Tag Archives: Ronald Machen

Sometimes Justice Is A Slow Process

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On Monday, The Daily Signal reported that Federal District Court Judge Susan Dlott granted a motion to compel and ordered the IRS to produce the names of the 298 targeted organizations identified by the IRS for the Treasury Inspector General. Last week U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald Machen disclosed the Justice Department‘s decision not to charge Lois Lerner with of Congress. This latest decision at least allows the probe of wrong doing by the Internal Revenue Service to continue.

The article reports:

…the plaintiffs have been trying through the discovery process to identify all of the conservative organizations unfairly targeted by the IRS so that they can seek class certification. If they can convince Judge Dlott to certify a class, then the lawsuit would expand from the ten original plaintiffs to all of the organizations on Lois Lerner’s hit list. This would greatly expand the risks to, and potential liability of, the government.

But the IRS, in a fitting bit of irony, refused to turn over the names of the organizations whose applications were mishandled, claiming that would violate the confidentiality requirements of Section 6103.

On April 1, in what must have seemed a cruel April Fool’s joke to the Justice Department lawyers handling the case, Judge Dlott denied a protective order sought by Justice Department to prevent the IRS from being forced to turn over this information. She pointed out that Section 6103 has an exemption for tax information “directly related to an issue in” a judicial proceeding. Since the identity of all of the targeted organizations “is directly related to the issue of class certification in this federal court proceeding,” she granted the plaintiffs’ motion to compel.

According to the article, the IRS will be forced to turn over:

  • All charts, lists, spreadsheets or indexes of groups that had their Applications for Tax Exemption selected or flagged by the IRS for heightened review based on an infamous BOLO (Be On the Look Out) edict issued by IRS officials;
  • The document listing the 298 organizations that the IRS sent the Inspector General on June 11, 2012; and
  • The document titled “Advocacy Case Tracking Sheet” that the IRS sent the Inspector General on the same date.

There is little doubt that the Obama Administration was using the IRS to suppress free speech. Hopefully those at the root of this action will be identified and charged with the appropriate crimes.

The Smoking Gun In Fast And Furious

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Roll Call has the full story on this, but since the story is the headline on the DRUDGE REPORT, it is pretty near impossible to get onto their site. I am hoping to be able to do that later tonight.

However, the Washington Times has just posted a related story.

The article at the Washington Times reports:

Rep. Darrell Issa managed to push the details of a secret wiretap application from the botched “Fast and Furious” gunwalking operation into the public domain this week when he entered summaries into the Congressional Record, apparently using Congress‘ protection under the speech and debate clause to get around legal boundaries.

The summary of a March 2010 wiretap application shows that federal agents repeatedly lost track of guns they knew were being trafficked back to cartels in Mexico — a violation of Justice Department policy that should have raised red flags with top department officials who signed off on the wiretaps, said Mr. Issa, California Republican and chairman of the oversight committee that is looking into the operation.

Meanwhile, Fox News is reporting today:

The contempt vote technically opened the door for the House to call on the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to bring the case before a grand jury. But because U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen works for Holder and because President Obama has already asserted executive privilege over the documents in question, some expected Holder’s Justice Department to balk. 

Deputy Attorney General James Cole confirmed in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner that the department in fact would not pursue prosecution. The attorney general’s withholding of documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, he wrote, “does not constitute a crime.” 

“Therefore the department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general,” Cole wrote, in the letter obtained by Fox News. 

The fix is in. The goal is to keep the investigation from going anywhere until after November. The only way the American people will ever get the facts on this is to make known to Congress that they feel that Congress should take its oversight responsibilities seriously. Fast and Furious was a government program that killed people. This is not politics–it is about the honesty and transparency of our Department of Justice.

UPDATE:

This is a quote from the Roll Call article:

It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.

In at least one instance, the guns were recovered at a police stop at the U.S.-Mexico border the next day.

The application included financial details for four suspected straw purchasers showing they had purchased $373,000 worth of guns in cash but reported almost no income for the previous year, the letter says.

“Although ATF was aware of these facts, no one was arrested, and ATF failed to even approach the straw purchasers. Upon learning these details through its review of this wiretap affidavit, senior Justice Department officials had a duty to stop this operation. Further, failure to do so was a violation of Justice Department policy,” the letter says.

Holder declined to discuss the contents of the applications at a House Judiciary Committee hearing June 7 but said the applications were narrowly reviewed for whether there was probable cause to obtain a wiretap application.

This operation should have ended before it began.

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