Was the IRS An Unofficial Member of the Obama 2012 Campaign?

The Obama Administration's abuse of power via the Internal Revenue Service appears to be worse than previously thought. We know that the IRS illegally targeted Tea Party groups and engaged in systematic and wide-scale harassment of Romney donors via IRS audits. However, the IRS may have illegally shared confidential tax information with the Obama Administration in advance of its 2012 reelection campaign. 

Back in 2010, Austan Goolsbee, who was working as Obama's economic advisor at that time, told reporters an secret press briefing that Koch Industries doesn't pay corporate income taxes. The information about the Koch's tax filing status is confidential and is not information that is available to the public.  

How Mr. Goolsbee has knowledge of the Koch's tax filing status remains a mystery. Yet, he has given has given conflicting accounts of where he got that information. The only way Mr. Goolsbee could make such a claim is by actually looking at the Koch Industries' IRS tax returns. Maybe someone in the Obama administration took a peek into the company's IRS tax returns and passed the information to Mr. Goolsbee.

Although it is not clear if the IRS shared confidential tax information and/or allowed members of the Obama administration to have access to these private tax records, we know that the IRS shared confidential tax information of various conservative organizations with a liberal/progressive nonprofit journalism organization called ProPublica. Again, The information about these conservative organization's tax records is confidential and is not information that is available to the public. Yet, that information was made public to ProPublica.

Not only was the IRS sharing confidential tax information with conservative organizations that were trying to establish themselves as a non-profit organization, but it was also sharing information with already established non-profit organizations. For example, the IRS shared confidential tax information of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) which back in March of 2010. Both organizations are opponents on the issue of gay marriage. John Eastman, the Chairman of NOM, explains why the release of confidential tax information is a major problem:

For the IRS to leak any organization's tax return to its political opponents is an outrageous breach of ethics and, if proven, constitutes a felony. Every organization — liberal and conservative — should shudder at the idea of the IRS playing politics with its confidential tax return information. But the situation here is even more egregious because the head of the HRC was at the time serving as a national co-chair of President Obama's re-election campaign.

The release of NOM's confidential tax return to the Human Rights Campaign is the canary in the coal mine of IRS corruption. Contrary to assertions that the targeting of Tea Party groups was an error in judgment by low-level IRS bureaucrats, the release of NOM's confidential data to a group headed by an Obama campaign co-chair suggests the possibility of complicity at the highest levels of politics and government. This wasn't a low-level error in judgment; it was a conscious act to reward a prominent Obama supporter while punishing an opponent.

 John Eastman, like myself, wonders if there is possible collusion with the IRS and the Obama campaign:

At this stage, nobody is accusing the White House or the Obama re-election campaign of illegal activity. But there is a serious question about whether there was communication or possible collusion between the IRS and the HRC, and if there was, whether anyone at the White House or the Obama re-election campaign was involved.

Finally, let us not forget Harry Reid's infamous accusation that Mitt Romney hadn't paid taxes in ten years. Senator Reid said that his accusation was based on "number of people" who told him about Mitt's confidential tax records. Yet, Mr. Reid also claimed that his accusation was based on a single "extremely credible source" Which is it, Harry? One source or multiple sources? And what's the name(s) of these sources? How did your sources know about Mitt Romney's confidential tax information? In light of the fact that the IRS was potentially sharing information with Austin Goolsbee and ProPublica, was the IRS also feeding information to Senator Reid?

In the case of Mr. Goolsbee, looking into the confidential and private tax information of an individual or corporation is potential violation of federal law. However, the IRS definitely violated federal law when it sent confidential tax information to ProPublica. Federal law may have also been violated when Harry Reid publicly disclosed Mitt Romney's confidential tax information even if the claim isn't true. Unfortunately, Harry Reid has immunity because he made these remarks while working as a Senator in the Senate floor. 

In light of these three separate instances of confidential tax information being leaked to the public, several questions are raised. Who else did the IRS share tax information with? How long have they been doing this? How many other conservative groups and individuals did the IRS allow the Obama administration have access to? Did the Obama administration look into these records before publicly denigrating these wealthy individuals on the Obama's 2012 campaign website? Did the Obama administration look into these records to decide which Romney donor they would have the IRS audit? Did the Obama administration look into these confidential tax records of individuals to decide which conservative IRS group they would give extra attention to? 

However, the most important question that I have not seen asked anywhere is this: Was the IRS an unofficial member of the Obama 2012 reelection campaign? The fact that we have three separate IRS scandals, (1) targeting tea party groups for extra scrutiny,  (2) the auditing of multiple wealthy Romney supporters  and the (3) the improper and illegal access and dissemination of private tax records of conservative groups and individuals is not a coincidence. We also know that Obama's IRS Commissioner visited the White House 157 times. We also know that Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, was highly aware and invovled in the targeting of these tea party groups. We also know that White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and Barack Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough, who are both close to Obama in his administration, were fully aware of the targeting of the IRS groups. However, we are expected to believe that Obama was not fully aware of these IRS scandals. I don't believe it. Do you?

All of these facts leads me to believe that these three separate scandals are actually tied together and appear to be well coordinated and intentionally planned by the Obama administration to win the 2012 election by any means necessary. There is no other logical conclusion that can be derived from these facts. 

If the Obama administration really did use the IRS as an unofficial member of their 2012 reelection team, it raises mutliple questions in my mind: When did the Obama administration first decide to use the IRS as part of their 2012 reelection effort? How much cooperation was there between the IRS and the Obama 2012 election campaign and the White House? Which members of the Obama 2012 election team was involved in this matter? How often did the White House and the IRS cooperate together prior to and during the 2012 election? (Was it 157 times?) Did the President order the IRS to target conservative groups in order to win the 2012 election? What other questions need to be asked to determine whether or not the IRS was an unoffcial member of the Obama 2012 campaign? 

As a result, I believe that these three separate IRS scandals, (1) targeting tea party groups for extra scrutiny,  (2) the auditing of multiple wealthy Romney supporters  and the (3) the improper and illegal access and dissemination of private tax records of conservative groups and individuals needs to be investigated by Congress. Moreover, a special independent investigation needs to be conducted. Moreover, the Federal Election Commission needs to investigate this matter. 

I believe that its clear that all of these illegal activities tie together. All of them were conducted with one purpose in mind: win the election at all cost even if it means violating local, state, federal law or the Constitution. In looking at the totality of these illegal activities, it is clear that Obama was successful in doing whatever it took to win.  It was all a coordinated effort to help Obama win.