A Democratic senator sought Justice Department and IRS Criminal prosecutions of conservatives in 2013, newly-released federal documents reveal.

The Department of Justice documents reveal email conversations between its officials and the staff of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, about possible criminal prosecution of tea party groups for alleged violation of IRS rules, says Judicial Watch, a government watchdog which obtained the material.

The conversations were in preparation for a briefing by Justice Department officials for Whitehouse's staff and for a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing.

In one exchange, Whitehouse says:



"I would urge that the Department and the Service get together and rethink whether in these two specific areas, which I think bear little resemblance to traditional tax violations and are in fact very plain-vanilla criminal cases …"

He asks whether "the Department could not proceed to… put together a criminal case showing a fairly straightforward false statement or a fairly [straightforward] shell corporation disclosure violation."



According to Judicial Watch, the organizations Whitehouse mentioned included American Future Fund, Crossroads GPS, Americans for Responsible Leadership, Freedom Path, American is Not Stupid, Inc., RightChange.com II, and A Better America Now — all of them conservative organizations.



"The Obama IRS scandal includes abuse of power by Democrats in Congress who wanted to jail Obama's political opponents to help secure Obama's reelection," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

"And Americans should know that the courts have recently concluded the Obama IRS abuses haven't stopped — even as we approach another presidential election."