Why Michael Grimm Shouldn't Resign

Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY), the lone GOP representative in the New York City area (Staten Island) has announced that he will resign effective Jan. 5, two weeks after he pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion.

What Grimm actually did was to under-report his employees’ wages while he was owner of the Manhattan restaurant Healthalicious.

Grimm's decision was apparently made after a conversation with Speaker John Boehner.

I think this was a huge mistake on Grimm's part.Instead of caving, he should have looked Boehner in the eye and told him, 'I'll resign right after Charlie Rangel does.'

Why should he disenfranchise his constituents or be held to a higher standard than Charlie Rangel?

Tax evasion is a crime, no doubt. But if you compare what Michael Grimm did to what Charlie Rangel got away with, Rep. Grimm would have been far better off not pleading guilty and taking his chances with the House.

If nothing else, that would have pointed out, yet again, that Democrats, particularly black Democrats are held to far different standards than Republicans by their peers and especially by the media.

Smoking Gun - New E-mails Tie IRS-Gate Directly To The White House

Judicial Watch won another Freedom of Information lawsuit and forced the government to turn over what looks like a "smoking gun" for the IRS scandal involving the illegal targeting of conservative groups applying for 501(C) (3) status.

The plan to use the IRS to target conservative and pro-Israel groups was never the product of a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati, but a nation-wide plan to use the IRS as a political weapon. Someone developed that plan. We're now getting a good idea whom it was.


One key email string from July 2012 confirms that IRS Tea Party scrutiny was directed from Washington, DC. On July 6, 2010, Holly Paz (the former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance) asks IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky “to let Cindy and Sharon know how we have been handling Tea Party applications in the last few months.”  Cindy Thomas is the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati and Sharon Camarillo was a Senior Manager in their Los Angeles office. Grodnitzky, a top lawyer in the Exempt Organization Technical unit (EOT) in Washington, DC, responds:

EOT is working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases in EOT and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob.

The reference to Rob is believed to be Rob Choi, then-Director of Rulings and Agreements in IRS’s Washington, DC, headquarters.

Another email string from February – March 2010 includes a message from a California EO Determinations manager discussing a Tea Party application “currently being held in the Screening group.” The manager urges, “Please let ‘Washington’ know about this potentially embarrassing political case involving a ‘Tea Party’ organization. Recent media attention to this type of organization indicates to me that this is a ‘high profile’ case.”  A co-worker responds: “I think sending it up here [DC] is a good idea given the potential for media interest.”  As with Ben Rhodes’ Benghazi-related talking points email, Judicial Watch obtained a more complete version of this IRS email chain than was provided to a congressional committee.

The Judicial Watch documents also contain email correspondence to internal IRS investigators from Lerner, dated April 2, 2013, that tries to explain the “Be on the Lookout” (BOLO) criteria used to select organizations for screening and scrutiny:

Because the BOLO only contained a brief reference to “Organizations involved with the Tea Party movement applying for exemption under 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4)” in June 2011, the EO Determinations manager asked the manager of the screening group, John Shafer [IRS Cincinnati field office manager], what criteria were being used to label cases as “tea party ” cases. (“Do the applications specify/state ‘ tea party’? If not, how do we know applicant is involved with the tea party movement?”) The screening group manager asked his employees how they were applying the BOLO’s short –hand reference to “tea party.” His employees responded that they were including organizations meeting any of the following criteria as falling within the BOLO’s reference to “tea party” organizations: “1. ‘Tea Party’, ‘Patriots’ or ’9/12 Project’ is referenced in the case file. 2. Issues include government spending, government debt and taxes. 3. Educate the public through advocacy/legislative activities to make America a better place to live. 4. Statements in the case file that are critical of the how the country is being run. . . “

So, we believe we have provided information that shows that no one in EO “developed” the criteria. Rather, staff used their own interpretations of the brief reference to “organizations involved with the Tea Party movement,” which was what was on the BOLO list.

What's going on here is that we have former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance Holly Paz sending an e-mail to IRS Attorney Steven Grodnitzky asking for an explanation of how tea party group applications were being singled out for 'special handling'..and Grodnitzky responding by confirming the cases were being handled in Washington. So that's one lie out of the way, the idea that a few government employees in Cincinnati were going rogue. Government employees donlt act inthat fashion - and here, they were doing what they were told from higher up.

The second e-mail from Lois Lerner reveals how BOLO lists (be on the look out) were specifically created for tea party groups or groups with issues related to government spending, debt, taxes and “how the country is being run.” In other words, they were deliberately targeted.

