If conservatives are looking to the courts for justice, I’d suggest, go to Wimbledon; you’re not likely to get it in our current legal/judicial system (note to Democrats who may have stumbled onto this site by mistake: “Wimbledon”, you know TENNIS ‘courts”; it’s a joke but US courts are too, they’re just not at all funny).
Last week Federal judge Reggie Walton ruled on the long running suit against the IRS for its targeting of conservative groups leading up to and after the 2012 elections.
Judge Reggie was widely touted by conservative pundits everywhere as a “no-nonsense” jurist, a real standup guy, unafraid, unassailably honest, rightly feared by overreaching bureaucrats. Gretta Van Sustern practically swooned over judge Walton’s taking on this case. Even Rush Limbaugh was elated that Eric Holder and the IRS would finally get their comeuppance.
And more good news for conservatives and America was the announcement that another federal judge, Judge Emmett Sullivan, would hear the case of the IRS “loss” of emails and other documentation related to the IRS scandal, much of it potential evidence under subpoena.
JUSTICE IN AMERICA. Either way I win you lose, so suck it fool.
So, what has happened? Has Obama and his gang of thugs been brought to their knees?
Uh, well, no, as last week’s headlines noted. Judge Reggie,”No-nonsense”, Walton threw out the targeting case against the IRS. You know why? The short version: It’s all been “fixed” (you can say that again!), the conservative groups now have their proper IRS status, so the case is moot.
Now let’s get this straight regarding the “no-Nonsense” Judge, Reggie Walton’s, decision in the “True the Vote” (TTV) lawsuit against the IRS for targeting it and other conservative groups. TTV filed for tax exempt status in 2010. In 2013, it was learned that the IRS had targeted conservative groups like TTV, delaying their applications for tax exempt status and improperly demanding information it had no business getting. This was all admitted to by the IRS.
TTV brought its suit shortly after this was disclosed. They were granted tax exempt status in 2013. It took over a year and a half for the case to drag through the courts. In the meantime it has become known that potential evidence of serious wrongdoing by the IRS related to these cases was destroyed. Last week Judge Walton announced his decision, dismissing the case because TTV had gotten their status so there’s no problem.
Gee Judge Reggie, no problem? What about the 2012 election? What about the costs incurred by TTV and other conservative groups because of the IRS ‘s improper behavior? What about the impact on the outcome of the 2012 elections? Would the TTV have gotten the tax exempt status it was eligible for if the IRS wrongdoing had not become known? No problem? Sorry Reggie, but that’s non-sense!
For a sharp, concise report and analysis of this, in our opinion, miscarriage, here is the Breitbart story.
And, thus, the Obama strategy succeeds once more: lie, stonewall, slow walk , block efforts by Congress, the courts, the segment of the media which isn’t in the tank for Obama to obtain evidence. Do the latter by whatever means that works: executive privilege, destruction of evidence , obstruction. By the time a case, however egregious, whatever the mountain of evidence, gets to the courts, the decision comes too late for any possible remedy.
Ans so , even in the unlikely event the court does not uphold the government it is to no avail. This we saw in the Supreme Court ruling that Obama’s “non-recess recess appointments” to the NLRB were unconstitutional. By the time the Court got around to that case, the illegitimate Board had made more than a hundred rulings, all of which were determined to be illegitimate, but none of which were undone because of all the cost to re-litigate and the “damage” to the system reversals might cause.
We saw a related incidence of heads the challengers of government power lose and tails they lose with Chief Justice Roberts in his infamous, tortured, illogical opinion on ‘Obamacare” (also an example of how even the most respected jurist in the land can be willing to disregard the law and the Constitution even if it means making an historic fool of himself). For decades to come, historians and honest legal experts will try to figure what influences could have been exerted on Chief Justice Roberts to compel him to write such a ludicrous opinion. He denied the government’s main justification and instead invented one for them. The challengers were right but the government wins anyway.
Similarly, while the GAO has found the Bergdahl exchange of terrorist detainees to be illegal, there is no remedy…unless the five Islamist terrorists are willing to return to Gitmo.
And, what has happened with the case that that other “no-nonsense” federal judge, Emmit Sullivan, is hearing? Well, let’s see:
Washington Examiner, June 28, 2014 Obama and IRS Worst Nightmare: Judge Emmet G. Sullivan
“Obama and the IRS’s worst nightmare has come true. The Judicial Watch lawsuit against the IRS drew Judge Emmit Sullivan. The name may not be familiar to you, but anyone who tracks his cases can tell you he’s tough but fair. Fair is the last thing Obama wants. The IRS ditto. The IRS will now have to explain to the judge why they did not tell the court the emails were missing . . .
