House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Documents from Treasury Department in IRS Targeting of “Conservative” Groups

ACCUSES IRS OF OBSTRUCTION

by Sharon Rondeau

(Aug. 2, 2013) — Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Darrell Issa has declared that he has issued a subpoena for documents related to the Internal Revenue Services’ (IRS) denial or delay of tax-exempt status applied for by various groups with pro-life, Tea Party, Israel-centered, traditional marriage, and evangelical themes, including those opposed to the Obama health care law.

Issa is seeking hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of documents which he expects will demonstrate how the IRS approved or denied tax-exempt status to groups applying for it with a particular “strategy,” which involved a “lookout list.”

Issa said he was “deeply disappointed” that the agency has not cooperated with his committee’s requests for information and that the Obama regime had called the practice of targeting “phony.”

The corruption within the agency was brought to light in the spring when IRS Director of Tax-Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner divulged that the IRS had engaged in “targeting” certain organizations which had applied for tax-exempt status, causing many to abandon their requests or to answer long and possibly illegal questionnaires.

A letter dated August 2 from Issa to Jack Lew, Obama’s new Treasury Secretary, states that “the Obama Administration…has attempted to thwart congressional oversight into the matter” and that the IRS substantially limited the number of responsive documents without consulting the committee.  Of 64,000,000 “responsive” documents found, Issa stated that the committee has received about 12,000, which he deemed “a systematic effort to delay, frustrate, impede, and obstruct the Committee’s investigation.”

The IRS reports to the Treasury Department.

The IRS’s budget has reportedly been cut by Congress since 2010, although applications for 501(c)4 status allegedly doubled between 2010 and 2012.  The number of agents is expected to increase as the IRS assumes administration of the health care law, known as “Obamacare,” which is scheduled to begin on October 1.

The Post & Email has asked publicly why grand juries cannot be utilized to review evidence of criminality and obstruction of justice on the part of public officials rather than members of Congress, who are political office-holders.  Prior to 1946, when Congress attempted to declare grand jury presentments “obsolete,” grand juries regularly and without prosecutorial intervention made inquiries into all manner of possible crimes of both private and public individuals.

The Post & Email has also asked why a man with a “phony” birth certificate has been allowed to occupy the White House for more than four years without a congressional or grand jury investigation into the forgery, which has been confirmed by a court-certified forensic document examiner who has performed work for Obama’s own law firm.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizing the creation of the Internal Revenue Service or the collection of income tax on a sustained basis.