“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’” Rep. Schock said while grilling ousted IRS interim chief Steven Miller, .

“Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501(c)3 applicant?” the Republican congressman asked. “The content of one’s prayers?”

“It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either,” Miller answered, adding later that her would be “surprised” if a question of that sort was asked of any conservative group.

The report Schock is referring to comes from Thomas More Society, a not-for-profit organization committed to fighting for religious liberties:

Coalition for Life of Iowa found itself in the IRS’s crosshairs when the group applied for tax exempt status in October 2008. Nearly ten months of interrogation about the group’s opposition to Planned Parenthood included a demand by a Ms. Richards from the IRS’ Cincinnati office unlawfully insisted that all board members sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket/protest Planned Parenthood. Further questioning by the IRS requested detailed information about the content of the group’s prayer meetings, educational seminars, and signs their members hold outside Planned Parenthood.

Here’s a complete copy of the Thomas More Society’s case:

–

Congressman: IRS Demanded to Know Content of Pro-Life Group’s Prayers

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And although a slightly bored-looking Miller spent most of the four-hour interrogation doing his best U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder impersonation (i.e. playing the “I don’t know” game), some important facts came to light today.

Here are the top four most important takeaways from Friday’s hearing [in no particular order]:

4. Plant Confirmation

The question that prompted IRS official Lois Lerner to apologize last week for IRS misconduct was planted, National Review Online’s Kevin Williamson theorized Tuesday.

He explains:

The question at the ABA conference came from Washington-based tax lawyer Celia Roady, a lobbyist in the firm of Morgan Lewis.

Roady is certainly well-versed in the issue at hand: She was named to the influential Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities in 2010 by Douglas Shulman, at that time commissioner of the IRS. Lerner is the director for tax-exempt organizations at the IRS.

Roady was serving on the Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities while tea-party groups and other conservative organizations were being targeted by the IRS. Not exactly a question out of the blue — Capitol Hill sources described the question as “planted” and say the IRS has informally admitted as much.

It would appear, according to Miller himself, that Williamson’s suspicions were spot-on and that the question was indeed from a planted audience member:

It’s a good thing Miller answered the way he did (being under oath and all that), because in a statement obtained by Talking Points Memo, Roady said she was most absolutely a plant:

On May 9, I received a call from Lois Lerner, who told me that she wanted to address an issue after her prepared remarks at the ABA Tax Section’s Exempt Organizations Committee Meeting, and asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks.

I agreed to do so, and she then gave me the question that I asked at the meeting the next day. We had no discussion thereafter on the topic of the question, nor had we spoken about any of this before I received her call. She did not tell me, and I did not know, how she would answer the question.

Obviously, the fact that this was all started with by a rehearsed question from an audience member raises some serious questions.

“The planted question reveals coordination at high levels of the IRS with regard to the disclosure of the sensitive information,” NRO notes.

“Lerner and Miller testified before Congress two days before Lerner addressed the ABA, but said nothing about the IRS’s scrutiny of tea-party groups.”

3. Treasury Knew About the Audit During the 2012 Election

Treasury officials were informed in June 2012 that the Treasury Department’s inspector general was looking into the Internal Revenue Service’s process for screening “politically active” groups applying for tax exemptions.

This means that top Obama officials knew something was up during the 2012 presidential election.

However, some important clarifications need to be made. From the New York Times:

At the first Congressional hearing into the I.R.S. scandal, J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel of his audit on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly thereafter.”

[…]

Mr. George told Treasury officials about the allegation as part of a routine briefing about ongoing audits he would be conducting in the coming year, and he did not tell the officials of his conclusions that the targeting had been improper, he said.

Audits are not that uncommon and, as George stressed, he did not reveal the results of the IG’s audit to Treasury officials. He merely informed them that his office was conducting an audit.

Watch for yourself [relevant comments at the 01:27:40 mark]

Still, the “revelation nonetheless raised a fresh set of questions about who was aware of the problem within the Obama administration,” the Wall Street Journal notes.

2. More Investigations Are on the Way

If IRS officials think the IG report is all they have to deal with, they may be grossly mistaken.

“There are additional investigations coming down the pipeline that potentially could uncover [partisan behavior within the IRS], isn’t that correct?” asked Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY).

