Darrell Issa: Lois Lerner Takes The 5th, All Hell Breaks Loose, Elijah Cummings Attacks Issa, Gets Caught

The toughest part of this post is writing a title, because not only is there so much in it but it's fall down funny.

Watch the video to the end before you read the following House Oversite Release. Catch Elijah Cummings screed in full.

from 2014.



From the U.S. House Oversite and Government Reform Committee

New Emails: Lois Lerner Funneled Elijah Cummings Info On Targeted Conservative Group

PUBLISHED: APR 9, 2014

Ranking Democrat previously denied his staff contacted the IRS about group True the Vote

WASHINGTON – Newly delivered internal IRS e-mails sent and received by former IRS Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner and other IRS employees show that House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Minority staff, working for Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, began contacting the IRS in August 2012 about targeted non-profit applicant True the Vote. The IRS produced this e-mail on April 2, 2014 – only days after Oversight Committee Members had taken new IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to task for withholding relevant e-mails. The Chairman and five Subcommittee Chairmen on the Oversight Committee today sent a letter to Ranking Member Cummings demanding an explanation for his staff’s queries, why the Minority hid these efforts from the Majority, and why the Ranking Member denied such actions by his staff at a February Subcommittee hearing:

“Although you have previously denied that your staff made inquiries to the IRS about conservative organization True the Vote that may have led to additional agency scrutiny, communication records between your staff and IRS officials – which you did not disclose to Majority Members or staff – indicates otherwise,” wrote the Chairman and five Subcommittee Chairmen of the Oversight Committee. “As the Committee is scheduled to consider a resolution holding Ms. Lerner, a participant in responding to your communications that you failed to disclose, in contempt of Congress, you have an obligation to fully explain your staff’s undisclosed contacts with the IRS.”

The letter notes:
The IRS and the Oversight Minority made numerous requests for virtually identical information from True the Vote, raising concerns that the IRS improperly shared protected taxpayer information with Rep. Cummings’ staff.

Five days after Cummings contacted True the Vote seeking “copies of all training materials used for volunteers, affiliates, or other entities,” the IRS sent True the Vote a letterrequesting True the Vote provide “a copy of [True the Vote’s] volunteer registration form,” “…the process you use to assign volunteers,” “how you keep your volunteers in teams,” and “how your volunteers are deployed … following the training they receive by you.”

On or before January 25, 2013, Cummings’ staff requested more information from the IRS about True the Vote. The head of the IRS Legislative Affairs office e-mailed several IRS officials, including former Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner, that “House Oversight Committee Minority staff” sought information about True the Vote. On Monday, January 28, Lerner wrote to her deputy Holly Paz: “Did we find anything?” When Paz informed her minutes later that she had not heard back about True the Vote’s information, Lerner replied: “thanks – check tomorrow please.

On January 31, 2013, Paz attached True the Vote’s form 990s, which she authorized the IRS to share with the Minority staff. Neither Cummings nor the IRS shared these requested documents with the Oversight Majority. None of the Minority’s communications about True the Vote with the IRS were shared with the Committee Majority even though Ranking Member Cummings frequently complains about the Committee Majority contacting individuals on official matters without the involvement of Minority staff.

Cummings denied that his staff, “might have been involved in putting True the Vote on the radar screen of some of these Federal agencies” at a February 6, 2014, Subcommittee hearing:

Ms. Mitchell: We want to get to the bottom of how these coincidences happened, and we’re going to try to figure out whether any – if there was any staff of this committee that might have been involved in putting True the Vote on the radar screen of some of these Federal agencies. We don’t know that, but we – we’re going to do everything we can do to try to get to the bottom of how did this all happen.

Mr. Cummings. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Meadows. Yes.

Mr. Cummings. I want to thank the gentleman for his courtesy. What she just said is absolutely incorrect and not true.

Click here for a copy of the letter from the Chairman and five Subcommittee Chairman to Ranking Member Cummings.

Click here for documents about Cummings’ interactions with the IRS about a targeted conservative organization.


You tell 'em Congressman Cummings. You tell 'em!

Thank You Congressman Issa and House Oversite.

