, generally speaking so you don’t have to worry about 6103,” Grassley said.

Section 6103 of the Criminal Tax Manual refers to the confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return information.

He asked outgoing IRS Acting Commission Steven Miller if it was “appropriate even for an IRS employee to offer quid pro quo in the example like this.”

“The answer’s no,” Miller said. “We shouldn’t be trading,” he continued before Grassley interrupted him.

“Okay, let’s move on. That’s a good answer, because that’s the answer you ought to give, but how on earth could you let something like this happen under your leadership and do either of you feel any responsibility or remorse for treating American citizens this way?” Grassley asked.

“I think I started my public statement with an apology, sir, and I would continue that,” Miller said.
“I don’t know what happened in your given case, and as you well are aware, I can’t speak to it under the 6103 rules, but I do apologize for the treatment of folks, and look, there are two things that happened with these cases,” he continued.

“First was the selection, and the selection criteria was bad. Second was their treatment once they were in that group, and that too was bad, sir. It was. I don’t know whether this particular organization was inside or outside of that group, but the service that folks got was not the service that we should be providing anyone. There’s no question about that,” Miller concluded.

CBS REPORTS!!!: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations

FROM: CBS NEWS

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called "Demand Letter 3". That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or "long guns." Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."
 
On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case."

This revelation angers gun rights advocates. Larry Keane, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, calls the discussion of Fast and Furious to argue for Demand Letter 3 "disappointing and ironic." Keane says it's "deeply troubling" if sales made by gun dealers "voluntarily cooperating with ATF's flawed 'Operation Fast & Furious' were going to be used by some individuals within ATF to justify imposing a multiple sales reporting requirement for rifles."


The Gun Dealers' Quandary
Several gun dealers who cooperated with ATF told CBS News and Congressional investigators they only went through with suspicious sales because ATF asked them to.
Sometimes it was against the gun dealer's own best judgment.

Read the email

In April, 2010 a licensed gun dealer cooperating with ATF was increasingly concerned about selling so many guns. "We just want to make sure we are cooperating with ATF and that we are not viewed as selling to the bad guys," writes the gun dealer to ATF Phoenix officials, "(W)e were hoping to put together something like a letter of understanding to alleviate concerns of some type of recourse against us down the road for selling these items."

Read the email
ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."

Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

The Justice Department and ATF declined to comment. ATF officials mentioned in this report did not respond to requests from CBS News to speak with them.

The "Demand Letter 3" Debate
The two sides in the gun debate have long clashed over whether gun dealers should have to report multiple rifle sales. On one side, ATF officials argue that a large number of semi-automatic, high-caliber rifles from the U.S. are being used by violent cartels in Mexico. They believe more reporting requirements would help ATF crack down. On the other side, gun rights advocates say that's unconstitutional, and would not make a difference in Mexican cartel crimes.

Two earlier Demand Letters were initiated in 2000 and affected a relatively small number of gun shops. Demand Letter 3 was to be much more sweeping, affecting 8,500 firearms dealers in four southwest border states: Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. ATF chose those states because they "have a significant number of crime guns traced back to them from Mexico." The reporting requirements were to apply if a gun dealer sells two or more long guns to a single person within five business days, and only if the guns are semi-automatic, greater than .22 caliber and can be fitted with a detachable magazine.

On April 25, 2011, ATF announced plans to implement Demand Letter 3. The National Shooting Sports Foundation is suing the ATF to stop the new rules. It calls the regulation an illegal attempt to enforce a law Congress never passed. ATF counters that it has reasonably targeted guns used most often to "commit violent crimes in Mexico, especially by drug gangs."

Reaction
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is investigating Fast and Furious, as well as the alleged use of the case to advance gun regulations. "There's plenty of evidence showing that this administration planned to use the tragedies of Fast and Furious as rationale to further their goals of a long gun reporting requirement. But, we've learned from our investigation that reporting multiple long gun sales would do nothing to stop the flow of firearms to known straw purchasers because many Federal Firearms Dealers are already voluntarily reporting suspicious transactions. It's pretty clear that the problem isn't lack of burdensome reporting requirements."

On July 12, 2011, Sen. Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department oversees ATF. They asked Holder whether officials in his agency discussed how "Fast and Furious could be used to justify additional regulatory authorities." So far, they have not received a response. CBS News asked the Justice Department for comment and context on ATF emails about Fast and Furious and Demand Letter 3, but officials declined to speak with us.

"In light of the evidence, the Justice Department's refusal to answer questions about the role Operation Fast and Furious was supposed to play in advancing new firearms regulations is simply unacceptable," Rep. Issa told CBS News.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley Supports Dr John Boyd

From: Big Government

I’ve often said that the Pigford scandal isn’t a partisan issue. This is about fraud and corruption and while there are many Democrats involved, one of the biggest promoters of Pigford has been Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Grassley was the Senate sponsor of the Pigford Claims Recovery Act that extended Pigford to another 70,000+ claimants.

Even more troubling than Senator Grassley’s support of the Pigford Legislation, however, has been his explicit support of “Dr.” John Boyd.
Boyd is head of the National Black Farmers Assocuation, a group that he runs out of his house in Virginia. Boyd claims to represent ‘the farmers’ but in fact, he’s personally profited from the Pigford settlement to the tune of over $1,000,000. Boyd aggressively plays the race card against his critics, including Andrew Breitbart and this site.
In 2009, attorney Rose Sanders – a major advocate of Pigford, mind you – said this about “Dr.” John Boyd…