Thread: ‘Who’s going to jail’ over IRS scandal? Probably nobody

‘Who’s going to jail’ over IRS scandal? Probably nobody.

By Aaron Blake, Published: May 18, 2013 at 9:00 am

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to know “who’s going to jail” over the IRS scandal.
But ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller says no laws were violated when the agency targeted conservative groups.
So who’s right? Did the IRS’s conduct take a step beyond mere “wrongdoing” and venture into criminal territory?

In short: We don’t know yet. But it’s also quite possible that nobody will ever be convicted of breaking the law in the IRS scandal.
“I am not aware of any statute that prohibits IRS targeting of applicants,” said Republican lawyer Jan Baran, who served as general counsel to George H.W. Bush and the RNC. Other politically inclined lawyers agree.
Essentially, there are three types of laws that might conceivably have been broken, as Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged in his testimony before a House committee Wednesday:
1) Civil rights laws that protect people from being discriminated against by the government
2) The Hatch Act, which prevents civil servants from engaging in partisan political activity
3) Perjury laws, which prevent people from lying to Congress
For the third law to have been broken, Republicans would have to prove that IRS officials knew of improper targeting of conservatives and testified to the opposite effect. They have noted that then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman testified in March 2012 that there was no such targeting going on.
But for that to be perjury, Shulman would have had to know that he was lying. Miller admitted Friday that Shulman was wrong but suggested he wasn’t aware of the targeting.

“It was incorrect, but whether it was untruthful or not … ” Miller said, tailing off. He later added: “To my knowledge, I don’t believe he knew at the time.”
As for the first two laws, it likely would have to be proved that the staff members involved in targeting the conservative groups were deliberately doing so for political purposes.
“You would want some direct evidence of intent, that people knew what they were doing was wrong and they decided to do it anyway,” Nathan Hochman, a former assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s tax division, told Bloomberg News.
Miller and other top IRS officials contend that’s not the case, and that it’s simply happenstance that conservative-sounding organizations were prominent among those who were inappropriately singled out.
(Side note: Despite making this point, the IRS officials haven’t done a good job of explaining exactly how these conservative groups were targeted — and liberal ones weren’t — if it wasn’t political.)
It may seem self-evident that the motivation was political, but proving that in a court of law is another matter entirely. And until that political motivation is proven, it will be tough to land convictions under the first two laws mentioned above.
That’s also why we’re seeing such a concerted effort from the IRS to emphasize that it was about incompetence rather than politics.
Apart from what’s mentioned above, you could make a case that the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups violates the Constitution. The 1st Amendment could have been violated if the extra scrutiny is deemed to have hindered these groups’ freedom of speech; the 14th Amendment could come into play if the practice violated the equal protection clause, which prevents the government from discriminating against its people; and the 4th Amendment’s could be applied if the scrutiny is seen as “unreasonable search and seizure.”
But violating the Constitution isn’t technically a crime.
“It is possible for a taxpayer to sue individual employees for allegedly denying them constitutional rights. This usually arises in the context of searches or seizures in violation of the 4th Amendment,” Baran said. “In any case, such suits are private civil suits, not criminal suits, and are very difficult to succeed in.”
And in fact, the inspector general responsible for investigating the IRS, Russell George, agreed with Miller that no laws were broken when the conservative groups were targeted.
“It is not illegal, sir, but it was unusual,” George said.
Which means that, in the end, it’s quite possible nobody will go to jail for what happened at the IRS.
　
　
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/05/18/whos-going-to-jail-over-irs-scandal-probably-nobody/?hpid=z1

“I am not aware of any statute that prohibits IRS targeting of applicants,” said Republican lawyer Jan Baran, who served as general counsel to George H.W. Bush and the RNC. Other politically inclined lawyers agree.

Sounds like maybe we need some new laws.

By Lucy Madison / CBS News/ May 16, 2013, 6:00 AM 　
　

Will anyone go to jail over IRS targeting?

Amid unfolding drama about alleged political discrimination perpetrated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), President Obama's political adversaries, and even some of his allies, are calling for heads to roll -- and more.
"My question isn't about who's going to resign," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters on Wednesday. "My question is about who's going to jail over this scandal."
Until the Justice Department completes its investigation into the controversial IRS practices, which were outlined in an inspector general's report released Tuesday, no one knows for sure "who's going to jail," if anyone, over the controversy. But according to legal experts, the case will be a tough one to prosecute criminally -- and any IRS or government officials who might get convicted aren't likely to end up behind bars for too long.
"This is not the O.J. Simpson case here," said David Laufman, a former Justice Department lawyer and congressional investigative attorney. "We're talking about regulatory misconduct and possibly just misjudgment by people in a zone of conduct that had extreme political consequences. If these folks at the IRS were acting in the misguided belief that they were complying with their legal duties and obligations and authorities, that conduct is going to fall short for what is necessary to bring criminal charges."

• Acting IRS commissioner steps down, Obama announces
• Source: Two IRS employees disciplined in wake of targeting scandal
• Boehner: "Who's going to jail" over IRS scandal?

