The IRS Thinks You’re a Terrorist
“Crazies”
“TeRrorists” (Yes, spelled like that.)
“A**holes.”
That’s how former top IRS official Lois Lerner described conservatives on emails sent from her official IRS email account just days after the 2012 election. Corresponding with an unknown person (the name is redacted), she provides her own unique brand of commentary on conservative anguish over the lost presidential election.
Here is Lois Lerner, on the true threats to our nation:
“So we don’t need to worry about alien terrorists (sic). It’s our own crazies that will take us down.”
And here she is, responding to a comment about the “whacko wing of the GOP”:
“Great. Maybe we are through if there are that many a**holes.”
Let’s not forget, this commentary is coming from the same person who not only ran the IRS exempt-organizations division, she was at the epicenter of the IRS targeting scandal, and once expressed a desire to work for BarackObama.com, also known as Organizing for Action. And when called to testify before Congress in its investigation of targeting, she took the Fifth Amendment umpteen times.
This latest revelation of Lois Lerner’s startling bias and hatred for conservatives emerged just as I took the stand to testify before the House Judiciary Committee to once again call on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special counsel to investigate IRS misconduct.
The reasons are obvious. First–-as Lois Lerner’s emails help demonstrate–-the IRS officials not only targeted conservative groups, they demonstrated obvious malice while doing so.
There is not just evidence of criminal acts, but also of a motive to help President Obama and defeat the “crazies.”
Next, the Department of Justice may well be involved in the criminal conduct. As I’ve discussed before, just days before the IRS scandal broke, the DOJ was apparently working with Lerner and other leaders at the IRS to “piece together” prosecutions of conservative groups in the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing.
In other words, if the DOJ were to conduct a thorough investigation, it would have to investigate itself.
That is exactly why we are no longer cooperating with a tainted Justice Department. We represent 41 organizations in 22 states in our federal lawsuit against the IRS. One group has been waiting for nearly half a decade for a determination on its application.
And that brings us to the final point: The DOJ’s investigation thus far appears to be anything but thorough. In fact, it appears to be a fake investigation just as Lois Lerner’s May 2013 “apology” for targeting conservatives was a fake apology.
Why do I think so? When Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis asked Deputy Attorney General James Cole when the DOJ learned of Lerner’s lost emails, he said this: “I think we learned about it after that from the press accounts that were in the paper following the IRS’s notification to the Congress.”
This is astonishing. When the DOJ is serious about an investigation, it will go so far as to raid a workplace to seize computers, files and other evidence. Just ask Gibson Guitars, which was raided by armed federal agents in 2011 because the DOJ suspected that it was selling wood logged in violation of the laws of Madagascar.
So, to recap. The DOJ will launch a raid to keep the wrong kind of wood out of a Gibson guitar, but when it’s investigating a potential conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of government to deprive Americans of their civil rights on a nationwide scale, the DOJ … just watches the news?
As I said in my testimony, I’ve had a long relationship with the DOJ, and in the past I’ve even served as faculty for the DOJ, instructing U.S. attorneys from across the country. And this experience has taught me to know the difference between a vigorous investigation and a politically motivated sham.
Vigorous investigators seize the evidence.
Sham investigators seize the remote control and watch television.
And while they watch TV, Americans are left to pick up the pieces after a years-long campaign of targeting and intimidation by “public servants” who think conservatives are “crazies” and worse threats to America than foreign terrorists.
Attorney General Eric Holder is left without excuses. He must appoint a special counsel, or few American will have any confidence in the “justice” that comes from his department.
Jay Sekulow is chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which focuses on constitutional law. He hosts a daily radio show, Jay Sekulow Live, which is broadcast on more than 850 stations nationwide as well as Sirius/X satellite radio. Follow him on Twitter @JaySekulow. This article originally appeared on Fox News.
