Nothings new, that's Democratic Progressive Policy/Politics, so don't hold your breath in the FBI's Hillary investigation either. I'll be very surprised if she is indicted or gets tried unless it goes to after 20 Jan. 2016.

Poor management IS sure as Hattie's a crime when it occurs in a tax payer funded entity that is not even aligned with the country it usurps from.

More recent article on several operating but non-approved republican groups ( Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS is one, hardly a tea-party group)

http://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/02...

Possibly continues, I read at the time the pending groups were approved. The mass approval was noted here...

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes....

From the Treasury Inspector General's Report...

Criteria for selecting applications inappropriately identified organizations based
on their names and policy positions

Full document here...

https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditr...

Whew...looks like Hilarity should have nothing to worry about.

The problem isn't that they won't talk the talk, it's that they won't walk the walk. Boehner wouldn't. Neither will Ryan. And neither will Trump, should he win.

As far as I'm concerned Carson has already totally disqualified himself by saying he'll escalate the war on drugs. That's a deal-killer regardless of anything else he says or does.

No, most of them were not granted tax exempt status, and in fact the agency continues its discrimination against the Right.

As far as the organizations claiming they were not primarily political, that is not true, nor is it necessary. A huge number of political organizations, including NAACP and ACLU, are 501(c)3 certified.

jabuttrick's statement that it was hardly criminal is insupportable. It is grossly criminal. And Congress itself should have Lerner locked up for contempt right now.

You have brought up some very interesting points.

Correct me if I am wrong, but were not all those groups ultimately granted tax exempt status? Was not the policy, after public scrutiny, changed so that all applicants were just given the status without investigation.

What I believed happened, is that the administration's policy shifted from one of "crime prevention" to leaving it up to law enforcement as it should have been in the first place.

Crime prevention is a slippery slope, "You can't buy a gun because you might shoot someone, You can't talk privately on the telephone because you might be plotting something illegal...". It sure looks like the civil rights of those groups were abused, by those in political power.

I'll grant you it isn't the first time it ever happened.

I find it hard to believe that the IRS officials, if they thought they were doing a good job, never bragged about it to their superiors. If it wasn't instigated from higher up, it would appear to have been condoned. Maybe they decided to do this and not tell the boss about it, I can't figure out why they would though?

The entire government needs a house cleaning and reduction in size and power, or the corruption will simply continue.

Anyone that expects competence and integrity from politicians and political appointees is living on an alien planet. Incompetence is not only not a crime it is a job requirement in the world of liberal-progressives where it is "pull" that gets the job done.

Nixon was the first IRS misuser to come to mind. I didn't know you wanted an exhaustive list. The Lerner affair is the only IRS scandal you cite from the last 40+ years. We both need to do more research. Of course there is a difference between the two instances we cite: There is no doubt Nixon knew and directed the misuse of the IRS for partisan political reasons. It is far from clear that Obama knew what was going on in the Cincinnatti IRS office in the screening of these purportedly non-political tax exempt organizations.

Me thinks you're questioning an event that
has already happened!!!

They have two hurdles to get over. First, Lerner and her cronies will assert immunity as government employees. Second, the defendants will argue that the plaintiffs were not entitled to tax exempt status in any event since they were not principally educational but were in fact political under the oddly worded applicable rules. I do not predict an easy road for the plaintiffs.

So, out of all of the Republicans that have been in office for the last 50 years, Nixon is the example. Out of all of the Democrats that have been in office, who is the example? Hmmm, Bill Clinton with his extra-marital affairs, Hillary with her personal server and failure to protect our people, Lerner with the IRS scandal, the VAs mis-handling of patients, Obama's foreign policy failures. Do you see a pattern? 1 incident 40+ years ago versus current affairs.

Thank you, jabuttrick. This is the sort of clarification I was hoping for. So, 'poor judgement' is not a crime, but each of the organizations that was not granted timely tax-exempt status could sue her in civil court?

Jan

Republicans would not misuse the IRS? Does the name Nixon ring a bell??

If poor management were a crime we would not have enough prisons to hold all the inmates from government and private entities.

The organizations at issue were claiming that they were not primarily political as they sought tax free status. If that was a lie, as you imply and the IRS suspected, then the IRS operatives certainly were not acting criminally in trying to expose that fact. The means that they used to "target" those groups was pretty ridiculous (trying to prioritize by looking at the names of the groups) and represented gross incompetence, but it was hardly criminal.

Malpractice suits are not crimes. They are civil proceedings. Somebody in the IRS, probably Lerner and some of her underlings, should be fired over this since sorting applications by the name of the organization seeking non-profit status was an almost childishly incompetent way to do the jobs they were assigned but it was hardly criminal.

Here's what I think-------Lois Lerner, Barrack Obama, Hilary Clinton and probably a lot more should all be FIRED. If we did anything, especially on our job they boot us right out the door. No questions asked!Now they bring up Lois Lerner in face of the Primaries going on. It is just one coverup after another.

I am sure that Trump has something up his sleeve already. When was the last time anyone in our government has told any truth to anything. Everybody lies. Now people don't like Trump because he tells the truth.

I think that is the problem with most of the Republican politicians. They are so afraid of saying something that is not "politically correct" that they are being too silent. Donald Trump doesn't care about being PC. The Republican voters like that. By the way, have you noticed? Nothing that the Left says is ever politically incorrect? Even Hillary calling half of the country her enemies.

I say yes, if the alternative is to fight with one foot in a bucket of cement.