The Obama administration and the IRS have been under harsh scrutiny since Friday, when the agency apologized for having singled out particular groups -- particularly those with tea party ties -- for extra scrutiny when seeking tax-exempt status.
A timeline released in Tuesday's report showed that in the spring of 2010, the IRS began targeting groups with keywords like "Tea Party," "Patriot" and "9/12 Project" in their names to flag for heightened, typically burdensome, scrutiny. The agency insisted last week that no high-level employees were aware of the practice, but the IG report alleges that Lois Lerner -- an IRS official in charge of oversight of tax-exempt groups -- knew about it as early as June 2011. On Wednesday, a congressional source confirmed to CBS News that two Cincinnati-based IRS employees had been disciplined and were "off reservation."

• Special Section: IRS Targeting Controversy

Any criminal prosecution ultimately depends on what the Justice Department's investigation yields, but there are a few laws that experts say may have been broken.
"I'm sure the Justice Department will look at all the statements that the IRS made to various committees" for possible examples of "false statements" violations, said Nathan Hochman, formerly an assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Tax Division and now a lawyer with the firm Bingham McCutchen, LLP. In that case, anyone who has "knowingly false made statements to a government agency," or wittingly given incorrect testimony before a congressional committee, could get up to five years in prison or pay $250,000 in fines.
Among the officials who may be investigated for possible "false statement" charges include Lerner, former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Steven Miller, who stepped down Wednesday evening as acting commissioner of the IRS.
Miller, a former deputy commissioner who replaced Shulman late last year, delivered congressional testimony about the agency's process for dealing with tax-exempt applications in July of 2012, two months after he reportedly learned of the IRS's targeting policy. In his testimony, however, he did not mention the agency's heightened scrutiny for the applications of conservative groups. Instead, when asked about complaints of being "harassed" from politically active groups, Miller said the IRS "did group those organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality," but he did not state that they had been specifically targeted by political affiliation for higher scrutiny.
After learning of the controversial IRS practice, Miller also wrote at least two letters to Congress explaining the process for reviewing tax-exempt status applications; in neither of those letters did he mention the targeting.
But to clinch a conviction on this count, prosecutors will need to prove not just that the false statements were made, but also that whoever made them knew it at the time. The distinction between having omitted certain facts without actually lying is another defense against the "false statements" charge, which will likely be a key factor in any criminal case.
In a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder cited the Hatch Act -- which prohibits federal employees from engaging in certain partisan activities -- as one statute that might be relevant to a criminal investigation. Other laws that might have been broken, according to Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department lawyer under former President George W. Bush, are two "deprivation of rights" laws, which he says are "very general statutes that basically say it's unlawful to deprive a person of any right privilege or immunity, secured or protected by the Constitution or laws."
Proving this kind of wrongdoing be tricky for prosecutors in a few ways, according to experts, because prosecutors would have to establish not just that the law was broken but that it was broken with criminal intent. And the actual law on this point is kind of murky.
According to Suzanne Ross McDowell, a partner with Steptoe & Johnson who heads the American Bar Association's exempt organization committee, the rules governing 501(c)(4) groups -- those which were targeted for increased scrutiny -- are "extremely vague" as it is.
These kinds of groups are supposed to be operated "primarily for social welfare purposes," she said, but that, already, is a hard thing to define.
"The definition of 'social welfare is itself somewhat vague. The definition of 'primarily' is uncertain," McDowell said. Meanwhile, 501(c)(4) groups are allowed to engage in lobbying and issue advocacy, but drawing the line between that type of activity -- which could be characterized as "political" -- and behavior that is actively intervening in a political campaign (which is prohibited) is "extremely difficult."
"There's room for judgment calls about what is too much involvement in politics," said Ilya Shaprio, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute. "At the end of the, day the IRS isn't supposed to be the agency that's enforcing campaign finance laws -- that's the FEC -- so you're getting into areas where the tax professionals don't necessarily even have expertise or training."
Even if it's agreed that the law was broken, proving criminal intent requires clear-cut evidence that the person did so willfully, which basically requires cold, hard, documentation.
"Unless there's some smoking gun e-mail or memo out there that shows people knowingly violated citizens' first amendment rights, it'll be very hard to show criminal intent in a case like this," Hochman told CBSNews.com.
At the end of the day, several experts told CBSNews.com it's doubtful anyone will end up behind bars for any significant period of time.
"It's often a steep hill to climb for the government in cases of regulatory conduct," Laufman said. "If it turns out that the only thing that was violated were internal IRS protocols or standards or policies, then that's conduct that can be addressed administratively within IRS or the Treasury Department -- it's not going to rise to criminal culpability."
　
　
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57584749/will-anyone-go-to-jail-over-irs-targeting/

Oh, but they have been breaking the Hatch Act. At the agency where I work, on the internal website on the sequester info page was posted "talking points" for federal employees that said Republicans (in bold) were responsible for furloughs, and all the other talking points that Obama was using for the sequester and against Republicans. The minute they put "Republicans" on there, it was against the law. I reported it to the IG, and it was removed. If anyone on this forum works at a Federal agency, go check the internal website for employee information, and complain anonymously through the IG if it is political (which I did). Then, write the House committee investigating and tell them what there was. Even take a screen shot and send it to the committee anonymously. Let them know that this isn't just the IRS doing this junk.

