Uncovering Obama’s IRS Enemies List

1207-obama-bush-tax-cuts_full_6001-600x350More proof has emerged that President Obama is using the IRS as a weapon against his perceived enemies as the administration abruptly canceled the release of 2,500 damning documents reportedly showing that the IRS illegally shared taxpayer files with the White House.

The existence of the documents is yet more proof that Obama maintains an extensive enemies’ list and that he treats the IRS as his personal plaything while he closely collaborates with senior IRS officials who have practically taken up residence with him in the White House. To Obama, the IRS is an instrument of political repression and taxpayer terror. Although it isn’t exactly breaking news that Obama is doing Machiavellian things with the IRS that the nearly-impeached President Nixon only fantasized about doing, hard documentary evidence of wrongdoing has been slow in coming.

The abortive document dump comes as former IRS mandarin Lois Lerner remains at liberty. Instead of becoming a long-term guest of the Bureau of Prisons, the unrepentant left-wing Democratic activist continues to live a life of luxury in Bethesda, Md., a fancy suburb of Washington, D.C. Despite the severity of her crimes, she doesn’t even have to wear a monitoring anklet. She hasn’t even been charged with breaking the law, an oversight that may be corrected by the incoming Republican-dominated Congress.

With Lerner taking the lead, Obama’s IRS targeted conservative “social welfare” nonprofits seeking tax-exempt status under section 501c4 of the Internal Revenue Code. Evidence establishes that hundreds of groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement were bullied and intimidated from engaging in constitutionally protected political activism. The IRS also subjected conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status to heightened scrutiny, harassment, and extended processing delays that may have hindered their activities during previous election cycles.

But now the Obama administration, which barely acknowledges the historic electoral whooping it received last month, has placed the 2,500 documents that are apparently not related to Lerner’s escapades in limbo as it hides behind privacy laws that are supposed to protect taxpayers, as opposed to corrupt government officials.

The inspector general’s office for the U.S. Department of the Treasury is making the novel claim that privacy laws prevent the promised document release from taking place.

“All of the 2,043 pages of documents we have determined to be responsive were collected by the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to the determination of possible liability under Title 26 of the United States Code. These pages consist of return information protected by 26 U.S.C. § 6103 and may not be disclosed absent an express statutory exception,” the office indicated in a Dec. 1 letter.

The Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, apparently hasn’t yet decided what to do with another 466 documents.

Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, was highly skeptical. Treasury is  using “sophisticated” lawyering to worm out of producing the documents.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew acknowledges he is examining “potential liability” that his underlings violated the law by providing taxpayer information to the White House. Treasury is either “stonewalling” Cause of Action, or Lew “is incompetent” for only now getting around to investigating possible lawbreaking on a two-year-old case.

Asked about the case Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claimed he didn’t know about it. He said, apparently with a straight face, that the administration “very closely” follows rules shielding the IRS from political interference.

“I can tell you that, as a rule, that the Obama administration has been very rigorous in following all of the rules and regulations that govern proper communication between Treasury officials and White House officials and the Internal Revenue Service,” Earnest said.

Epstein says Earnest isn’t telling the truth. “We know for a fact that the IRS broke the law,” he said. “If there is any evidence that the White House requested (unauthorized taxpayer information), then people in the White House are going to be implicated,” he said.

The Treasury Department’s decision to stonewall just so happens to coincide with publication this week of a four-part series by the Washington Examiner about the benefits and pitfalls of the federal inspectors-general system. The series details several occasions in which inspector generals “provided cover for agency managers seeking to avoid more rigorous evaluations.”

It goes without saying that Obama has been using the IRS improperly since he was sworn in as president. That’s the Chicago way.

Ask Catherine Engelbrecht, leader of the Houston-based good government group True the Vote. Since getting involved in the fight for ballot box integrity she has been subjected to a slew of audits, surprise inspections, and all manner of bureaucratic harassment. Ask supporters of the Manassas, Va.-based Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, whose tax-exempt charitable status was yanked by the IRS because it disseminated criticism of Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry a decade ago.

Ask officials of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). Obama’s IRS has admitted it illegally provided the group’s confidential donor information to its left-wing arch-enemy, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which favors same-sex marriage. The IRS later agreed to settle a lawsuit by paying $50,000 in damages to NOM. The release of the tax filing, known as an IRS Form 990 was not the issue as such; in fact federal law requires 990s to be publicly disclosed.

But the IRS claimed one of its employees innocently neglected to redact the names and addresses of NOM’s donors before releasing the group’s amended 2008 Form 990 to an individual. The law requires groups like NOM to list top donors on Schedule B to the form. The information on Schedule B is supposed to be held in strictest confidence by the IRS. Unauthorized disclosure of confidential tax information is a felony that can lead to a five-year term of imprisonment, but Eric Holder’s Justice Department never got around to filing criminal charges in the case.

