New documents uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal the culpability of the Justice Department in the IRS tea party-targeting scandal, says Tom Fitton, president of the government watchdog group.
"We already knew thanks to another Judicial Watch lawsuit that [former IRS official] Lois Lerner was, in 2013, talking to the Department of Justice about potentially prosecuting the very same groups the IRS were suppressing," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"Now we have emails that show those discussions actually occurred also in 2010, two years before the IRS admitted they were improperly targeting tea party groups and in 2010 you have the Department of Justice reaching out to the IRS, not the other way around.
"These emails were turned over to us because we had to sue the Justice Department... they were withholding this information from us."
He said out of 834 documents requested only two were turned over.
"Those are the two documents showing the communication with the IRS by the Department of Justice election crimes division and their public integrity section … criminal division, by the way."
Fitton, author of
"The Corruption Chronicles: Obama's Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government," published by Threshold Editions, believes the agency is withholding most of the documents because its officials are "embarrassed" by what they reveal.
"In 2010, why was the Department of Justice talking to the IRS about potentially prosecuting the president's political enemies? That's what this is about," he said.
The IRS has been under fire for its alleged targeting of tea party and conservative groups that were seeking tax-exempt status. Republicans believe it was an intimidation technique by Democrats designed to spook right-leaning groups.
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