l****z 发帖数: 29846 | 1 by Jammie
Imagine what Obama will have to say when he reads about this in the
newspapers tomorrow.
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.
It’s quite evident this was a deliberate plot from up high to stifle the
Tea Party and other groups after their rousing successes in 2010. Either
Obama had direct knowledge — as in engineering the whole thing — or direct
subordinates of his did. In either case, he’s responsible. And the notion
he only learned about this in the media is just not plausible.
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.” |
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