Uh Oh. The IRS lied about existence of Tea Party documents to avoid FOIA request
Uh Oh. The IRS lied about existence of Tea Party documents to avoid FOIA request
Posted by The Right Scoop on May 17th, 2013 in Politics | 33 Comments
The hole the IRS has dug for themselves just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Now it has been proven that the IRS lied to avoiding filling a FOIA request of documents pertaining to the Tea Party:
FREE BEACON – The Internal Revenue Service denied the existence of any documents related to its policy of targeting Tea Party organizations in response to a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, even though such documents were later discovered by the IRS inspector general.
The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, a conservative nonprofit group, filed a FOIA request in 2010 through investigative journalist Lynn K. Walsh seeking all IRS documents related to the agencies tax-exempt division specifically mentioning the Tea Party.
IRS headquarters responded in 2011 that it “found no documents specifically responsive to your request.”
However, the May 14 inspector general report found that the “first Sensitive Case Report [identifying Tea Party groups] was prepared by the Technical Unit” in April of 2010.
The report’s timeline chronicles the existence of numerous 2010 emails, memoranda, and policies related to the targeting of conservative organizations.
According to the IG timeline, an email was sent on July 27, 2010 “updating the description of applications involving potential political campaign intervention and providing a coordinator contact for the cases.”
“The description was changed to read, ‘These cases involve various local organizations in the Tea Party movement [that] are applying for exemption under 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4).’”
The IRS determinations unit developed a “be on the lookout” listing on Aug. 12, 2010, “in order to replace the existing practice of sending separate e-mails to all Determinations Unit employees as to cases to watch for, potentially abusive cases, cases requiring processing by the team of specialists, and emerging issues.”
The language of the listing was identical to the July 27, 2010 email.
“Either IRS Headquarters was entirely incompetent in maintaining awareness of prominent policies and documents within the IRS, or it deliberately covered up the existence of anti-conservative IRS policies. Either is terrifying,” Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center, said in a statement. “Legal action is necessary to ensure that the IRS does not lie to taxpayers in this manner in the future.”
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http://www.therightscoop.com/uh-oh-t...-foia-request/