“Judge Sullivan wasted no time setting a date of July 10th to hear the case. It would not be wise for the IRS to ask for a postponement. And slipping a coverup past him is like trying to sneak a steak past a pit bull.”
And then, this, on August, a Washington Examiner editorial, Federal judge tells IRS to come clean on targeting, again
“IRS officials should have known better than to trifle with U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan. Thanks to his ruling last week, Americans may soon learn much more on why a key IRS employee’s emails remain beyond the reach of Congress. After IRS employees were caught in 2013 systematically delaying and harassing Tea Party andconservative groups seeking non-profit status, Lois Lerner, former head of the agency’s tax-exempt organizations division, pleaded the Fifth before Congress.
“Since then, it has emerged that many of Lerner’s emails from the key period in question were conveniently lost in June 2011. Her hard drive allegedly crashed just days after the House Ways and Means Committee requested emails on a related controversy involving IRS harassment of donors to conservative non-profits. The data on her hard drive was subsequently deemed irretrievable, and it was destroyed in August 2011 . . .
“Americans who are dissatisfied with the IRS’s explanation for the missing emails are not alone. Sullivan initiated his own inquiry into the Lerner emails issue in connection with a case now before him — a Freedom of Information Actlawsuit brought by the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch. Sullivan’s Aug. 14, 2014, order directs the IRS to produce by Aug. 22, 2014, specific information on IRS destruction of government records. Specifically, Sullivan has ordered the agency to provide details about its policy for tracking hard drives when they are serviced or scrapped; its policy on the magnetic destruction of data on hard drives; and “information about its efforts to recover missing Lerner emails from alternate sources (i.e., Blackberry, iPhone, iPad).” Finally, the agency must point the court to “the outside vendor who can verify the IRS’s destruction policies concerning hard drives.”
Hey! Great! This oughtta do it. Well, maybe not yet . . .
Judicial Watch recently requested additional discovery. Judge Emmet Sullivan, the federal judge in the District of Columbia, has just given the IRS until October 17 to file its response to that motion. Judge Sullivan has the power to appoint—and has previously—appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Department of Justice. …
Nothing more has been heard about a response, due October 17 other than the following (so much for “no-nonsense).”
From TaxProf blog, Paul Caron, Pepperdine University School of Law, October 25, 2014
The IRS Scandal, Day 534
Letter From Dave Camp (Chair, House Ways & Means Committee) to Jacob Lew (Secretary, U.S. Treasury Department) (Oct. 22, 2014):
Some of the key questions remaining in the investigation into the IRS’ targeting of conservatives groups are: who at the White House knew what was going on; when did they know it; and, what action did they take upon learning about it? Your office is now refusing to make available until after the election the very person that could unlock that mystery. This is completely unacceptable , especially for an Administration that once pledged to be the most open and transparent ever.
On September 16, 20 14, five weeks ago, I first requested that you make available for an interview Hannah Stott-Bumstead, a Treasury Department counsel, who, based on transcribed interviews ofIRS perso1mel, appears to be the first person at Treasmy to be told by the IRS that it had lost Lois Lerner’s emails. Notwithstanding President Obama ‘s pledge to “work with Congress as it performs its oversight role …[a]nd…make sure that we are working hand in hand with Congress to get this thing fixed,” to date your Department has refused to allow the Committee to directly question Ms. Stott-Bumstead. 1 In addition to reiterating my request to interview Ms. Stott-Bumstead without delay, I am requesting additional information about what Ms. Stott-Bumstead and others at Treasury did with this information, including how the White House was informed, and why the decision was made to not infonn Congress until months later
The Hill, Bernie Becker – 10/22/14: GOP: Treasury Impeding IRS Investigation:
A top House Republican accused the Treasury Department on Wednesday of impeding the congressional inquiry into the IRS’s Tea Party issue by not allowing investigators access to a key department lawyer.
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said the Treasury counsel, Hannah Stott-Bumsted, appears to have been the first department aide to learn that the IRS couldn’t find a number of emails from Lois Lerner. Lerner was the IRS official at the center of the agency’s improper targeting of Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status.
But Camp now says that Treasury officials won’t make Stott-Bumsted available until at least after the election, even though he first requested an interview with her more than five weeks ago.
Justice in America as practiced by the Obamanation . . . lie, stonewall, slow walk, fait accompli, you get the picture. And the judges? DLH