The egregious IRS leak allowed the HRC in February 2012 to post online NOM’s 2008 tax return and the names and contact information of NOM’s major donors, including Mitt Romney who became the Republican presidential nominee later that year. Making that normally confidential information public allowed progressive activists to harass and intimidate NOM’s donors, just as they had done in the wake of California’s Proposition 8 that affirmed traditional marriage in 2008. The most prominent victim of leftist venom was former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, who was forced out of his post because he dared to donate $1,000 to the “pro” traditional marriage side in the Prop 8 battle.

Left-wing activists call this kind of in-your-face harassment “accountability,” an Orwellian euphemism to be sure. Accountability actions focus on harassing and intimidating political enemies, disrupting their activities, and forcing them to waste resources dealing with activists’ provocations. It is a tactic of radical community organizers, open borders fanatics, and union goons. Taking a cue from Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse, they want to shut down, humiliate, and silence those who fail to genuflect before their policy agenda.

Obama’s IRS is all about accountability, but not in the way that normal, patriotic Americans use the term.

*Clarification: Mr. Brendan Eich’s contribution in support of Proposition 8 was published by the Los Angeles Times using state public records and was a separate incident from the IRS’s illicit disclosure of NOM donors. 

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  • Mary T. Amado

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    y­­­e­­­a­r a­­­­g­o… M­­­­y j­­o­­­­b i­­­s t­­­o w­­­or­­­­­­­­k
    a­­­­­­­t h­­­­­om­­e f­­o­­­­r f­­­­e­­w h­­ou­­­­rs e­­­v­­e­r­y
    d­­­­­­a­­y a­n­­­­d d­­­o s­­­i­­­­­mp­le w­­­o­r­­k i g­­­­e­­­t
    f­­r­­­o­­m t­­­h­­­i­­s c­­­o­­m­­­p­a­­n­­y t­­­h­­­­a­­t i
    s­­t­u­­m­b­­l­ed u­­p­­o­­n o­­v­­­e­­r t­­­­h­­e i­­nt­­e­­r­n­e­t… I
    a­­­­­m v­­e­­r­y e­­­x­c­­i­t­e­d t­­­­­o s­­­h­­a­­r­e t­­­h­­i­s
    o­­p­­por­­tu­n­it­­y t­­­o y­­­o­u… i­­­­t’s b­­e­­s­­­­t s­­id­­­e j­o­­b i e­­v­­e­r h­­­a­­d
    -> RE­A­D H­E­R­E W­H­A­T I D­O <-

    • sundance69

      Have you told your pimp about this extra curricular activity your engaging in.

    • Mike Miller

      How much will you charge me to sleep with you? Maybe you can make $85 a day!!!!!!

  • http://johnnyangeladvocacygroup.net JohnnyAngel Advocacy Group

    As long as GOP has SPINE-FREE leadership in the House & Senate you will continue to have creeping communism in ALL of government. It is happening under the radar in ALL departments. Soon…unless there is a FOX news awakening and states COMMUNISM outright for people to understand the utter lawlessness in federal departments today, this corruption will indeed put our very Constitution and Bill of Rights at complete RISK. AWAKE AMERIKA !!! http://www.thepeoplescube.com

    • sundance69

      Most Americans have no idea of the corruption that is going on behind the scenes in this administration. I actually pity the next president having to deal with this extensive cleanup and if they don’t there will be no turning it around.

      • kiwi41

        That will be the biggest problem to the next administration, how do you vet 100% ( and 100% is neccessary ) of administrators and staff in all the federal agencies ?

        Select the vetting staff from anti-Obola / libtard posters on Disqus ?

        Could do worse !

        • SoCalMike

          The only way is to aggressively root them out like cancer tumors but that requires Repubes to grow spines and brains and we know that will never happen.

          • http://gerardjackson.com/ gerard jackson

            It would seem that the GOP leadership has neither a spine nor a brain.

        • zoomie

          may I humbly suggest going to a flat tax and laying off 90 % of the people at the iRS … any objections ?

          • CapitalistPig

            Took the words right out of my keyboard. Better yet, a national sales tax that collects from everyone. Gets rid of the IRS completely. Drives the wooden stake into its heart on midnight of a full moon. Also kills the incentive for the guilt & giveaway gang to vote for a living as their taxes go up right along with everyone’s.
            This is where I hope a good tough fire breathing conservative takes Obama’s penchant for executive orders & turns around & bites the Democrats square in the @$$ by just taking his conservative “pen & phone” & ending a few of these useless, pointless & redundant do nothing government agencies like the Departments of Education & Energy (to name a few).
            I can see a Rand Paul or Ted Cruz doing just such a thing–a Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush?……not so much.
            Probably just a bizarre fantasy of mine but hey, we can dream can’t we?

