Emails Show That IRS and FEC May Have Colluded in Targeting of Conservative Groups

Mainwashed.com

[TheBlaze] A series of emails between a senior Internal Revenue Service official and an attorney in the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office suggests the two agencies may have “colluded” in targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, according to a new report in National Review Online.

The report is based on emails obtained exclusively by NRO and the House Ways and Means Committee.

Correspondences between embattled IRS official Lois Lerner, who earlier this year invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and an FEC attorney suggest “the discrimination of conservative groups extended beyond the IRS and into the FEC,” NRO’s Eliana Johnson wrote.

Lerner worked for the FEC from 1986 to 1995. She became famous within the agency for her “aggressive” investigation of conservative groups.

An attorney from the FEC’s “enforcement division in at least one case sought and received tax information about the status of a conservative group, the American Future Fund, before recommending that the commission prosecute it for violations of campaign-finance law,” Johnson added.

The FEC attorney wrote in an email to Lerner in February 2009: “Several months ago . . . I spoke with you about the American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization that had submitted an exemption application the IRS [sic].”

The FEC, the NRO report notes, is not exempted under Rule 6103, which prohibits the IRS from sharing sensitive taxpayer data. Nevertheless, it appears Lerner and an FEC attorney were trading confidential taxpayer information.

From the attorney: “When we spoke last July, you had told us that the American Future Fund had not received an exemption letter from the IRS.”

That sentence alone should raise some concerns.

The attorney also inquired about status of another conservative group, the American Issues Project.

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