Sen. Cruz takes on more traditional GOP target: the IRS

A U.S. District Court judge in Washington threatened to hold IRS officials in contempt for not following an order to produce documents in the scandal. The documents also show that at least one group received an inquiry from the IRS in order to buy time and keep the organization from contacting Congress.

Lois Learner, the embattled head of the Tax Exempt Organizations division at the time of the improprieties, was effectively forced to fall on her sword.

Sullivan ordered a status hearing Wednesday after Judicial Watch complained his earlier orders were not being followed by the Justice Department, which is defending the IRS.

Judge Sullivan referenced his contempt findings against Justice Department prosecutors in the prosecution of late Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and reminded the Justice Department attorney he had the ability to detain him for contempt. Warning he would tolerate no further disregard of his orders, Judge Sullivan said, “I will haul into court the IRS Commissioner to hold him personally in contempt”. (However, the agency did admit that numerous backup tapes were physically destroyed, something that enraged members of Congress sufficiently to call for the potential impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.).

Judicial Watch, the conservative activist groups that crusades against what it sees as governmental overreach, has released a trove of emails to and from former IRS employee Lois Lerner.

Judicial Watch alleges that the Justice Department has deliberately disobeyed Judge Sullivan’s order to produce the already recovered 1,800 emails on a weekly basis in order to meet obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Department never went back to the court when it could not meet the order, angering Sullivan.

Judicial Watch claims that the new batch of emails makes a key connection that opponents of the administration have been searching for: knowledge of the targeting by officials in Washington, DC. As expressed at the hearing, the Government’s reasoning is nonsensical. Federal Judge Emmett Sullivan in Minute Order. How could all those congressional Democrats – some of whom are unindicted co-conspirators in the scandal – have derailed hearings and turned them into clown shows, if the public knew months ago what Judicial Watch is uncovering today?

The lawsuit focused on the 2013 scandal in which the IRS acknowledged agents had improperly singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.

“I represent 38 groups that were targeted by the IRS”.

At a Senate hearing Wednesday, the Republican presidential candidate called the IRS the embodiment of everything that is wrong with government.

“Throughout his tenure, Commissioner Koskinen obstructed these Congressional invesitigations”, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, wrote on Monday. His obstruction takes the form of failure to comply with a congressional subpoena, failure to testify truthfully, and failure to preserve and produce up to 24,000 emails relevant to the investigation.