Now we get to the next smoking gun. The IRS documents also include a presentation entitled “Heightened Awareness Issues” with a red and orange “Alert” symbol identifying which organizations seeking tax-exempt status are to be singled out for 'special attention'. . and focuses on the Tea Party organizations.

And finally, we have a whole series of letters  between Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations, and top IRS officials throughout 2012 discuss how better to target conservative groups.

In response to a Levin March 30 letter citing the “urgency of the issue,” then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller assured the senator that IRS regulations were flexible enough to allow IRS agents to “prepare individualized questions and requests” for select 501(c)(4) organizations.

 The newly released IRS documents contain several letters and emails revealing an intense effort by Levin and IRS officials to determine what, if any, existing IRS policies could be used to revoke the nonprofit exemptions of active conservative groups and deny exemptions to new applicants. In a July 30, 2012, letter, Levin singles out 12 groups he wants investigated for “political activity.” Of the groups – which include the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform, the 60 Plus Association, and the Susan B. Anthony List – only one, Priorities USA, is notably left-leaning.

And as the 2012 elections grew closer, Levin turned the heat up.He wanted the Tea Party/Conservative groups either stonewalled or shut down before the election.

In an obvious attempt to reassure him, at one point Miller sent Senator Levin a 16 page response on June 4, 2012 to explain to him that the IRS had the leeway it needed to pick and choose which groups to concentrate on and what to ask them:

"There is no standard questionnaire used to obtain information about political activities. Although there is a template development letter that describes the general information on the case development process, the letter does not specify the information to be requested from any particular organization. Consequently, revenue agents prepare individualized questions and requests for documents relevant to the application."

Let's remember that IRS agents used these 'individualized questions' to target groups’ donors, seize training information, demand personal information on college interns, and even target individuals by name.

Remember who Senator Levin is..he's one of the most powerful and senior Democrats in Washington. Does anyone believe he was doing this without coordinating with the DNC, and perhaps senior members of President Obama's re-election campaign. The Senator needs to be brought before a grand jury to answer some questions under oath.

I have to wonder whether IRS-Gate heating up was a factor in his suddenly announcing his retirement this year.

And let's also remember the other batch of IRS documents (produced earlier in this litigation) revealing that Lois Lerner had communicated directly with the Department of Justice and Eric Holder about the prospect of criminally prosecuting certain tax-exempt groups.

We have never in our history had the IRS used as a political weapon in this fashion.

'Not even a smidgen of corruption' Mr. President? I think Rep.Joe Wilson just got proven right again here.

Jane Fonda Foundation Revealed As A Scam

Ah, 'progressives'..they always have great ideas on how everybody should pay their fair share. Except them, of course.

Multimillionaire Actress Jane Fonda's charitable foundation is an interesting example of this principle.

According to the IRS records, with nearly $800K in the bank as of 2011, the last fiscal year covered by their 2012 return, Jane Fonda's private charitable foundation hasn't hasn't donated a dime since 2006. According to the IRS's own rules, a private charitable foundation has to donate at least five percent of its assets, or face stiff financial penalties.This was designed to stop people from misusing charitable foundations as a tax dodge and a parking place for tax free income:

While Fonda’s foundation has not been making donations, the group has tried to grow its stash via the stock market. For example, the foundation’s last tax return lists 166 separate trades--involving thousands of stock shares--that netted about $2200.

The Fonda foundation’s returns show that most of its assets were provided years ago by the performer herself, though more than $320,000 came from a Connecticut firm that has booked speaking engagements for the two-time Academy Award winner.

In other words, Fonda shielded taxable income and the firm that booked her speaking engagements got a nice tax deduction.

The Jane Fonda Foundation lists Fonda on its tax filing as the foundation’s president and chairman of the board, and reports that she devotes 10 hours a week to the charitable foundation. This is important, because IRS rules allow someone like a celebrity to take a charitable deduction for time spent working for a charity based on their 'usual fee'. In Fonda's case, that's 520 hours or 22 days if we consider 24 hours a full work day. If we base it on a more normal 8 hour work day, Jane Fonda is able to take a deduction for 'charitable work' at her normal rate for something like 65 days, over two months.

Even more interesting, this has been going on since 2007, and the IRS, busy targeting conservative donors and sabotaging attempts by conservative groups to obtain 501c status has prosecuted her at all.

The rules, you see, are for the little people who vote wrong and donate wrong.

Some people never change.

BREAKING:Issa To Haul Lerner Back Before Committee,Says She Waived 5th Amendment Rights With Opening Statement

Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Darrell Issa has instructed to committee to subpoena IRS official Lori Lerner to appear again before his committee, saying that her opening statement waived her Fif the Amendment rights against self-incrimination. If you listen to it, he appears to be entirely correct:



You're not allowed to place a self-serving statement on the record and then claim the Fifth - you have to do it from the outset.