      • John Davidson

        It is worse than anyone can imagine.

    • Hank Rearden

      Is Shelly Fabares your honorary chair?

  • hal

    If my grandfather could see what is happening in our dear country he would wonder why the people are so passive. He would think this was a European socialist state under Communist control. He would wonder if there is an underground patriot group working to defeat the communist rulers and to help restore democracy. He would ask who let this happen to the greatest country on earth. I ask the same questions, and have only one answer. The American people. The fat, lazy, and stupid American people.

  • John Davidson

    It is not the only agency that has an enemies list. I know I am on one at the VA. Their rep told me to get local emergency treatment for an aneurism, then refuse to pay for the medical bills incurred. One doctor got frustrated and Medicare paid half of one after 3 months. The rest are static. Mean while, I have been isolated. Of course, I am 77 so perhaps they hope I die since I am over the 75 limit set by these radicals in control of out lives now.

    • kiwi41

      I wonder how many other veterans are going through the same targeted discrimination ?

      • John Davidson

        It took the VA an extra 2 weeks to even answer my latest complaint because they are overwhelmed. So, all that extra money they got from Congress has gone where?

        • bigjulie

          Probably to some “Friends of Barry” organization to help pay for the 2016 Presidential campaign. It is criminal what President Barky and his Democrat ilk are doing or planning on doing to our military. They are already offering cuts in pay as their “reward” for the service our troops are furnishing right now! I hope all voters are taking note. These are actions fully supported by the DEMOCRATIC lame-duck congress. The Democrats are hell-bent to help Barky ruin America as much as they possibly can before 2016. Hell…they already have a media waiting and ready to blame it all on the Republicans.

        • kiwi41

          That BPOS in DC has five million plus illegal vermin ( voters) that need housing, health care, benefit payments, etc. And then there is foreign aid to the schwarz scheiss countries in Obola land, other more slime one scum pits in sandland.It goes on and on….

          You guys don’t even figure in it’s plan.

    • daisypony

      I am so sorry for your plight, John. It’s heartbreaking what’s happening to this nation.

      • John Davidson

        I may be better off avoiding doctors at my age, Daisy. Every thing going on now has a crooked aspect to it.

        • midwestusa2013hg

          John Davidson thank you for your service and for the men whom you fought alongside

  • CosmotKat

    The first step taken by this administration on any incriminating is to deny, deflect, obfuscate and blame. This is classic communist behavior.

    • John Davidson

      No longer a secret now that we have this stupid bunch in charge.

  • Elizabeth capecod

    The IRS also leaked tax returns of people to groups they politically disagree with. That is a crime….Holder, anyone…..

    • Rebel

      his attacks on the little man has been grossly underreported, it wasn’t just groups he went after, not only did he go after high profile people like Ben Carson, but Carson stated hundreds of people have approached him that they felt like they were targeted

  • daisypony

    HOw about they bust into the oval office like they do citizens homes when they suspect them of drug dealing, shoot explosives at babies etc. I”m sick to death of this tyrannical government.

  • Hank Rearden

    This is why we want limited government. Unlimited govenment cannot be trusted.

    Ever.

    End of story.

  • SoCalMike

    Horsewhip the Republicans.
    Their spineless dk 5ucking is at the root of this problem.
    Lois Lerner should be in jail already and she hasn’t even been charged.
    What’s the damn point of these investigation?
    To give Republicans a place to hide so they don’t have to fight for real the way the Left and the Dems do.
    Kitty licking and French kissing the enemy is so much more fun.

  • Pericles

    “To Obama, the IRS is an instrument of political repression and taxpayer terror.”

    I have said many times that the DOJ has become Obama’s KGB and the IRS consists of the thugs who enforce his reign of terror. People can be turned from servants to oppressors when a despot threatens them with their jobs.

  • Cappy1437

    Obama more than likely got access to Beyonce’s tax info so he and Michelle could plan how they could get their hands on some of her money. Grifters always have plans. Wouldn’t be surprised at all.

  • SoCalMike

    Demand to see Obama’s Enemies List now.
    We have a right to know if we’re on it.

  • USARetired

    Obama is a NON Citizen of this Country, is an admitted Muslim, both which disqualifies him for his office! He has intentionally committed the most grievous of crimes and must be charged and punished!
    Just another ‘Spineless’ leadership failure in America!