Emails Show Corruption At Heart Of Administration – Investors

New emails show that both the IRS and Justice Department were involved in a probe of Tea Party and other conservative groups. This is no mere scandal — it’s a major breach of the law.

The newly released emails were gathered for a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan public interest law group. They show that former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner discussed with the Justice Department going after conservative groups that she believed lied about their political activities.

What’s shocking is that this discussion came just days before Lerner acknowledged that the IRS had investigated tea-party and other conservative groups but insisted that it was an isolated incident conducted by low-level officials in the IRS’ Cincinnati office.

It was a lie. In a May 8 email to Nikole Flax, then the chief of staff to the acting IRS commissioner, Lerner discusses a phone call from Richard Pilger, who headed the Justice Department’s elections crimes unit.

According to Lerner, Pilger wondered if the IRS could help him “piece together false-statement cases about applicants who ‘lied'” on applications for tax-free status.

In a subsequent email, Lerner responded: “I think we should do it — also need to include CI (the criminal investigation unit), which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC (the Federal Election Commission). Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?”

It’s been clear for some time that this goes beyond a mere rogue IRS operation in Cincinnati. But until now, we didn’t know how far it went.

Not a “smidgen” of corruption.