Prosecuting Lerner now imperative

Prosecuting Lerner now imperative

Gary Gross - Now that it’s been revealed that Lois Lerner targeted sitting US Sen. Chuck Grassley with an audit, the debate over whether to prosecute Ms. Lerner should be over. I say should be because we don’t have a real attorney general or a real Justice Department. If we did, we’d already have an indictment in hand and a trial date would’ve been set.

The emails appear to show Lerner mistakenly received an invitation intended for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in 2012.

The event organizer, whose name is not disclosed, apparently offered to pay for Grassley’s wife to attend the event, which caught Lerner’s attention. The December 2012 emails show that in response, Lerner suggested to an IRS colleague that the case be referred for an audit.

“Looked like they were inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?” she wrote.

Her colleague, though, pushed back on the idea, saying an offer to pay for his wife is “not prohibited on its face.” There is no indication from the emails that Lerner pursued the issue any further.

What’s disturbing is the fact that Lerner is a lawyer within the IRS. Apparently, she didn’t know that this offer didn’t violate the law. Last night on Greta, she said that Lerner should know better. Then she said that everything is fine if the Grassleys report the payment on their income tax filings. Then Greta threw in a final caveat of import: At the time she wanted Grassley audited, it wasn’t clear if Sen. Grassley would accept the speaking engagement.

It’s stunning that Ms. Lerner targeted a sitting US senator. This clearly proves that, at least in her mind, the IRS should be weaponized against conservatives. This also proves that President Obama’s statement that there “isn’t even a smidgen of corruption” within the IRS is pure BS.
Lois Lerner is exceptionally corrupt. Ditto with John Koskinen and Steven Miller.

Grassley said in a statement that this kind of incident fuels concerns people have about “political targeting” at the highest levels. “It’s very troubling that a simple clerical mix-up could get a taxpayer immediately referred for an IRS exam without any due diligence from agency officials,” the senator said.

That type of corruption should make indicting and prosecuting Ms. Lerner an imperative. Unfortunately, like I said before, that won’t happen because Attorney General Holder and President Obama are as corrupted by ideology as Ms. Lerner is.