That did not turn out to be true - turns out it was abuse of power.
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"
Lerner betrayed the nation’s trust yet managed to avoid prosecution,” Buchanan said. “Heads should roll and people should be held accountable for this gross abuse of power.”
Peter Roskam, the Illinois chairman of the tax subcommittee, also criticized the decision, terming it "a miscarriage of justice."
Previously, the lawmakers had suggested that the Obama Department of Justice had declined to prosecute Lerner in 2015 because it was taking political cues from Obama. In 2014, their committee had voted to refer Lerner to the Justice Department for prosecution for her role in the targeting scandal.
From 2010 to 2012, Lerner led the division of the IRS that subjected some nonprofit organizations, including Tea Party and conservative groups, to added scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, a controversy that she acknowledged in response to a question at an event in 2013.
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from; Tea Party Groups Targeted by Lerner's IRS Receive Settlement Checks
MADISON, Wis.—Dozens of conservative organizations are receiving late Christmas presents years after the IRS handed them a lump of coal.
The federal government in recent days has been issuing settlement checks to 100 right-of-center groups wrongfully targeted for their political beliefs under the Obama administration’s Internal Revenue Service, according to an attorney for the firm that represented plaintiffs in NorCal v. United States.
Most of the claimants will each receive a check for approximately $14,000, Greim said. Five conservative groups that were integrally involved in the lawsuit get a bonus payment of $10,000 each, the attorney said.
About $2 million of the settlement goes to cover the legal costs of five long years of litigation. IRS attorneys attempted delay after delay, objection after objection, trying to use the very taxpayer protection statutes the plaintiffs were suing under to suppress documents.
The agency has admitted no wrongdoing in what a federal report found to be incidents of intrusive inspections of organizations seeking nonprofit status. Greim has said the seven-figure settlement suggests otherwise.
An IRS spokesman declined to comment.
Disgraced former bureaucrat
Lois Lerner led the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt groups.
A 2013 inspector general’s report found the IRS had singled out conservative and tea party organizations for intense scrutiny, oftentimes simply based on their conservative-sounding or tea party names. The IRS delayed for months, even years, the applications, and some groups were improperly questioned about their donors and their religious affiliations and practices.
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from:
2013 Highlights: IRS scandal
On May 10 the director of the IRS Exempt Organizations division Lois Lerner stated that the IRS was targeting certain conservative Tea Party groups for additional scrutiny as early as 2010.
A report by the Treasury inspector general for Tax Administration showed that Lerner was informed about the targeting in June 2011. The audit report was made public on May 14."
"Internal Revenue Service employees were told as early as 2010 to ""Be On the Look Out"" for Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations seeking tax exempt status, according to a lengthy inspector general report released Tuesday. An investigation by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration found that IRS agents used ""inappropriate criteria"" to flag certain conservative groups for additional scrutiny, including those with ""Tea Party,"" ""Patriot"" and ""9/12"" in their names. The agency also was targeting those groups at least a year longer than previously thought. The report confirms long held suspicions by conservative groups seeking a tax-exempt classification that they have been wrongly targeted by the IRS because of their political leanings."
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from
Report: IRS targeting conservative groups since 2010
The report blamed the targeting on "insufficient oversight provided by [IRS} management" at the agency's offices in Cincinnati, but Republicans say agency officials in Washington knew groups were being targeted.
"The evidence is continuing to point to they did know about it," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday. "This wasn't just a bunch of insignificant staffers in Ohio. It involved a lot of people and some of them were very high-level people."
The inspector general found that the additional scrutiny the IRS was applying to conservative groups was also significantly delaying those groups from being approved for tax-exempt status. Investigators said they also found that IRS employees were tagging applications from conservative groups with the words "Be On The Look Out," or BOLO, to alert others at the agency that it required additional scrutiny.
I guess that's "one way" to recast the IG's report....
