Remember when Lois Lerner’s hard drive crashed, and all her e-mails disappeared through no fault of her own? And remember when all those e-mails reappeared as if by magic?
Yeah. Gregory Korte, USA Today:
Lois Lerner, the key figure in the controversy over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups for added scrutiny, once considered opening up an audit into Bristol Palin’s compensation from a teen pregnancy charity, according to a new Senate report…
One email, cited by Chairman Orrin Hatch as an “example of Lerner’s interest in conservative organizations,” asked whether the IRS should open an audit of Candie’s Foundation, which paid Palin $332,500 in compensation to be a celebrity spokesperson. Lerner was concerned that the salary figure could violate IRS rules against charitable groups being for the private benefit of individuals…
“Thoughts on the Bristol Palin issue?” Lerner, then the director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations unit, wrote to her staff in 2011. “I’m asking because I don’t know whether to send to Exam as a referral.” There’s no evidence from the Senate report that an audit was ever opened.
What is Candie’s Foundation? Here’s their mission statement:
The Candie’s Foundation is a non-profit organization that works to shape the way the youth in America think about the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy and parenthood. We are an operating foundation that develops and runs communication campaigns to raise awareness about our cause.
Each year millions of teens are exposed to The Foundation’s message, which encourages them to delay pregnancy and shows the realities of teen parenthood.
Bristol Palin was a teen mom, and she wants to help other teens avoid becoming moms. (Without killing any babies.) There’s nothing political about it. But Lois Lerner wanted to investigate her for it, because Lois Lerner hates Sarah Palin.
But don’t let those teabaggers tell you that the IRS has been targeting conservatives for political reasons. That’s just silly.
(Hat tip: Jazz Shaw)