Lawmakers Subpoena IRS, Treasury Over ACA Payments

fiercehealthcare
January 21, 2016 | By Katherine Moody

Following what they claim is the Obama administration's unlawful payments to insurance companies for almost a year, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) have submitted subpoenas to both the IRS and the Secretary of the Treasury, according to an announcement from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The congressmen have also requested similar information from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the announcement said. Upton and Brady first launched their investigation in February 2015, and they say HHS was reluctant to provide any requested information. They then resubmitted a request in July 2015, but were again met with opposition. Finally, after a December 2015 final request went unanswered, the chairmen are requiring that the Treasury comply with their requests by Feb. 3.

Upton and Brady have halted their plans to subpoena Burwell, as she agreed this week to brief Upton on the issue via phone, the announcement says.

The committee leaders have been concerned that the administration is paying subsidies to insurance companies--known as cost-sharing reductions tied to the Affordable Care Act--without approval from Congress. These subsidies have totaled more than $5 billion to date, and it is estimated that it would grow to $170 billion over the next 10 years, Upton and Brady say. 

House Republicans are also pressuring the administration about funding for other ACA provisions, FierceHealthPayer has reported. Brady and Upton had threatened to subpoena Burwell over what they believe is misuse of federal funds for the ACA's Basic Health Program, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the administration's role in some states' transition from state-based information technology systems for their exchanges to the federal program.

To learn more:
- here's the announcement

Related Articles:
House Republicans press HHS about Affordable Care Act funding
CMS' Andy Slavitt defends oversight of state exchanges
Cost-sharing reduction plans save individuals $479 annually

Thank You Ms Moody and FH.

43,000 Lose Fed ObamaCare Subsidies For Failing To File Tax Return

Nice having the IRS (Investigating Republican Sympathizers) decide who gets healthcare, isn't it?

Thanks Dems. 

The Hill

By Peter Sullivan - 01/11/16 08:12 PM EST

About 43,000 ObamaCare enrollees are bearing the full cost of their insurance plans after losing the tax credits that are meant to make coverage more affordable.

Those enrollees no longer receive ObamaCare tax credits because they failed to file a tax return for 2014, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The number has never before been released.

Losing the tax credit can come with a sticker shock. HHS said in March that the average monthly ObamaCare premium before tax credits was $364, compared to $101 after the tax credit. 

The precise number of people who are losing federal subsidies is unclear, ­because even family plans are counted as a single applicant. The number also does not include the 12 states and the District of Columbia that operate their own insurance exchanges.

Still, the IRS warned in July that 710,000 households were at risk of losing ObamaCare subsidies because they hadn’t filed a tax return. After the warning letters went out, the number of households that hadn’t filed dropped.

In October, the IRS flagged about 172,000 ­ObamaCare applicants and notified them they were at risk.

HHS told The Hill that by Jan. 1, because some people fixed the problem and some people had dropped coverage altogether, “less than 25 percent” of the 172,000 applicants were enrolled in ObamaCare without tax credits. That translates to around 43,000 enrollees.

People who are enrolled in an insurance plan can become re-eligible for tax credits by filing their 2014 returns. 

HHS said it anticipated the tax return problem and worked to prevent it, including with reminders on HealthCare.gov, the federal ObamaCare portal.

“This is an issue that we’re highly sensitive to,” Kevin Counihan, the CEO in charge of the federal marketplace, told reporters last week. “We’ve enhanced our application with new reminders, new pop-ups and other ways to try to assure people what they need to do to make sure that they comply and file the right forms.” 

Other people who failed to follow an ObamaCare tax rule are getting something of a pass from the administration this year.

 Those people filed their 2014 tax returns but failed to attach a form that compares their tax credits to their income to make sure they received the right amount of tax credit. 

The IRS said Friday that about 976,000 households failed to attach the extra form, known as Form 8962, as of the end of October.

A Treasury representative said Monday that the administration is only cutting off tax credits to people who failed to file a tax return at all. The representative said the allowance for failing to file the second form is for this year only.

“We expect that taxpayers will continue to become acclimated to the changes in the tax filing process in future years,” the representative said. “We remain committed to providing information to taxpayers to help them understand and meet their responsibilities under the [Affordable Care Act].”

The IRS’s return process has undergone significant changes under ObamaCare, which linked health insurance and taxes in a way that people are unaccustomed to.

“There’s definitely a lot of learning to be done,” said Elizabeth Hagan, senior policy analyst at Families USA, a liberal healthcare advocacy group that supports ­ObamaCare.  She noted that professional tax preparers “haven’t been used to filing these forms either.”

