Last year emails revealed former IRS official Lois Lerner was in contact with the Department of Justice Criminal Division about criminally prosecuting conservative tea party groups for pursuing political activity (opposed to President Obama's agenda) by "posing" as non-profit organizations.
Now, new documents obtained by government watchdog Judicial Watchthrough two different Freedom of Information Act lawsuits show extensive collaboration between the IRS and DOJ (and subsequently the FBI) to go after conservative groups with criminal charges. The IRS likely violated federal law by illegally sharing 1.25 million pages of taxpayer information with DOJ, which were contained on nearly two dozen FBI backup tapes. Further, information shows DOJ wanted IRS officials who were scheduled to testify in front of Congress about the targeting scandal to turn over planned remarks to them first before delivering on Capitol Hill. From JW:
But the IRS wasn't simply sending the DOJ information, Lerner herself wasmeeting with DOJ officials to discuss pursuing criminal charges.
Keep in mind Lerner previously and essentially stated in an email that at least one conservative group needed to be made a public example with prosecution.
"One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn't feel so comfortable doing the stuff," Lerner said in a 2013 email.
The goal was to stop the flow of other conservative non-profits, opposed to President Obama's agenda, from applying for tax exempt status and therefore becoming more effective.
“These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
It's no wonder Lerner's hard drive magically "crashed," "losing" thousands of emails sent and received during the time period when she was meeting with DOJ to pursue prosecution of American citizens exercising their constitutional right to free speech.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2015/07/07/reconfirmed-irs-tried-to-get-conservative-groups-criminally-prosecuted-illegally-shared-info-with-doj-n2022245
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