“That is an accurate statement, sir,” George replied.

Later, while Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) was speaking, George was asked whether his office is performing additional investigations into the IRS’ behavior.

“I’m not in a position, sir, to discuss whether or not –”

“That means you are!” Rep. Griffin interjected.

Watch here [relevant comments at 01:29:17 and 01:43:50]

On a side note, if the IG is conducting additional investigations into the IRS’ partisan behavior and had planned on keeping it quiet, well, that was all undone today.

1. Why Didn’t IRS Officials Say Anything About This Earlier?

Miller, who was appointed interim head on Nov. 9, 2012, knew of the conservative targeting in May of the same year.

However, during a congressional hearing in July 2012, he made no mention of the scandal.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) was unimpressed with the disgraced IRS official’s non-disclosure.

“The law … requires you to not only tell the truth, but to tell the whole truth,” an annoyed Ryan said. “You ‘cannot conceal or cover up, by any trick scheme or device, any material fact.’ How was that not misleading this committee?” Rep. Ryan asked.

“You knew the targeting was taking place. You know the terms ‘Tea Party’ [and] ‘Patriots’ were being used. You just acknowledged a minute ago they were outrageous. And then when you were asked about this after you were briefed about this, that was the answer you gave us? How can we not conclude that you mislead this committee?” he added.

“I did not mislead the committee. I stand by my answer then, I stand by my answer now. Harassment discussion that was part of that question implies political motivation,” Miller responded. “Um, there is a discussion going on. There is no political motivation.”

“I answered the question truthfully,” he answered.

Miller’s “answer” is reminiscent of the excuse offered by Lerner when she was asked last week why the IRS decided now (of all times) to apologize for its behavior: No one ever asked.

–

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Featured image Getty Images. This post has been updated.

The Internal Revenue Service claims the disclosure of conservative groups’ confidential information to investigative journalism outfit ProPublica was “inadvertent and unintentional.”

After the IRS admitted to deliberately targeting conservative organizations that applied for tax-exempt status, ProPublica reported it had received nine still-pending applications as part of its request for information about 67 nonprofits last year. The pending applications should have remained confidential.

“When these two issues were previously raised concerning the potential unauthorized disclosures of 501(c)(4) application information, we immediately referred these cases to TIGTA [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration] for a comprehensive review. In both instances, TIGTA found these instances to be inadvertent and unintentional disclosures by the employees involved,” read an IRS statement to ProPublica sent Friday.

ProPublica bills itself as an independent nonprofit investigative journalism outlet, but has been described as liberal by its detractors and is supported in part by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

An unnamed California healthcare provider is suing the embattled Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and 15 agents for allegedly seizing 60,000,000 medical records belonging to “more than 10,000,000 Americans, including at least 1,000,000 Californians.”

The complaint, posted by National Review, states that IRS agents’ search warrant for financial information did “not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter.”

The medical records reportedly included sensitive private information about individuals’ gynecological counseling, sexual and drug treatment, and psychological services received.

Courthouse News Service, which first reported on the story, says Robert E. Barnes of Malibu is representing parties in the class action lawsuit.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/17/irs-official-wont-say-who-is-responsible-for-scandal-video/#ixzz2TbJnMXy8

The IRS and the entire Obama administration are under scrutiny after revelations last week that hundreds of conservative organizations suffered undue harassment and intrusion by the IRS after applying for tax-exempt status – and now at least one tea-party leader tells WND the scandal interfered with with his group’s mission.

Groups with “tea party” or “patriot” were especially targeted. Larry Nordvig, executive director of the Richmond Tea Party, explained to WND how he first suspected the IRS was going far beyond its normal duties in delaying and demanding information from the group.

“There were two things that tipped us off,” he said. “No. 1 was the length of time. Our organization figured it would take maybe six months to a year. We were willing to put up with that. They do need to take a good, hard look to make sure you are who you say you are. That’s fine. That’s legitimate. But after it went past a year, it felt like stonewalling, especially when you’re coming up on over two years. The time element was one.