“When I asked her her questions from the very beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any statement,” Issa told POLITICO. “She chose not to do so — so she waived.”

“The precedents are clear that this is not something you can turn on and turn off,” he told POLITICO. “She made testimony after she was sworn in, asserted her innocence in a number of areas, even answered questions asserting that a document was true … So she gave partial testimony and then tried to revoke that.”

He said he was not expecting that.

“I understand from her counsel that there was a plan to assert her Fifth Amendment rights,” he continued. “She went ahead and made a statement, so counsel let her effectively under the precedent, waive — so we now have someone who no longer has that ability.”

That's why Issa had Lerner look at a transcript of the previous fairy tales she told the committee under oath and acknowledge that these were her statements.

In other words, her tits are in the wringer, to use a quaint Southernism I've always liked.

Issa doesn't want Lerner, or at least not Lerner alone. He wants to put the fear of G-d into her so that she'll see the wisdom of cutting a deal by selling out some of the other rats above her in the pecking order on the SS Obama.

All roads on this one lead to the White House.

IRS-Gate Update- Stonewalling And Denials As The Fiction Falls Apart

Aside from Senior IRS official Lori Lerner taking the Fifth and refusing to answer any questions, there are a number of other disturbing developments taking place on IRS-Gate.

For starters, the IRS has defied congress's request for all communications between the agency and the White House about targeting conservative, evangelical and pro-Israel groups.

In a May 14 letter signed by Rep. Dave Camp and Sander Levin, Chairman and Ranking Member respectively of the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS was given a deadline of Tuesday, May 21 to comply with their committee’s demand for the information and records, including records of any communications between IRS and the Treasury on the matter.

The IRS missed the deadline and has apparently decided to stonewall...and we all know they didn't make that decision without guidance from the White House. No federal agency would.

It's also come out that the IRS' own internal investigation ended May 12th, 2012, six months before the election but was deliberately hidden from Congress.I wonder who gave that order:

Rep. Darrel Issa, the committee's chairman, said that the committee learned just yesterday that the IRS completed its own investigation a year before a Treasury Department Inspector General report was completed.

But despite the IRS recognizing in May 2012 that its employees were treating right-wing groups differently from other organizations, Issa said, IRS personnel withheld those conclusions from legislators.

'Just yesterday the committee interviewed Holly Paz, the director of exempt organizations, rulings and agreements, division of the IRS,' Issa said. 'While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the same thing that Mr. George found more than a year later.'

'Think about it,' he continued: 'For more than a year, the IRS knew that it had inappropriately targeted groups of Americans based on their political beliefs, and without mentioning it, and in fact without honestly answering questions that were the result of this internal investigation.'

Moreover,the Administration's claim that the wrongdoing was limited to 'a few low level agents' is falling apart like a paper in the rain.

In fact, the IRS' own system makes a few low level IRS employees conducting as jihad on groups selected for their ideology impossible:

When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application. If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system. When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved.

Keep in mind, at least 300 groups were targeted out of Cincinnati alone. Those applications spent anywhere from 18 months to nearly 3 years in the system and some still don't have their non-profit status. 300 groups multiplied by at least 18 months for each group, means thousands of red flags would have been generated in the system.

So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags? The answer, according to the IRS directory, one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division. Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.

It turns out Cindy Thomas' name is one we have heard before. The independent journalism group ProPublica says in November of 2012 they had requested information on conservatives groups that had received non-profit status.

Cindy Thomas, says Swann, is the highest-ranking employee in the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department in Cincinnati.

Even the Washington Post is saying that a Special prosecutor is not a matter of if but when.

Personally, I think the president is just arrogant enough to try and brazen this out.

IRS official Lois Lerner To Plead the Fifth At Congressional Hearing Tomorrow

Lois Lerner, the IRS head of the tax exempt organizations division is going to plead the Fifth tomorrow in front of Darrel Issa's committee rather than answer questions on the IRS scandal:

Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening – or why she didn’t reveal it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor 3rd.

Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight committee Wednesday.

“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” said a letter by Taylor to committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, R-Calif. The letter, sent Monday, was obtained Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times…

Since Lerner won’t answer questions, Taylor asked that she be excused from appearing, saying that would “have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her.” There was no immediate word whether the committee will grant her request.

Obviously someone from the White House has spoken to her about how Presidential pardons work and what you need to do to earn them.