Republicans opposed to the healthcare law have long criticized it as overly complicated and say the confusion it has created shows the law is unworkable.

Some of the 12 states running their own marketplaces coordinated with the IRS to locate people at risk of losing their subsidies, to varying levels of success.

Connecticut’s marketplace said it found a way to warn people they could lose the ObamaCare credits without violating federal tax privacy rules. Other state-run marketplaces, however, said that they did not know how many people in the state had failed to file returns. 

Still, the IRS sent notices to people in all 50 states, and there were several public awareness campaigns about the importance of filing a return.

Colorado’s marketplace said it would check its enrollees against IRS data after the sign-up period ends, on Jan. 31. At that point, anyone who failed to file a 2014 return will lose tax credits. 

“We are concerned,” said Luke Clarke, a spokesman for the Colorado marketplace, adding, “The impact on the customer would be big.” 

Hagan of Families USA said she hoped that the warnings broke through to people. But she said the notices for some people could have gone to the wrong addresses or email accounts.

“There’re always going to be people who fall through the cracks,” she said.

TAGS:ObamaCare, Internal Revenue Service, Affordable Care Act

Thank You Mr Sullivan and The Hill, 

Loretta Lynch: Abuse of Prosecutorial Discretion and Evasion of Duty = Lois 'Investigating Republican Sympathizers' Lerner Walks

God but it feels good to live in a country where White Liberal Guilt voted for a President based on his ethnicity over bothering to find out what he really was.

American Thinker

By James Longstreet

Prosecutorial discretion was first described to me thus:

If a police officer catches ten people speeding, and the traffic court has the resources to prosecute only five, then those five who were most egregiously in violation of the speed limit will be prosecuted.  The discretion is guided by a consideration, in this case by the limit of resources of the traffic court.
At the very worst, in the IRS Lerner case, we have a public servant using her position at a federal agency to impede the efforts of a political party to which she and the administration were opposed, and engaged against, in a national election.  And at the very worst, these actions swayed the national election results.
Loretta Lynch, Obama’s appointed attorney general, admitted that Lois Lerner was protected by prosecutorial discretion.

“I believe that in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the matter was handled and was resolved,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.

Lynch continued,

Our review found that the management of the process by which tax-exempt applications were handled at the IRS was characterized by mismanagement and inefficiency in numerous circumstances.

May we ask Attorney General Lynch, “What guided the discretion used in the decision to not proceed with prosecution?  Mismanagement and inefficiencies directed at specific political opponents ceases to be frivolous or random.” 
The working definition of prosecutorial discretion in this case seems to be as follows:

Prosecutorial discretion refers to the fact that under American law, government prosecuting attorneys have nearly absolute powers. A prosecuting attorney has power on various matters including those relating to choosing whether or not to bring criminal charges, deciding the nature of charges, plea bargaining and sentence recommendation. This discretion of the prosecuting attorney is called prosecutorial discretion.

As we know, Lerner refused to testify.  Documents were not provided.  Communications between the IRS and then-AG Eric Holder were not provided.
Darrell Issa was adamant in his retort to Lynch’s assertion.
Per the Federal Statute:

Whenever a witness summoned as mentioned in section 192 of this title fails to appear to testify or fails to produce any books, papers, rec­ords, or documents, as required, or whenever any witness so summoned refuses to answer any question pertinent to the subject under inquiry… it shall be [the U.S. attorney’s duty] to bring the matter before the grand jury[.]

“Shall be the duty.”  Lynch has no power, no right to use discretion to shun her responsibilities of office.  On her part, it is a failure of duty and a breach of her oath.  Lynch’s duty seems to lie elsewhere, as did Holder’s.
Therefore, we are entitled to speculate, for we have been deprived the mechanics of truth discovery.
The speculation is thus.  We have a federal agency (IRS) hamstringing the efforts of the opposing party in an election year, the prosecution of which is short-circuited by a nebulous discretion, applied by an attorney general in violation of a federal statute, a person so appointed by the candidate who prevailed in the election in question over that opposing party so harmed by the abuses of said agency.
Why have an attorney general?  Slow-playing the Hillary document release, directing immigration officials to shirk their duties, suing states that assist in the implementation of federal law, fomenting racial frictions, refusing to appoint special prosecutors, and using undefined discretion to inhibit the discovery of truth are all curious activities for the alleged top legal official in the nation.
Serving at the pleasure of the president takes on a new meaning.  Apparently, that is why we have attorneys general.