Nordvig continued, “The second thing that tipped us off was the second round of questions that they sent and that was a 12-group set of a total of about 55 questions. But those questions had sub-questions, and those sub-questions had bullets. It was extremely hard information to try to dig up. It produced over 500 pages of documents, and they only gave us two weeks to do it. We knew something was wrong right there.”

Many of the questions demanded very personal information, including every piece of literature ever published, background on every speaker and copies of every speech from each event, lists of donors and how much they contributed. Nordvig said there was much more.

“They wanted all of our communications, so any kind of email of Facebook communication with any of our members, which obviously would tip off their identity. They wanted to know who we associated with, who our members associated with. One of the most alarming ones was they wanted pictures of our web pages, including the member log-in only pages, which would have been very private. We did not give that to them,” said Nordvig, who noted that the demand for donor information was also greatly disturbing.

“The entire purpose of us filing for that 501(c)(4) status is so that our donors can remain anonymous. If they can’t remain anonymous, they don’t donate money. I think whoever set this up, this was one of their primary goals,” he said.

Nordvig said those behind this IRS strategy succeeded in part to limit the impact tea-party groups could make.

“It knocks you off your mission because instead of doing what we’re supposed to be doing, which is political education and advocacy, we’re dealing with miles and miles of red tape and stacks of documents of more than 500 pieces,” he said. “We lost a lot of donors because of this whole cloud hanging over us. People either didn’t want to touch it, or they were afraid their information would be made public. So we literally lost money.”

“Now we find out that was on purpose. It definitely impacted our ability to accomplish our mission,” he said.

The Richmond Tea Party subsequently sought legal counsel from the American Center for Law and Justice. It didn’t take long for the group to learn there were plenty of like-minded organizations dealing with the same IRS meddling.

Thus far, two IRS officials have been asked to resign. President Obama insists he didn’t know about the scandal until May 10. Nordvig isn’t buying that explanation, and he does not see these early actions as anywhere close to being severe enough in terms of punishment.

“No, we are absolutely not satisfied at this point. That has to be made clear. This is an extremely serious event that every single American should be very, very worried about. What you’re talking about is the government knowingly targeting political groups using the second most powerful arm of the government, second only to the military is the IRS. They can destroy your lives,” Nordvig said. “All you have to do is replace tea party with your individual name or you can put in green, justice, progressive, whatever. Put yourself in our shoes. If the power flip-flopped up in the White House, I don’t think you would want this kind of attention.”

Nordvig also explained what needs to happen before he is satisfied.

“We need to find out how high this goes, how wide it goes, how deep it goes. The more we find out, it’s like peeling back those onion layers. The more we find out, the worse this thing gets. That’s why we won’t be satisfied until we have a complete, thorough congressional investigation because they’re not coming clean otherwise,” Nordvig said.

U.S. Troops in Afghanistan (Photo: Senior Airman Sean Martin, U.S. Air Force)

The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the nation a window into the stunning military-style capabilities of our local law enforcement agencies. For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the United States have benefitted from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training, incentives offered in the ongoing “War on Drugs.” For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.

The lines blurred even further Monday as a new dynamic was introduced to the militarization of domestic law enforcement. By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.

The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule:

Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.

Bruce Afran, a civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University, calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military,” and says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.”

A defense official who declined to be named takes a different view of the rule, claiming, “The authorization has been around over 100 years; it’s not a new authority. It’s been there but it hasn’t been exercised. This is a carryover of domestic policy.” Moreover, he insists the Pentagon doesn’t “want to get involved in civilian law enforcement. It’s one of those red lines that the military hasn’t signed up for.” Nevertheless, he says, “every person in the military swears an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to defend that Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”

One of the more disturbing aspects of the new procedures that govern military command on the ground in the event of a civil disturbance relates to authority. Not only does it fail to define what circumstances would be so severe that the president’s authorization is “impossible,” it grants full presidential authority to “Federal military commanders.” According to the defense official, a commander is defined as follows: “Somebody who’s in the position of command, has the title commander. And most of the time they are centrally selected by a board, they’ve gone through additional schooling to exercise command authority.”