Let's remember what we're talking about here.No matter what Lerner's attorney says, the Fifth Amendment is only used to guard against self-incrimination for criminal acts. For starters, aside from the applicable civil-rights laws there's the Hatch Act, plus some of the IRS’s own regulations for employee conduct.She obviously has been implicated in illegal acts.

Meanwhile, Rep. Issa quite properly said no, and issued a subpoena for Lerner anyway.

This is exactly the right tactic. Let this foul government apparatchnik earn her pardon. Let her sit there sweating from every corrupt pore while Issa and the committee members grill her on the obvious lies she told when this started two weeks ago. Let her refuse to answer each question on grounds that she might incriminate herself and let the American people see.

Aside from the political theater benefits, this will set the stage for Congressman Issa to have a little chat with Lerner and her attorney afterwards about what could happen if her part in this disgraceful business comes to light from other sources, and why now might be a smart time to protect herself and make a deal.


Lest you feel sorry for Ms. Lerner's deer-in-the-headlights demeanor, keep in mind that this is not the first time she's abused an official position to try to bully and intimidate her fellow Americans for daring to exercise their constitutional rights.

Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard has a great piece on Lerner's behavior while she was working for the FEC. She viciously targeted the Christian Coalition, and while they were cleared eventually of any wrongdoing, they had to spend huge amounts in legal fees and expenses to fight what amounted to a jihad against them. It was so bad and so biased that according to Hemmingway's story, when the Christian Coalition's lead attorney heard she'd moved over to the IRS, he claims he remembers thinking, “Wow, this means the not for profit division is gearing up politically.”

He certainly had that right.

IRS Was Far Easier On Muslim Groups Than On Conservatives, Evangelicals

Corporate and tax attorney Maryam Khan Ansari who specializes in helping groups obtain tax exempt status from the IRS wrote an article in Illume magazine entitled "Do Muslim Nonprofits Have it Easier Than Tea Party Groups?" that sheds some interesting light on a few things. I'd provide a direct link which was here, except it's mysteriously disappeared into the memory hole:

Per the PJ Tater:

Having spent most of my legal career working with tax exempt entities, the IRS scrutiny on the Tea Party isn’t news to me. In my days at large law firms, I handled a portfolio of nonprofit Tea Party organizations and saw firsthand how the IRS treated them when it came to granting exemptions.

In many cases, the organizations fight tooth-and-nail to get through IRS scrutiny, often facing pages of questions from the IRS on their activities.

In some instances, the IRS went about it in a more roundabout way, calling into question the organization’s use of funds, its outside grants and operational issues.

Several of the applications were even sent up to the IRS’ National Office for elevated scrutiny.

The experiences mirror the allegations of the American Center for Law and Justice, who represented 27 organizations.

On the flip side, I’ve worked with numerous Muslim organizations as well. And every single application of a Muslim nonprofit has gone through the IRS, with less scrutiny. Of course, they still did get scrutiny– after all, Islamophobia is still pretty rampant everywhere and it’s inaccurate to say that they got a free pass. But truth be told, they never got a 10-page questionnaire on each and every one of their grantees.

And guess what?The IRS has also granted The Muslim Brotherhood front group  CAIR its tax-exempt status back  again despite their foreign-funding, status as an unindicted co-conspirator in terrorism  and numerous failures to report.

Some animals are very much more equal than others, especially when it comes to the Obama Administration and the IRS.

The IRS Scandal...Just The Tip Of The Iceberg

It says a great deal about the degenerate nature of our media that the above exchange, between Rep. Mike Kelly and outgoing IRS head Steve Miller is being aired on CSPAN and not on every network in America.

Note the respinse of the spectators once Rep. Kelly stopped speaking.

We now know that the IRS specifically targeted conservative groups seeking 501 C3 and 501c4 tax exemptions for invasive questioning and administrative delays in an attempt to deny them the same privileges many Left wing and Democrat advocacy groups have.

We now know that the top levels of the IRS (and almost certainly beyond the Agency) were fully aware of what was going on but made a calculated decision not to touch this until after President Obama's re-election:

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

We now know that donors to Mitt Romney and to conservative cause like Frank VanderSloot, Hal Scherz and a host of others were audited, many for the first time once it became known they were backing conservative of Republican causes. In Frank VanderSloot's case, he hadn't been audited in over thirty years...until he donated almost a million dollars to conservative causes and to Mitt Romney.

We know that Lois Lerner, who was overseeing tax-exempt groups for the IRS, finally acknowledged, under pressure of a looming investigative report, some of what the IRS was doing...and unsuccessfully tried palming it off on what she described as a few low level employees in Cincinnati, Ohio. And we now know that she outright lie, because as Reuters reported, high-level IRS officials, including its chief counsel, knew in August 2011 about the targeting. And the entire corrupt operation reached its peak around May of 2012, in the midst of President Obama's re-election campaign.

