I don't think Holder will fill out his term because of this. There are reports that he's been caught lying which is not good for an Attorney General.

What is the penalty for perjury before congress?

Freeman, since you are a lawyer with much more legal experience than me, could you enlighten us about perjury/contempt and whether this applies to the statements Holder made?

GMTom wrote:That is the fact and that was admitted to, trying to support them is beyond comprehension when the IRS has admitted this to be the case!

Tom, it's not just admitting the mistake, it's understanding why the mistake happened.

Is what happened, "foolish mistakes ... trying to be more efficient." as the former IRS commissioner testified to, or

Is what happened, a concerted attempt by many at the IRS to use their positions to take a partisan position. or

Is what happened a concerted attempt by a sitting administration to betray the democratic process.

The first is a management problem: maybe some people get fired, maybe not.

The second is a criminal conspiracy involving systematic abuse of the public trust, certainly involving jail time for the ringleaders.

The third is an impeachable offense, perhaps even approaching treason.

The fact that the IRS admitted they made a mistake is trivial. What matters is what was the intent of the people involved, and according to the link that Fate posted there are currently five different investigations going on right now. The truth will come out.

Here's a little slice of heaven:

Today, President Obama personally became re-involved in his former campaign organization's new incarnation Organizing for Action. On the same day he is scheduled to appear at two DCCC fundraisers in Chicago, the president of the United States sent the following email to OFA's mailing list, signed "Barack":

Friend --
This is an experiment.
Organizing for Action isn't like any other organization. It's based in Chicago, not Washington, and its task is to help restore the balance of power in government.
We've seen that a bottom-up movement of passionate people can still win an election in the era of big campaign spending. That's not what this is about.
Organizing for Action is about discovering whether ordinary people can reclaim the process of legislating from special-interest groups and lobbyists, and help give your friends and neighbors the voice they deserve in Washington.
This project needs your support -- I'm counting on you to be there for the fights ahead.
Say you're in today:
http://my.barackobama.com/Are-You-In
Let's finish what we started.
Thanks,
Barack

The link takes recipients to an email sign up page, after which visitors are invited to donate up to $1,000 to Organizing for Action. OFA, a 504(c)(4) non-profit, has cast itself as a non-partisan advocacy group.

I can't wait to see rickyp try to defend this.

I already know what the official defense will be: it was a mistake OR an oversight.

The problem isn't just the President's name being there. There are all the pronouns.

Please, someone tell me how OFA is not political?

I still think that it's most likely that this is a mistake and that there is no criminal conspiracy.

One of the powers of the bureaucracy is that it involves many people, with many points of view who are not criminals and who would do criminal conspiracy badly. For all the claim of conspiracy over the years few of them actually do materialize. Still, the use of the IRS as a political weapon has happened under Nixon and it is possible it was used that way again. If so, someone would have to pay, perhaps with his job.

President Biden, anyone? <<shivers>>

geojanes wrote:I still think that it's most likely that this is a mistake and that there is no criminal conspiracy.

One of the powers of the bureaucracy is that it involves many people, with many points of view who are not criminals and who would do criminal conspiracy badly. For all the claim of conspiracy over the years few of them actually do materialize. Still, the use of the IRS as a political weapon has happened under Nixon and it is possible it was used that way again. If so, someone would have to pay, perhaps with his job.

President Biden, anyone? <<shivers>>

Publicly, he's completely inept. Privately, I think he's pretty good--in terms of bridging partisan divides.

Is it a conspiracy? Too soon to tell.

What we do know, without a doubt, is that whatever its source, the problem is more than a few agents in Cincy.

Freeman:

I don't know what would be a reasonable number of visits by the IRS to the White House. I saw the figure for George Bush but I am wondering what it would be for other presidents? Let's assume it's high and then the assumption is that they were discussing something. But what? And with whom?

Do you find it strange that neither the head of the IRS nor the President has been able to explain what they did meet about? They will eventually make something up, but the longer they wait the more suspicious I get.

Ray Jay wrote:Do you find it strange that neither the head of the IRS nor the President has been able to explain what they did meet about? They will eventually make something up, but the longer they wait the more suspicious I get.

Oh, that's pretty jaded. I don't know if or how they've been asked. Have they been asked by reporters shouting questions at them as they go from place to place? If the white house conspired to do this, it will come out. People in gov't aren't criminals, that's why when they do something that is criminal they'll roll on the next guy in a nonce.

Tom, it's not just admitting the mistake, it's understanding why the mistake happened.

