IRS Manipulated the Data to Benefit Issa’s Investigation
http://www.allthingsdemocrat.com/2013/07/irs-manipulated-the-data-to-benefit-issas-investigation/Wednesday, July 17th, 2013 by Doug Marquardt
Just two days ago, former Nixon aide Monica Crowley called the IRS controversy the most dangerous scandal in U.S. history. It turns out she was right, but not for the reason she thinks. This scandal is much more like THE most dangerous scandal in U.S. history the Bush administration fabricating intelligence to start an illegal war.
The entire IRS scandal was supposed to be a case of the IRS, allegedly under the direction of the Obama administration, targeting conservative groups for unfair scrutiny in order to deny or delay their tax-exempt applications. We learned, little by little, that the IRS was also targeting progressive groups and that, in fact, the only groups denied tax-exempt status were progressive and liberal groups. But the House Overreach Committee Chairman, Darrell Issa, worked furiously to downplay the facts and was selectively leaking fabricated intelligence, so-to-speak, to fuel their anti-Obama agenda, which Issa did again this morning.
Today, Sam Stein at HuffPo reveals that the IRS Treasury Inspector Generals report that initiated the cries of scandal and investigations held by Darrell Issa and his right-wing cronies was a phony report created by the IRS, presumably to help Republicans. J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), had information all-along on the progressive groups that were also targeted by the IRS and he chose to hold back that information from the TIGTA report that started the scandal. This shouldnt be a surprise to anyone. Issa and the Republicans obstructed the Presidents agenda in the first term and have now made it their mission to demonize and impeach the President in his second term. Their goal is to prevent the President from getting the credit he deserves for saving the economy from the damage caused by greedy Republican bankers and Wall Street speculators and paint Obama as an illegitimate tenant in the White House. Its my belief that George saw the opportunity to create a huge scandal but his people at the IRS werent playing ball. Georges own investigator reviewed 5,500 emails and concluded that there was no political motivation. Six IRS officials who said they were Republican or conservative said there was no political motivation. And Dems located a 2010 IRS Powerpoint presentation that said progressive and tea party groups needed additional scrutiny of their tax-exempt applications. So, the IRS Treasury Inspector General held-back information that progressive groups were targeted along with tea party groups, and the only information provided was a one-sided report that fit perfectly with Issas investigations and the GOPs impeachment agenda. THATS POLITICALLY MOTIVATED!
Now, will the investigative journalists in the mainstream media seek the truth or will they be directed by their corporate bosses to cover this up? Democrats need to push for a Justice Department investigation of Georges fabricated report and any connections to Darrell Issa and Republicans. I want to see an examination of Georges bank account and his foreign assets. We should know if hes been paid-off and by which wealthy, Republican donors. Issas the richest man in Congress. And given Issas criminal past, nothing would surprise me. FOLLOW THE MONEY!
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Scuba
(53,475 posts)Or not.
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)starroute
(12,977 posts)For anybody who doesn't want to read through all the quotes below, (1) TheTeaParty.net, which is one of the groups at the center of claims of IRS harassment, recently got its tax-exempt status certified. (2) The same group runs a PAC, the Tea Party Leadership Fund, that is threatening to primary all the House Republicans who voted to raise the debt limit. (3) The Fund has recently been accused on the basis of its own federal filings of being a "money making scam" that spends most of its receipts on its own principals and almost nothing on its stated goals. (4) The Fund is now using the alleged IRS harassment as a grounds for asking to be recognized by the FEC as a "small, persecuted group" that deserves the First Amendment protection of having its donors and vendors kept completely anonymous.
And if that wasn't outrageous enough, the lawyer of TheTeaParty.net and treasurer of the Fund, Dan Backer, is the same guy who filed the McCutcheon case, which would remove all limits on individual political donations, and which is currently awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court. And a few years ago, Backer brought another case (Carey v. FEC) that made it possible for the Fund and certain other groups to operate "both as a traditional PAC and as an independent-expenditure-only super PAC" as described in the fourth quote below.