In a particularly outrageous insult to our intelligence, President Obama made made some obviously ingenuous remarks of how shocking this all was to him, and the director of the agency, Steve Miller 'resigned'...except, as Miller himself revealed, he was scheduled to leave in June anyway!

We know, too, that the IRS outright lied about  the existence of  a large number of documents related to the policy of targeting, Pro Israel, Conservative, Republican and Tea Party organizations in response to a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, even though the documents were later discovered by the IRS inspector general.

And we also know that Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive (and registered Democrat) in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 the targeting of conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment got bonuses and a raise during her tenure for a job well done:

Ingram received a $7,000 bonus in 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner from the IRS, then a $34,440 bonus in 2010, $35,400 in 2011 and $26,550 last year, for a total of $103,390. Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period.

Bonuses as large as those awarded to Ingram normally require presidential approval, according to the Office of Personnel official regulations.

Not only that, but Ingraham is being rewarded with a promotion. Thanks to her outstanding work in violating the rights of her fellow Americans, she's been promoted to - wait for it - head the IRS division enforcing ObamaCare.

Lois Lerner's bonus last year, by the way? a whopping $42,531 in 2012. Not bad for someone who works for the IRS but by her own admission 'isn't good at math'.

That's what we know so far.

What we don't know is how far up this goes.

It's obvious that the word was out from upstairs - 'get the Tea Party, get the Republicans, go after the opponents of the Democrats'.

Outgoing head Steve Miller says he used to know who was responsible for initiating these policies but he, um, forgot.

I think we're going to find out, and the question isn't going to go away...what did David Axelrod, Jim Messina and David Plouffe whop ran Obama's re-election campaign know? What did President Obama know? And when did he know it?

IRS Caught Red Handed - Admits It Targeted Conservative Groups

After lying about it for months, the Internal Revenue Service has finally admitted that it deliberately targeted 'conservative' and 'Tea Party' groups for special audits and reviews during the 2012 election season.

The IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, Lois Lerner, said in a telephone press conference that between 2010 and 2012, about 75 conservative groups were 'inappropriately treated' and received extra scrutiny when seeking tax exempt status. The IRS routinely flagged groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, she said.

Ms. Lerner didn't mention it because no one brought it up at the press conference, but the IRS also targeted pro Israel advocacy groups as well. My friend Lori Lowenthal Marcus, an attorney and the president of Z Street could tell you a few things about that.

The IRS is a federal agency under White House control. Many groups whose politics or positions didn't agree with the Obama Administration's were repeatedly harassed and received lengthy forms to fill out asking for their list of donors and demanding information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.Many were ending up dropping their attempt to seek tax exempt status because it simply was made too onerous a process by the IRS - which was exactly what was intended. Needless to say, this is not only against federal law but against the IRS's own stated policies.

Ms. Lerner's press conference was, well, ludicrous. She and her surrogates were actually hit with real questions by the usually servile press corps, many of which they unable or unwilling to answer.

For instance, after Ms. Lerner asserted that there were Left wing groups targeted too, she was asked to name one. Ummm, she couldn't.

She contradicted herself repeatedly when she was asked if anyone at the IRS is being disciplined for breaking the agency's own rules, then said there was no disciplinary action, and finally ended up saying she wouldn’t comment.

She admitted that the only reason the IRS finally came clean was because 'someone told me' ( she wouldn't say who- that the story was going to break anyway on Friday morning.

"The Ways and Means Committee has persistently pushed the IRS to explain why it appeared to be unfairly targeting some political groups over others — a charge they repeatedly denied," said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.

"The IRS's 'too little too late' response is unacceptable, and I will continue to work to ensure there are protections in place so no American, regardless of political affiliation, has their right to free speech threatened by the IRS," Boustany said.

“I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not underway at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday. “An apology won’t put this issue to rest.”

The Tea Party Patriots, one of the groups targeted and one of th elargest groups of its kind issued a statement rejecting the IRS’s explanation and demanded the resignations of the officials involved, as well as calling on President Obama to apologize for ignoring the continued complaints of the targeted groups.

“The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power,” said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach.”

It does, but just like President Obama's illegal campaign donations and his suppression of the active duty military vote, nothing much is going to come of this. The regime got away with it, and the election's over now. As Hillary Clinton might say, 'what does it matter?'

But this demonstrated contempt for American citizens is a continuing theme with this president and his administration, and that's something that bears remembering in 2014 and 2016.