Agreed 100% and the jury is out on where this falls.
However, this was most certainly a mistake and completely wrong, those who attempt to explain it away as anything other than a mistake, by trying to actually support it as a good practice no less, these people are not only ignoring the basic facts but they are fooling nobody but themselves.

It was WRONG, defending it is impossible to do ...yet we continue to see such attempts!

per a Washington Post article, they sum the problem up quite well:

The problem wasn’t that the IRS closely scrutinized questionable applications from tea party groups. It’s that they didn’t closely scrutinized the applications from other questionable groups as well. The scrutiny was the part they did right. The targeting was the part they did wrong.

geojanes wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Do you find it strange that neither the head of the IRS nor the President has been able to explain what they did meet about? They will eventually make something up, but the longer they wait the more suspicious I get.

Oh, that's pretty jaded. I don't know if or how they've been asked. Have they been asked by reporters shouting questions at them as they go from place to place? If the white house conspired to do this, it will come out. People in gov't aren't criminals, that's why when they do something that is criminal they'll roll on the next guy in a nonce.

It's more nuanced than I thought. He was at the White House 118 times, but that doesn't mean he met with the POTUS. He has not named with whom he did meet. He indicated that there were discussions about implementing Obamacare, budgeting, and Easter eggs. By the way, 118 times over a 2 year period is a lot! That's about 1 out of ever 4 working days.

Also, here's an interesting report on Obama meeting with the head of the IRS union. This one also doesn't smell so good. That's also someone who would be especially motivated to disrupt the tea party.
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/2 ... king/print

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st.

The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this way:


Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30

In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:


April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

The NTEU is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies. Kelley herself is a 14-year IRS veteran agent. The union’s PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles to anti-Tea Party candidates.

Putting IRS employees in the position of actively financing anti-Tea Party candidates themselves, while in their official positions in the IRS blocking, auditing, or intimidating Tea Party and conservative groups around the country.

The IG report contained a timeline prepared by examining internal IRS e-mails. The IG report did not examine White House Visitor Logs, e-mails, or phone records relating to the relationship between the IRS union, the IRS, and the White House.

By the way, I really hate stuff like this because it breeds more cynicism. I want a healthy debate on the merits of conservatism and liberalism so that the electorate makes an informed choice. Both have merit.

Brad, lying about a material fact under oath is perjury. Looking at Holder's testimony regarding potential prosecution of reporters I don't think there is a basis for such a charge. Just because a reporter is identified as a co-conspirator does not mean that the attorney general ever intended that the reporter be prosecuted. He could say that while technically the reporter is a co-conspirator and could be charged, he never intended that charges be brought be brought against the reporter. After all, this concerned a search warrant whose purpose was to find the source of the leak. Since no charges were ever brought against the reporter and Holder can reasonably say the point of the search warrant was to discover who violated the law by leaking classified info, I don't think there is anything here. Holder could also say if he was going to charge the reporter he could have done so directly and then leaned on him to reveal the leak. There is no basis for saying that Holder lied under oath.

freeman3 wrote:Brad, lying about a material fact under oath is perjury. Looking at Holder's testimony regarding potential prosecution of reporters I don't think there is a basis for such a charge. Just because a reporter is identified as a co-conspirator does not mean that the attorney general ever intended that the reporter be prosecuted. He could say that while technically the reporter is a co-conspirator and could be charged, he never intended that charges be brought be brought against the reporter.

Now, that's the kind of legal double-speak that is sure to heighten the public's regard for the Administration. I'd love to see Holder parse, farce, and marse himself through this one.

The affidavit Holder both discussed and signed said Rosen was a "flight risk." It said he had "potential criminal liability in this matter." Knowing that Jennifer Rubin is partisan, her argument is still compelling:

First, the affidavit (paragraph 45) asserts that DOJ exhausted all means available to get the material from Rosen’s e-mails and phone, and “because of [Rosen's] own potential criminal liability in this matter,” asking for the documents voluntarily would compromise the integrity of the investigation. Moreover, the affidavit asserts that the “targets” of the investigation (including Rosen) were a risk to “mask their identity and activity, flee or otherwise obstruct this investigation.” It is highly questionable whether Holder believed any of that to be true. (Really, he imagined a Fox News reporter would flee the country? He thought Rosen would don a disguise?) Was the affidavit a sort of ruse to get Rosen’s records (or later to pressure his cooperation)? Did Holder intentionally mislead a judge when he signed off on the affidavit? That is worth exploring.

Second, Holder testified in a House hearing this week in an unbelievable fashion that he had recused himself from the investigation regarding the AP but couldn’t remember when and left no written record. This is hard to fathom. If this isn’t what occurred, Holder’s misrepresentation to Congress is a serious problem.

