Judicial Watch obtained IRS documents Thursday revealing Senator John McCain’s former staff director urged the IRS, including Lois Lerner, to engage in “financially ruinous” targeting of non-profit organizations [conservatives].

The Obama IRS scandal is not over – as Judicial Watch continues to uncover smoking gun documents that raise questions about how the Obama administration weaponized the IRS, the FEC, FBI, and DOJ to target the First Amendment rights of Americans. https://t.co/QdmtNuvyi6 — Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) June 21, 2018

JUDICIAL WATCH REPORTS

It is a smoking gun. It makes one wonder how the FBI couldn’t find any culpability on the part of Lois Lerner or any of the corrupt people at the FBI.

Judicial Watch today released newly obtained internal IRS documents, including material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” Kerner was appointed by President Trump as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.

The explosive exchange was contained in notes taken by IRS employees at an April 30, 2013, meeting between Kerner, Lerner, and other high-ranking IRS officials. Just ten days following the meeting, former IRS director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner admitted that the IRS had a policy of improperly and deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from conservative non-profit groups.

McCain hoped to shut down political speech with Citizens United but lost so he found another way.

Lerner and other IRS officials met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Senator McCain had been the chief sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the “worst decisions I have ever seen.”

To silence the righer, Kerner recommended “financially ruinous” harassment.

In the full notes of an April 30 meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, then chief of staff to IRS commissioner, Nikole Flax, and other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous.” In response, Lerner responded that “it is her job to oversee it all:”

President of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton said it’s more proof the agency was weaponized under Obama:

“The Obama IRS scandal is bipartisan – McCain and Democrats who wanted to regulate political speech lost at the Supreme Court, so they sought to use the IRS to harass innocent Americans. The Obama IRS scandal is not over – as Judicial Watch continues to uncover smoking gun documents that raise questions about how the Obama administration weaponized the IRS, the FEC, FBI, and DOJ to target the First Amendment rights of Americans.”

Let us not forget the corrupt DoJ/FBI worked with the IRS. They looked for ways to prosecute the conservatives and religious people criminally for their political speech.

Can’t trust him. Mueller’s FBI and Obama DOJ worked with Lois Lerner’s IRS to prosecute the very groups the Obama IRS was suppressing. @JudicialWatch got the docs.https://t.co/Bwq9ifswu9 @JudicialWatch @RealDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/rjQzf1h0W4 — Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) June 21, 2018