Originally Posted by Watson

Oh, but they have been breaking the Hatch Act. At the agency where I work, on the internal website on the sequester info page was posted "talking points" for federal employees that said Republicans (in bold) were responsible for furloughs, and all the other talking points that Obama was using for the sequester and against Republicans. The minute they put "Republicans" on there, it was against the law. I reported it to the IG, and it was removed. If anyone on this forum works at a Federal agency, go check the internal website for employee information, and complain anonymously through the IG if it is political (which I did). Then, write the House committee investigating and tell them what there was. Even take a screen shot and send it to the committee anonymously. Let them know that this isn't just the IRS doing this junk.

Did anyone go to jail over that? Did anyone get convicted and pay a fine? Did anyone lose their job for this?

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Politics


Liberal nonprofit that pressed Shulman to target conservatives houses his wife’s group

07/04/2013
Patrick Howley
Investigative Reporter

The progressive nonprofit organization Common Cause urged then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate activities of conservative donors despite housing the campaign-reform group that employs Shulman’s wife.

In 2012, Common Cause urged Shulman and fellow embattled IRS official Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s tax-exempt organizations division, to investigate the Koch Brothers’ attempted takeover of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.

“Common Cause respectfully requests that the Internal Revenue Service initiate an investigation into whether attempts by Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch, shareholders of the Cato Institute, to take control of and manipulate the Cato Institute for partisan political purposes expose a flaw in the Cato Institute’s structure that jeopardizes its tax exempt status under 26 U.S.C. 501(c)(3),” Common Cause president Bob Edgar wrote in a letter to Shulman and fellow IRS official Lois Lerner dated March 9, 2012.

Edgar, who died in April of this year, described “grave questions about whether the Kochs are exploiting Cato’s corporate structure to transform the Cato Institute from its longstanding, storied reputation as a nonpartisan, libertarian think tank into a partisan organization in contravention of its educative and charitable purpose.

“For these reasons, the Internal Revenue Service should open an investigation into the impact of the Kochs’ attempt to control the Cato Institute to advance their own political and economic interests, and whether Cato can maintain its charitable, tax-exempt status without changing its ownership structure,” Edgar wrote.

In May, after news broke that the IRS engaged in widespread targeting of conservative groups for abusive audits and delays of nonprofit applications, Common Cause submitted written testimony to a House Ways and Means hearing expressing disappointment at the actions of IRS officials.

“All organizations, regardless of political affiliation and ideological leaning, deserve to be treated fairly, justly, and equally under the law. The IRS did not use these standards in its review of 501(c)(4) applications, and the employees and those with knowledge of what was happening should be held accountable. In addition, an independent, credible investigation must occur to ensure that these guidelines are strictly adhered to in the future,” Common Cause testified.

The organization described the IRS abuse as merely an unfortunate response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

“We are deeply disappointed that the actions of IRS employees, and the failure of IRS supervisors to uphold fair and sensible standards and priorities, now undermine the credibility of an agency that must crack down on the rising flood of new 501(c)(4)s after the Supreme Court’s misguided decision in Citizens United and Congress’ subsequent failure to enact a common sense disclosure law,” Common Cause testified.

Common Cause provides office space to the progressive campaign-finance reform organization Public Campaign which employs Shulman’s wife Susan L. Andersen as a senior program advisor.

In May, Public Campaign president and CEO Nick Nyhart belittled the concerns of disenfranchised conservatives.

“There are legitimate questions to be asked about political groups that are hiding behind a 501(c)4 status,” Nyhart said in a statement provided to ABC. “It’s unfortunate a few bad apples at the IRS will make it harder for those questions to be asked without claims of bias.”

Visitors to the 1133 19th St. NW office floor shared by Common Cause and Public Campaign are greeted at the sign-in desk for Common Cause, with Public Campaign’s office located to the visitors’ left-hand side. Nyhart described the close relationship between the groups in his April 23 eulogy for Edgar on the Public Campaign website.

“In 2007, [Edgar] was named President and CEO of Common Cause, the most important good government group in America. During his tenure, he strengthened the organization, building strong staff leadership, inspiring an active membership, and a laying down a robust financial base,” Nyhart wrote.

“We’ve been next door to Common Cause on the reform landscape for years, but became literal neighbors in 2009, subletting a suite of offices from them here in DC. All of us got to know Bob as the guy down the hall after that. He was quick with a pun, perpetually energetic, and always ready with a new idea,” Nyhart added.

Public Campaign, an “organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics,” is funded by the Common Cause Education Fund and other groups, including the pro-Obamacare group Health Care for America Now! and Barbra Streisand’s the Streisand Foundation.

The DC’s knock on the door of Public Campaign, which is marked within the Common Cause office only by a paper sign, was not returned during normal weekday work hours Tuesday.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/04/li...s-wifes-group/