"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." -- Ian Fleming
It's not happenstance or coincidence that Obama and his administration are illegally using neutral government agencies to go after their political adversaries. If it were, they wouldn't be taking the 5th, stonewalling Congress and putting political hacks in charge of their internal investigations. The most important remaining questions about the Obama Administration's attacks on its foes are how far up the ladder they go and whether any impeachable offenses were committed in the process. Given that the mainstream media is essentially an arm of the Democrat Party and that the House Republicans have been about as aggressive as a baby fawn in investigating them, we may never know the full truth. Obama and his administration seem to think they’re above the law and after seeing how conservatives are being illegally mistreated by the government without consequence, they may be right.
1) Gibson Guitar: The Lacey Act is a law so confusing and ill-defined that in many cases, whether someone is violating it or not is essentially arbitrary. In the case of Gibson Guitar, it was prosecuted for supposedly bringing in wood that was illegally harvested under the laws of India and Madagascar. However, neither India nor Madagascar is charging Gibson Guitar with breaking its laws. In other words, the Obama Administration accused Gibson Guitar of breaking the laws in other countries when even the governments of those countries were making no such claim. Eventually, after spending millions in legal fees, Gibson paid a $300,000 fine while allowing the government to confiscate some of its wood. Would that case have ever been brought to court if the CEO of Gibson Guitar, Henry E. Juszkiewicz, wasn't a big Republican donor? It's highly doubtful.
2) Dinesh D’Souza: Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza has been a ferocious critic of Barack Obama. He's written two books attacking Obama and was also behind the film, "2016 Obama's America." That's why this case would look suspicious, even if one of Barack Obama's donors wasn't behind the prosecution.
Federal prosecutors indicted D'Souza last week on two felony counts, charging that he promised to reimburse others if they would contribute to an unnamed Senate candidate, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, and causing false statements to be made to the FEC, which carries a maximum of five years.
...The case most often compared to D'Souza's is that of Arkansas trial lawyer Tab Turner, for donations made to former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign.
...Turner directed four members of the staff at his law firm to make contributions totaling $8,000 to the Edwards campaign and reimbursed them for the donations. Turner also used the firm's credit card to contribute $2,000 to the Edwards campaign and made a $2,000 contribution attributed to his brother and sister-in-law.
But Turner's case — which was handled with a civil, not criminal, complaint — was more involved. He also made in-kind contributions by using law office staffers to help plan fund raisers for Edwards and charged more than $2,000 in hotel and rental car expenses to the firm for Edwards Committee staffers' travel to the events.
Turner eventually paid a $50,000 civil fine to the FEC. The Edwards for President Committee paid a $9,500 penalty for accepting the contributions.
A Republican faces jail time for a crime a Democrat gets fined over. Even liberal law professors like Alan Dershowitz have called this "outrageous" and "clearly a case of selective prosecution."
3) Tea Party Groups: Despite what you may have heard from liberals who love the idea of illegally using the IRS to go after the Tea Party, there's no comparison between how the IRS treated liberal and conservative groups.
A May report by the IRS inspector general said the agency gave extra scrutiny to 298 groups when they applied for tax exempt status from the spring of 2010 to the spring of 2012. The vast majority of the groups — 248 — were conservative, while 29 were liberal and 21 were neither, according to an analysis by the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Of the 111 conservative groups that had their applications approved, 38 were flagged for additional monitoring, according to the staff review. Of the 20 liberal groups that had their applications approved, seven were flagged for additional monitoring.
The IRS is targeting Tea Party groups because they're conservative, it’s illegally demanding donor lists, and it has had staffers plead the 5th Amendment in front of Congress. Instead of trying to correct the abuses -- which are still going on to this day (I know multiple people from conservative groups that have literally been waiting years for the IRS to give them a yay or nay on their applications) -- the IRS has stonewalled the congressional investigation and Obama is now moving to make the IRS abuse of Tea Party groups legal. Maybe Nixon should have thought of that.
4) Billy Graham: The IRS didn't just go after the Tea Party for opposing Obama; it went after the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for the crime of urging Christians to vote their principles.
With the IRS admitting it gave extra scrutiny to conservative political organizations, Graham says he now believes that the review was part of an Obama administration effort of “targeting and attempting to intimidate us.”
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association urging of voters to back “candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel” during last year’s presidential race was the reason why IRS agents visited the North Carolina offices of both Graham groups, the letter accuses.
While these audits not only wasted taxpayer money, they wasted money contributed by donors for ministry purposes as we had to spend precious resources servicing the IRS agents in our offices,” Graham wrote in the letter, which was shared with POLITICO. “I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it ‘un-American.”
Graham said that “in light” of the IRS admission that it targeted tea party groups for added scrutiny, “I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence – or justifiable.”
Given all the other "coincidences" involving the Obama Administration, its open contempt for obeying the law and its refusal to cooperate with congressional investigations, it seems likely that the Obama Administration was “targeting and attempting to intimidate" them. Now, what's Congress going to do about it?
5) Ben Carson: Former surgeon Dr. Ben Carson has been a rising star in conservative circles since he hammered Obama over the Affordable Care Act at a National Prayer Breakfast. Of course, Obama's lackeys at the IRS made sure he paid the price for his criticism.
Dr. Ben Carson, the former surgeon who criticized President Obama over his lack of leadership and health care plan earlier this year, now claims he was unfairly targeted by the IRS because of his comments against the administration.
During an interview on "The O’Reilly Factor" Wednesday, Carson says the Internal Revenue Service started looking into his real estate holdings following his comments against the White House at the National Prayer Breakfast in February.
Carson says he had never had a problem with the tax-collecting agency until he spoke out against the president.
Eventually, the IRS conducted a full audit against Carson and found no wrongdoing, he said.
So Ben Carson embarrassed Obama and the next thing you know, he faced an IRS audit -- sort of like those Tea Party groups or Sarah Palin's father, after his daughter took on Obama. It also brings to mind Wayne Allyn Root's comment, "I personally know 15 people who wrote out big checks to Mitt Romney and within 90 days got IRS audit notices." If once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and three times is enemy action, then this is practically open warfare against Obama's political enemies by supposedly neutral government agencies. Presidents have been impeached for less.
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