As it is written, this “commander” has the same power to authorize military force as the president in the event the president is somehow unable to access a telephone. (The rule doesn’t address the statutory chain of authority that already exists in the event a sitting president is unavailable.) In doing so, this commander must exercise judgment in determining what constitutes, “wanton destruction of property,” “adequate protection for Federal property,” “domestic violence,” or “conspiracy that hinders the execution of State or Federal law,” as these are the circumstances that might be considered an “emergency.”

“These phrases don’t have any legal meaning,” says Afran. “It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”

Afran also expresses apprehension over the government’s authority “to engage temporarily in activities necessary to quell large-scale disturbances.”

“Governments never like to give up power when they get it,” says Afran. “They still think after twelve years they can get intelligence out of people in Guantanamo. Temporary is in the eye of the beholder. That’s why in statutes we have definitions. All of these statutes have one thing in common and that is that they have no definitions. How long is temporary? There’s none here. The definitions are absurdly broad.”

The U.S. military is prohibited from intervening in domestic affairs except where provided under Article IV of the Constitution in cases of domestic violence that threaten the government of a state or the application of federal law. This provision was further clarified both by the Insurrection Act of 1807 and a post-Reconstruction law known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA). The Insurrection Act specifies the circumstances under which the president may convene the armed forces to suppress an insurrection against any state or the federal government. Furthermore, where an individual state is concerned, consent of the governor must be obtained prior to the deployment of troops. The PCA—passed in response to federal troops that enforced local laws and oversaw elections during Reconstruction—made unauthorized employment of federal troops a punishable offense, thereby giving teeth to the Insurrection Act.

Together, these laws limit executive authority over domestic military action. Yet Monday’s official regulatory changes issued unilaterally by the Department of Defense is a game-changer.

The stated purpose of the updated rule is “support in Accordance With the Posse Comitatus Act,” but in reality it undermines the Insurrection Act and PCA in significant and alarming ways. The most substantial change is the notion of “civil disturbance” as one of the few “domestic emergencies” that would allow for the deployment of military assets on American soil.

To wit, the relatively few instances that federal troops have been deployed for domestic support have produced a wide range of results. Situations have included responding to natural disasters and protecting demonstrators during the Civil Rights era to, disastrously, the Kent State student massacre and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee.

Michael German, senior policy counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), noted in a 2009 Daily Kos article that, “there is no doubt that the military is very good at many things. But recent history shows that restraint in their new-found domestic role is not one of them.”

At the time German was referring to the military’s expanded surveillance techniques and hostile interventions related to border control and the War on Drugs. And in fact, many have argued that these actions have already upended the PCA in a significant way. Even before this most recent rule change, the ACLU was vocal in its opposition to the Department of Defense (DoD) request to expand domestic military authority “in the event of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high yield explosive (CBRNE) incidents.” The ACLU’s position is that civilian agencies are more than equipped to handle such emergencies since 9/11. (ACLU spokespersons in Washington D.C. declined, however, to be interviewed for this story.)

But while outcomes of military interventions have varied, the protocol by which the president works cooperatively with state governments has remained the same. The president is only allowed to deploy troops to a state upon request of its governor. Even then, the military—specifically the National Guard—is there to provide support for local law enforcement and is prohibited from engaging in any activities that are outside of this scope, such as the power to arrest.

Eric Freedman, a constitutional law professor from Hofstra University, also calls the ruling “an unauthorized power grab.” According to Freedman, “The Department of Defense does not have the authority to grant itself by regulation any more authority than Congress has granted it by statute.” Yet that’s precisely what it did. This wasn’t, however, the Pentagon’s first attempt to expand its authority domestically in the last decade.

Déjà vu

During the Bush Administration, Congress passed the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill that included language similar in scope to the current regulatory change. It specifically amended the Insurrection Act to expand the president’s ability to deploy troops domestically under certain conditions including health epidemics, natural disasters and terrorist activities, though it stopped short of including civil disturbances. But the following year this language was repealed under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 via a bill authored by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) who cited the “useful friction” between the Insurrection and Posse Comitatus Acts in limiting executive authority.

According to the DoD, the repeal of this language had more to do with procedure and that it was never supposed to amend the Insurrection Act. “When it was actually passed,” says the defense official, “Congress elected to amend the Insurrection Act and put things in the Insurrection Act that were not insurrection, like the support for disasters and emergencies and endemic influenza. Our intent,” he says, “was to give the president and the secretary access to the reserve components. It includes the National Guard and, rightfully so, the governors were pretty upset because they were not consulted.”

