By J Christian Adams
When the FBI finally fires up its criminal investigation of the IRS
targeting of Tea Party groups, there is one person the special agent in
charge better be sure to interview — former White House Counsel Robert
Bauer. The FBI may discover the whole IRS mess leads through the land of
campaign finance “reform” and an obsession with speech regulation, an
obsession shared by Bauer.
Any criminal investigation identifies for further scrutiny those with
motive, opportunity, and means, and Bauer deserves no quarter from FBI
investigators on those three counts.
The Crimes
Without any doubt, crimes were committed by IRS employees, not the
least of which was the fact that IRS employees disclosed confidential
information from IRS forms to the political enemies of the groups
seeking tax-exempt status.
For example, Cindy Thomas, the Cincinnati unit manager for exempt
organizations at the IRS, illegally released the tax applications of
nine separate conservative organizations to the left-wing group
ProPublica. The IRS claims that Thomas’ illegal release of private tax
information was an “accident,” but the excuse is absurd.
Thomas wasn’t the only IRS employee leaking the tax information of
conservative groups to their enemies. Pro-marriage groups found their
confidential information in the hands of gay marriage advocacy
organizations.
The FBI can start by finding out whether Thomas and her fellow IRS
travelers in fact released the private information. If the FBI says
Thomas cannot be prosecuted because she claims it was an accident, then
Congress needs to step in and impose mandatory minimum prison sentences
for any IRS employee that releases private information, accidental or
not.
The bigger question the FBI must get to the bottom of is who hatched the policy of targeting Tea Party groups that led to these crimes? For that they should turn back to Robert Bauer.
The Motive
Robert Bauer had the motive to direct IRS policy against Tea Party
groups. He is a longtime opponent of First Amendment freedoms and an
advocate of government-speech regulation. He also can’t stand the work
the Tea Party is conducting to monitor and eradicate voter fraud, work
the Republican Party and national campaigns have utterly failed to
perform.
During the 2008 election, while representing the Obama campaign, Bauer sent a threatening letter to the Justice Department demanding criminal investigations of people who had the audacity to speak
about voter fraud. Bauer even singled out Sarah Palin in the letter.
Anyone who “developed or disseminated” information about voter fraud, to
Bauer, deserved the heavy boot of a criminal investigation. Read the letter; it reveals a nasty, thuggish, and lawless attitude toward political opposition.
To Bauer, those merely speaking about voter fraud were worthy of criminal investigation. Sound familiar?
Yolanda Hippensteele, 34 (left) and Amy Little, 54, (centre)
Hindsight reveals why Bauer was so agitated. Two Obama campaign staffers,
Amy Little and Yolanda Hippensteele, later pleaded guilty to voter
fraud. We also know, courtesy of John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky, that
a Minnesota election for U.S. Senate was decided by voter fraud in 2008. And who can forget Melowese Richardson,
the Obama activist and poll official in Ohio who said on camera that
she voted multiple times for President Obama in 2008? I could go on and
on with multiple examples of voter fraud from 2008 where candidate
Obama was the beneficiary.
No wonder Bauer was so anxious back in 2008 to shut everyone up.
Fast forward to 2012. Again, Mr. Bauer was up to his old tricks in
his second stint as Obama campaign counsel, this time targeting Tea
Party groups fighting for election integrity. Bauer and his campaign
hench-lawyers called state election officials, seeking to unleash state
criminal investigations of Tea Party groups working for election
integrity. I have spoken with state election officials in at least
three states which describe Obama campaign efforts to prompt state
officials to target Tea Party groups.
I’m happy to share with the FBI special agents the names of those states if Mr. Bauer won’t.
Bauer even published this memo, specifically targeting True the Vote with outright lies so egregious he should be ashamed of himself.
After the Obama campaign voter fraud of 2008, in 2012 Bauer was
anxious to remove election integrity groups from the polls as
observers. If the IRS couldn’t slow the Tea Party watchdogs down, Bauer
threatened them in other ways.
If the FBI special agents interview Mr. Bauer, it won’t be hard to conclude he had the motive to launch the Tea Party shakedown.
The Means
President Obama’s campaign counsel certainly had the motive to target
the Tea Party, but did Bauer have the means as campaign counsel?
Remember, Bauer served as White House counsel from November 2009 to June 2011, right during the time this IRS shakedown was hatched.
Anybody who has worked in the White House will tell you that the
White House counsel enjoys a position of power like few others. They
can make things happen with a phone call. One former West Wing staffer
told me that “any department’s staff who received directions from Bauer
would think they were getting directions from the president. The White
House counsel has the power to make policy with a phone call.”
Something important happened two months after Bauer became White House counsel — the Supreme Court decided Citizens United vs. FEC,
a decision that caused the left to go batty. They feared the decision
might cost them the White House. President Obama boorishly (and
inaccurately) addressed the decision in the 2010 State of the Union.
The FBI special agents should ask Bauer some simple questions: With
whom did you speak at the IRS about conservative and Tea Party groups
post-Citizens United? Did you direct anyone on your staff to do
the same? Did you hear about anyone speaking with the IRS about Tea
Party groups? Who hatched the IRS harassment, which started on your
watch? Did you meet with Doug Shulman any of the 157 times he visited the White House, and did you discuss exempt status of conservative groups?
The Opportunity
The FBI agents might ask Bauer why a parade of Citizens United-obsessed speech-regulation zealots visited the West Wing just before the Tea Party shakedown went into effect.
Tova Wang, of the leftist Soros-funded group Demos, visited the White
House and met with Bauer’s staff on June 2, 2010. In fact she hovered
around the White House on multiple occasions during the critical time
period the IRS policy was being crafted.
Tova Wang
Perhaps she was there for the Easter Egg roll. Perhaps not. Either way, the FBI can ask.
Notorious speech-regulation advocate Richard Hasen also visited the
White House and met with White House Counsel Robert Bauer on June 24,
2010. (See this absurd screed at Slate saying the post-Citizens United world is “worse than Watergate.” Freedom just rubs some people the wrong way.)
Perhaps Hasen was at the White House with Bauer to watch the longest match in Wimbledon history which occurred that day.
Perhaps not, especially since he previously met with Nicholas Colvin in the White House Counsel’s office on June 21 and 23. Again, the FBI can find out if they ask.
Bauer or his staff met with a number of other ivory tower academics
and activists interested in controlling free political speech through
the spring of 2010. These also include the noisy reformer Meredith McGehee.
We don’t yet know who engineered the illegal, criminal, and
disgusting IRS shakedown of Tea Party and conservative groups. But one
thing is certain: Robert Bauer had the motive, the opportunity, and the
means to do it. The good folks at the FBI are now busy preparing names
of people to interview. They better not leave Mr. Bauer off the list,
or his stream of visitors.
The parties better not coordinate stories ahead of time. These days,
I hear the Justice Department has adopted an aggressive approach to
email and phone records, at least for Fox News.
SoRo: Robert Bauer is married to Anita 'Chairman Mao is my hero' Dunn.
http://tinyurl.com/mauu9o3
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