I keep posting about Backer here because it astonishes me that nobody else is connecting these dots. But I truly don't know whether his primary objective is to strike down all campaign finance laws and open the floodgates for unlimited amounts of completely anonymous donations -- or whether it's to enrich himself by ripping off the people who are foolish enough to donate to his organizations under those conditions.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/three-years-later-theteaparty.net-finally-gets-irs-tax-exempt-ok/article/2536672
OCTOBER 2, 2013
One of the groups at the center of the IRS scandal has finally received its tax-exempt status after a three-year delay prompted by a politically driven move to block Tea Party and other conservative groups, many that slammed the president during his re-election, from winning the special status.
TheTeaParty.net, one of the nation's largest Tea Party groups, told Secrets that the long-sought declaration arrived Monday, well over three years after they applied for 501c(4) tax-exempt status in March of 2010, the start of the Tea Party movement. The notice came in a letter from the IRS. . . .
Commenting on the long legal battle, the groups lawyer, Dan Backer, said legal threats from the group helped squeeze out the positive decision. It just proves the only way to beat the overreach of government is to fight back, he said.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/katenocera/tea-party-group-will-primary-87-republican-traitors
November 13, 2013
A tea party group has launched a campaign to support primary challenges against all 87 Republicans who voted for the deal in late October to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
The Tea Party Leadership Fund, a PAC affiliated with the group TheTeaParty.net, began a fundraising push dubbed the Primaries for Traitors Fund shortly after the shutdown deal passed in the House, and they are now ramping up efforts to find credible candidates in each of the districts, said the funds treasurer, Dan Backer.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/11/15/tea-party-leadership-fund-scam/
The Tea Party assault on the Republican Party is in full swing
or is it? Earlier this month, the Tea Party Leadership Fund ran an ad attacking the GOP, calling them traitors. . . .
But, in study of the group and its activities, one finds that while they have raised millions, they spent only $52,000 on candidates in the last election cycle, and only $154,172 in total for political activity. Yet, almost all of the money they have raised, has been spent.
Going over the groups federal filings, the group spends most of its money on other organizations, such as DB Capitol Strategies, PLLC, run by Dan Backer. Dan Backer, it turns out, is the Treasurer of the Tea Party Leadership Fund. Over, and over again, the fund is issuing payments to organizations run by the members who run it. In other words, the whole fund is a money making scam put together by con artists exploiting the dim witted.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/11/18/2959081/tea-party-fec-exemption/
November 18, 2013
The Federal Election Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on a request by the Tea Party Leadership Fund to be exempted from campaign disclosure laws based on alleged sustained harassment and severe hostility to Tea Party activists by the federal government and the general public. Draft advisory opinions suggest some members of the six-member Commission may be seriously considering granting the request.
Federal law requires predominantly political groups, including political action committees and super PACs, to publicly disclose the donors who contribute more than $200 per campaign cycle. Tea Party Leadership Fund, which operates both as a traditional PAC and as an independent-expenditure-only super PAC, is currently required to reveal the large contributors to both of those segregated funds. But the courts have ruled that certain small, persecuted groups whose very existence depended on some manner of anonymity can be exempted from these kinds of disclosure rules. . . .
The Tea Party Leadership Fund believes it should also be exempted from disclosure rules. Though the group has raised more than $1.2 million since its formation in 2012 and has helped elect more than a dozen current members of Congress, TPLF claims that because it is not part of the two-party structure, the public interest for transparency is similarly diminished. Arguing that Tea Party activists in general and its supporters in particular have been subject to harassment by the Internal Revenue Service, criticism by the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats, and violence from the general public, its ability to continue exercising its fundamental First Amendment rights is now in jeopardy. It requests that not only its donors be shielded from disclosure, but that the same exemption also be granted to even its vendors and creditors.
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