Thank You Mr Longstreet and American Thinker.

pic cred to thepeoplescube.com

Violence Problem Solved, Criminals To Buy Crime Insurance


Eric Holder in Drag.

$2,883,250,000,000: Federal Taxes Set Record Through August; $19,346 Per Worker; Feds Still Run $530B Deficit

"We don't have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem."
Rep Nancy Pelosi

CNSNews
By Terence P. Jeffrey | September 14, 2015 | 12:10 AM EDT

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government raked in a record of approximately $2,883,250,000,000 in tax revenues through the first eleven months of fiscal 2015 (Oct. 1, 2014 through the end of August), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released Friday.

That equaled approximately $19,346 for every person in the country who had either a full-time or part-time job in August.

It is also up about $198,425,330,000 in constant 2015 dollars from the $2,684,824,670,000 in revenue (in inflation-adjusted 2015 dollars) that the Treasury raked in during the first eleven months of fiscal 2014.

Despite the record tax revenues of $2,883,250,000,000 in the first eleven months of this fiscal year, the government spent $3,413,210,000,000 in those eleven months, and, thus, ran up a deficit of $529,960,000,000 during the period.

 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total seasonally adjusted employment in the United States in August (including both full and part-time workers) was 149,036,000. That means that the federal tax haul so far this fiscal year has equaled $19,345.99 for every person in the United States with a job.

In 2012, President Barack Obama struck a deal with Republicans in Congress to enact legislation that increased taxes. That included increasing the top income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, increasing the top tax rate on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent, and phasing out personal exemptions and deductions starting at an annual income level of $250,000.

An additional 3.8 percent tax on dividends, interest, capital gains and royalties--that was embedded in the Obamacare law--also took effect in 2013.

The largest share of this year’s record-setting October-through-August tax haul came from the individual income tax. That yielded the Treasury $1,379,255,000,000. Payroll taxes for “social insurance and retirement receipts” took in another $977,501,000,000. The corporate income tax brought in $268,387,000,000.

Thank You Mr Jeffrey and CNS.

IRS Lois Lerner "Conservatives Are A**holes" Receiving $100,000 Annual Govt. Pension

weaselzippers;

Our tax dollars, hard at work.

Via Politico:

… Lerner and Miles, a partner with Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, said they’ve spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on legal bills as she has been investigated by Congress and the FBI and sued by multiple conservative groups.

The couple, who live in a $2.5 million house in Bethesda, Maryland, where BMWs sit in neighboring driveways surrounded by lush yards and security cameras, are clearly well off. But now they’re more conscious of money, postponing Miles’ retirement, for example.

Lerner wants to work to help pay for her defense bills, though a source working on the congressional investigation said she’s receiving a $100,000 annual pension. But while even Miller, fired by Obama in the wake of the scandal, has landed on his feet at a Washington-based consulting group, Lerner is still untouchable.

Thank You Politico and Zip.


What a charming Public Servant. 

It's Such a comfort to know that none of what She dished out is being served back to her. 

Dateline July 1st 2014:

CNN: Almost 90 IRS Employees Under Investigation For Targeting Conservatives


"Not a "Smidgeon" of Corruption."

El Presidente.

But That's 'OK' because They're Experts. They Know. 

Great News! The IRS Paid Out $5.2 Billion In Fraudulent Refunds Last Year

Issa: More Than 20 Obama Officials "Lost Or Destroyed Emails" After House Launched Probes

weaselzippers;

They will keep doing it, until you guys do something to stop them…

Via NRO:

The revelation that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Marilynn Tavenner did not retain her e-mails means that more than 20 witness in the Obama administration to lose or delete e-mails without notifying Congress, according to the top House investigator.

“The Obama administration has lost or destroyed e-mails for more than 20 witnesses, and in each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said of Tavenner’s lost e-mails.

“It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal recordkeeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails,” he continued. “Just this week, my staff followed up with HHS, who has failed to comply with a subpoena from ten months ago. Even at that point, the administration did not inform us that there was a problem with Ms. Tavenner’s e-mail history. Yet again, we discover that this administration will not be forthright with the American people unless cornered.”