I find it very hard to believe that Holder could testify in Congress or before a judge that he really thought Rosen was a co-conspirator in espionage or that he was going to disguise himself and leave the country. But, it would be fun to watch him try to utter these things without laughing.

Furthermore, they didn't exhaust all other options. Did they ask Rosen?

Was it reasonable to include his parents' home phone in the warrant?

I think there are all manner of hard to explain issues here.

After all, this concerned a search warrant whose purpose was to find the source of the leak. Since no charges were ever brought against the reporter and Holder can reasonably say the point of the search warrant was to discover who violated the law by leaking classified info, I don't think there is anything here. Holder could also say if he was going to charge the reporter he could have done so directly and then leaned on him to reveal the leak. There is no basis for saying that Holder lied under oath.

Even if perjury is ruled out, I don't think his actions pass the straight face test. It's a pile of manure--all of it.

Another conservative, albeit one with some legal chops--and connections:

When he gave this testimony, Holder had personally signed a request to a court to authorize a wiretap on Fox News reporter James Rosen. The request stated that Rosen may have acted as “an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” by obtaining national security materials from a government official also under investigation.

Bill Otis confirms that during his days as a federal prosecutor, telling the court that a wiretap target might have been an aider, abettor or co-conspirator in a serious federal crime “was most assuredly vouching that there was a potential prosecution of that target.”

Did Holder forget that he had signed the request to wiretap Rosen? I don’t see how he could have. Such requests, when they involve members of the press, are something any Attorney General would remember.

. . .

Perjury may be, as Richard Nixon once said, “an awful hard rap to prove.” But even Obama may not require proof of perjury beyond reasonable doubt when it comes to the Attorney General of the United States.

So, even if perjury is not proven, the court of public opinion is not one that demands guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt." There is mounting pressure, across the political spectrum, for Holder to be sacked.

Well, you are bringing up a number of different issues, DF. What I addressed is whether Holder committed perjury by saying that he was not aware of any prosecutions of reporters with regard to classified leaks and would not favor such. I think the clear answer is no.

You brought up the affidavit. First, I think it needs to be pointed out that Holder did not prepare this affidavit. The reason he signed it was due to the sensitive nature of a search warrant dealing with a reporter. Now, it if was wrong to have a search warrant for the reporter's emails, phone etc., then Holder should have to answer for it. He needs to be able defend why the search warrant was justified. But when you start to get into the minute details of the affidavit, I just don't think it is fair to blame the attorney general if some of those details are questionable. He is entitled to rely on his subordinates, who have much more familiarity with the case, to get the details right.

So, if anyone is to blame it is the person who prepared the affidavit. However, I don't see anything significantly wrong with the affidavit. Rosen did have potential criminal liability; without a reporter's shield law he is a co-conspirator--he helped to release classified info. Lumping Rosen into a catch-all concern that targets of the investigation might flee or disguise the identify--that is nitpicking. I would bet that was pretty much boiler-plate phraseology and the person preparing the affidavit did not really think about Rosen in particular as to whether he was more or less likely to disguise his identify or fleet. And by the way, what if the government asked for the information directly from Rosen and alerted him to the investigation--wouldn't there be a legitimate concern that documents identifying the source would be destroyed? So the government had a legitimate interest in not informing Rosen of the investigation

As for the former prosecutor saying that by identifying Rose as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator that the Attorney General was most assuredly vouching that he was a potential target of the prosecution, I don't see the prosecutor has to disclose to the court whether they intend to use prosecutorial discretion and not prosecute members of the conspiracy. There is such a thing as unindicted co-conspirator and in general prosecutors can exercise discretion not to prosecute. Perhaps that prosecutor can cite to some ethical rule or rules of professional conduct that would require a prosecutor to disclose whether or not he intends prosecution of all members of the conspiracy. Otherwise, as long as the affidavit is truthful I don't see that there is a problem with not telling the judge that the prosecutor was not going to charge Rosen.

Interesting Freeman, Thanks.

Did Lerner perjure herself, and did she fore go her 5th Amendment rights by her statement?

You mean by saying she was innocent? Seems like more of a legal conclusion than a fact. Probably would be difficult to prosecute for perjury, assuming that she did something wrong (and I haven' seen any evidence that what she did that was criminal, given that she stopped what was going on)
As for waiver of her Fifth Amendment rights, we discussed this somewhere and my opinion was no based on Ohio v. Reiner (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-1028.ZPC.html)