Issa Report Slams Dem Collaboration with the IRS

Arnold Ahlert / Canada Free Press

A bombshell report released by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) completely refutes Democratic Party talking points that the IRS scandal involved unwarranted targeting of both liberal and conservative groups.

“Time and again, (Democrats) have claimed that the IRS targeted liberal- and progressive-oriented groups as well—and that, therefore, there was no political animus to the IRS’s actions” the report states. “These Democratic claims are flat-out wrong and have no basis in any thorough examination of the fact. Yet the Administration’s chief defenders continue to make these assertions in a concerted effort to deflate and distract from the truth about the IRS’s targeting of tax-exempt applicants.”

The report reveals far more about the early stages of Tea Party targeting conducted by the tax collection agency, identifying the initial three cases sent to Washington, D.C. for additional scrutiny in 2010. Two of the three abandoned their applications rather than face additional IRS questioning. The third group is still waiting for its case to be resolved.

Several other key findings of the report are equally troubling. Perhaps the most troubling of all was that the IRS itself “selectively prioritized and produced” documents for the Committee to support the narrative that their targeting had been bipartisan. It noted that on June 24, 2013, Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel asserted during a press conference that the agency misconduct was “broader” that conservative applicants, even as he refused to discuss the criteria that led him to that conclusion. Nonetheless, the IRS subsequently produced “hundreds of pages of self-selected documents that supported his assertion,” even as they had only provided the Committee with less than 2000 total pages of IRS material. “Congressional Democrats had no qualms in putting these self-selected documents to use,” the report states.

Those Democrats included Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) , and Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA), all of whom made “misleading statements that the IRS targeted liberal groups based on the selectively produced documents.”

Furthermore, the IRS “was not an unwilling participant” in promoting this charade

Furthermore, the IRS “was not an unwilling participant” in promoting this charade. When it came time to produce these selective documents, they “suddenly reversed” their previous interpretation of a law that had prevented them from releasing confidential taxpayer information to the American public. The reinterpretation allowed the IRS to release info on three leftist groups, ACORN, Successors and Emerge.

Yet IRS agents who testified before the Committee noted that these groups were scrutinized because the IRS believed they were old organizations attempting to apply as new ones. The report itself notes that unlike the Tea Party, such groups were not subjected to a “case sensitive report” or reviewed by the IRS’s Chief Council. And while IRS documents showed that some liberal groups were being scrutinized, “only Tea Party applicants received systematic scrutiny because of their political beliefs,” and “public and nonpublic analyses of IRS data show that the IRS routinely approved liberal applications while holding and scrutinizing conservative applications.” 

continue reading at CFP:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/62268