Keep reading…

Thank You NRO and Nickarama.

Govt. 'Diversity & Tolerance' New Emails Show Lois Lerner (IRS) Called Conservatives "A**holes," "Crazies That Will Take Us Down" . . .

weaselzippers;

The feeling is mutual, Lois.

It’s getting harder and harder for the Obama regime to call this a “phony scandal” with a straight face.

Via The Blaze:

New emails uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee indicate that former IRS employee Lois Lerner has a strong dislike of conservatives, and at one point called them “assholes” in an email exchange.

The committee released an email Lerner received in November 2012 complaining about the “whacko wing of the GOP.” The person wrote Lerner that there are “too many foreigners sucking the teat,” and that the “right wing radio shows are scary to listen to.”

Lerner replied, “Great. Maybe we are through if there are that many assholes.”

The other person then wrote, “And I’m talking about the hosts of the shows. The callers are rabid.”

Lerner replied, “So we don’t need to worry about alien terrorists. It’s our own crazies that will take us down.”

Keep reading…

Thank You The Blaze and Zip. 


Heh, . . heh, . . heh.


Ya know, . . . it's getting harder to keep this blog from being blocked for unsuitable content by search engines, . . . just by reporting what our Govt. is actually up to, . . . and Down to.


She's not even supposed to Have, ANY Political opinions in her professional capacity let alone express them in this fashion. 

IRS Asks Contractors For Help With Destroying 3,200 Hard Drives

Best to institute a scorched earth policy, . . . rather than have another few hundred of Lerner's contacts have to take the 5th.

weaselzippers;

nice timing IRS.

Via Washington Times:

Days after IRS officials said in a sworn statement that former top agency employee Lois G. Lerner’s computer memory had been wiped clean, the agency put out word to contractors Monday that it needs help to destroy at least another 3,200 hard drives.

The Internal Revenue Service solicitation for “media destruction” services reflects an otherwise routine job to protect sensitive taxpayer information, but it was made while the agency’s record destruction practices remain under a sharp congressional spotlight.

Congressional investigators of the IRS targeting of conservative groups have been hampered by the unexplained destruction of emails and other records of Ms. Lerner, the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division and a central figure in the scandal.

The loss of Ms. Lerner’s hard drive also raised broader questions about why the tax agency never reported the missing records to the National Archives and Records Administration, as required by the Federal Records Act.

While those questions remained unresolved, IRS officials signaled plans to destroy tens of thousands of additional electronic records.

“After all media are destroyed, they must not be capable of any reuse or information retrieval,” IRS officials stated in the contract papers.

Thank You Wash Times and Zip. 

Ted Cruz: Abolish The IRS And Have All 110,000 Agents Police The Border

And Liberals think Conservatives have no sense of humor.

weaselzippers;

Can you even imagine that there are that many employees in the the IRS? That just shows the incredible insanity of the growth of government.

Via Daily Mail:

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told a cheering crowd of conservatives Saturday night that the next U.S. president should shutter the much-maligned Internal Revenue Service and turn the agency’s 110,000 employees loose to police the U.S.-Mexico border.

‘That’s slightly tongue-in-cheek,’ he said in Denver at the Western Conservative Summit.

‘But think about it for a second: You travel thousands of miles, you cross over and see 110,000 IRS agents? You’d turn around and go home!’

His speech before a partisan crowd of hooting and hollering Republicans was the main draw at a conference that brought an estimated 3,500 to hear pols including former VP candidate Sarah Palin, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee and rising right-winger Dr. Ben Carson.

Keep reading…

Thank You Daily Mail and Zip.

UNREAL: IRS Reports Even More Computer "Crashes" Doesn't Know If Emails Are Stored . . .

weaselzippers;

To call the IRS a rogue agency would be an understatement.

Via Daily Caller:

IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane said in transcribed congressional testimony that more IRS officials experienced computer crashes, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20,” and also said that the agency does not know if the lost emails are still backed up somewhere.

The new round of computer crash victims includes David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens.

“You stated at the time that document was produced to Congress, the document, the white paper in Exhibit 3[the June 13 memo], that it was accurate to the best of your knowledge. Is it still accurate?,” a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigator asked Kane.

Keep reading…

Image via Fox Nation

Thank You DC and Zip.

At this point is a snarky comment even needed?