Senator Leahy’s office did not have a statement as of press time, but a spokesperson said the senator had made an inquiry with the DoD in response to our questions. The defense official confirmed that he was indeed being called in to discuss the senator’s concerns in a meeting scheduled for today. But he downplayed any concern, saying, “Congress at any time can say ‘we don’t like your interpretation of that law and how you’ve interpreted it in making policy’—and so they can call us to the Hill and ask us to justify why we’re doing something.”

Last year, Bruce Afran and another civil liberties attorney Carl Mayer filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration on behalf of a group of journalists and activists lead by former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges. They filed suit over the inclusion of a bill in the NDAA 2012 that, according to the plaintiffs, expanded executive authority over domestic affairs by unilaterally granting the executive branch to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process. The case has garnered international attention and invited vigorous defense from the Obama Administration. Even Afran goes so far as to say this current rule change is, “another NDAA. It’s even worse, to be honest.”

For Hedges and the other plaintiffs, including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, the government’s ever-expanding authority over civilian affairs has a “chilling effect” on First Amendment activities such as free speech and the right to assemble. First District Court Judge Katherine Forrest agreed with the plaintiffs and handed Hedges et al a resounding victory prompting the Department of Justice to immediately file an injunction and an appeal. The appellate court is expected to rule on the matter within the next few months.

Another of the plaintiffs in the Hedges suit is Alexa O’Brien, a journalist and organizer who joined the lawsuit after she discovered a Wikileaks cable showing government officials attempting to link her efforts to terrorist activities. For activists such as O’Brien, the new DoD regulatory change is frightening because it creates, “an environment of fear when people cannot associate with one another.” Like Afran and Freedman, she too calls the move, “another grab for power under the rubric of the war on terror, to the detriment of citizens.”

“This is a complete erosion of the rule of law,” says O’Brien. Knowing these sweeping powers were granted under a rule change and not by Congress is even more harrowing to activists. “That anything can be made legal,” says O’Brien, “is fundamentally antithetical to good governance.”

As far as what might qualify as a civil disturbance, Afran notes, “In the Sixties all of the Vietnam protests would meet this description. We saw Kent State. This would legalize Kent State.”

But the focus on the DoD regulatory change obscures the creeping militarization that has already occurred in police departments across the nation. Even prior to the NDAA lawsuit, journalist Chris Hedges was critical of domestic law enforcement agencies saying, “The widening use of militarized police units effectively nullifies the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.”

This de facto nullification isn’t lost on the DoD.

The DoD official even referred to the Boston bombing suspects manhunt saying, “Like most major police departments, if you didn’t know they were a police department you would think they were the military.” According to this official there has purposely been a “large transfer of technology so that the military doesn’t have to get involved.” Moreover, he says the military has learned from past events, such as the siege at Waco, where ATF officials mishandled military equipment. “We have transferred the technology so we don’t have to loan it,” he states.

But if the transfer of military training and technology has been so thorough, it boggles the imagination as to what kind of disturbance would be so overwhelming that it would require the suspension of centuries-old law and precedent to grant military complete authority on the ground. The DoD official admits not being able to “envision that happening,” adding, “but I’m not a Hollywood screenwriter.”

Afran, for one, isn’t buying the logic. For him, the distinction is simple.

“Remember, the police operate under civilian control,” he says. “They are used to thinking in a civilian way so the comparison that they may have some assault weapons doesn’t change this in any way. And they can be removed from power. You can’t remove the military from power.”

Despite protestations from figures such as Afran and O’Brien and past admonitions from groups like the ACLU, for the first time in our history the military has granted itself authority to quell a civil disturbance. Changing this rule now requires congressional or judicial intervention.

“This is where journalism comes in,” says Freedman. “Calling attention to an unauthorized power grab in the hope that it embarrasses the administration.”

Afran is considering amending his NDAA complaint currently in front of the court to include this regulatory change.

As we witnessed during the Boston bombing manhunt, it’s already difficult to discern between military and police. In the future it might be impossible, because there may be no difference.