Bombshell emails indicate handling of scheme targeting conservative nonprofit groups was quarterbacked at the IRS’s D.C. office. Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, applied pressure in 2012 to the IRS to slow down mostly right-leaning groups he thought were too ‘political’. Former IRS official Lois Lerner emailed IRS managers about how to tell if a ‘Be On the Lookout’ targeting list applied to specific tea party groups. Judicial Watch got emails in a Freedom Of Information Act lawsuit, casting new doubt on claims that the plot involved ‘rogue employees’ in Ohio.
The Internal Revenue Service managed a wide-ranging program that singled out tea party groups for special scrutiny from its headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to bombshell documents released Wednesday by a watchdog organization.
Judicial Watch, a center-right group that specializes in Freedom Of Information Act document requests and lawsuits, said it received a cache of papers from the IRS showing the depth of the Obama administration’s involvement in what officials have previously called the work of a few ‘rogue agents’ in Cincinnati, Ohio.
And letters from U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, show his involvement in pressing the IRS to target mostly conservative organizations with cumbersome questionnaires seemingly calculated to slow down their applications for tax-exempt status in the middle of an election year.
In one July 2010 email among IRS managers, a lawyer with the Exempt Organizations Technical unit in Washington wrote that his office was ‘working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy.’
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