Another rat flees the sinking ship: #IRS lawyer at center of scandal to retire

**Posted by Phineas

I said a week ago that the front-line employees who supposedly went rogue weren’t going to go under the bus quietly, and I was right. Elizabeth Hofacre, an IRS manager in Cincinnati, claimed her work was micromanaged by one Carter Hull, a lawyer in the IRS’ “Exempt Organization’s Technical Office:

“I had no autonomy or no authority to act on [applications] without Carter Hull’s influence or input.”

Hull was not acting alone, although sources say he was the first to begin handling tea-party applications in Washington in March 2010. His colleagues in the Technical Unit were also involved in guiding the Cincinnati office. Hull reported to Michael Seto, the manager of the Exempt Organizations’ Technical Office, where some 40 lawyers offered advice to IRS agents across the country. Though not all of those lawyers worked on the tea-party cases, a handful certainly did. Expressing frustration about Washington’s oversight of her work, Hofacre told the committee, “I was taking all my direction from EO Technical.” National Review Online reported on the nature of that direction: the IRS’s Technical Unit in Washington provided guidance on handling the applications of tea party groups, approved many of the questionnaires that went out to them, and even wrote some of the intrusive questions that have become the subject of so much controversy.

The Technical Unit was also the source of the delays reported by so many tea-party groups. According to the inspector general’s report tea-party applications languished while Cincinnati agents waited for Washington lawyers to provide guidance. At one point, Hofacre’s team of specalists “did not work on the cases while waiting for guidance from the Technical Unit.”

Emphases added.

And now, with the Oversight Committee’s investigators getting close, Hull decides to retire. Sorry Carter, being on pension isn’t a protection against a subpoena.

Hofacre’s statement, along with that of another witness discussed in the article, blow the administration’s defense of “rogue line employees” out of the water; it’s clear that the harassment of American citizens for daring to hold political principles disapproved of by the mandarin class originated in and was directed from D.C. The only question is how high one has to go to find the originator. Issa’s committee is going about this the right way, starting at the bottom and working up. I don’t doubt they’ll find more flunkies unwilling to take the fall for people higher up the org chart, so expect more to start talking in the weeks ahead. And that includes Mr. Hull and the lawyers in the Technical Office; there’s no way this started with them.

Food for Thought: If you read the original article, you may be struck by a coincidence of dates. Ms. Hofacre says she started managing the group processing Tea Party applications in April, 2010, and that she could not act without Mr. Hull’s approval, a highly unusual arrangement. What also happened around that time? The March, 2010, visit of the head of the “very anti-Tea Party” head of the Treasury employee’s union, which includes IRS employees, to the White House for a meeting with President Obama. Hmmm…

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

Drew the Infidel says:

June 9, 2013 at 8:51 pm

In government as in the military, everyone knows the chain of command. And in this admistration the layers are as close as the pages in a book. Given the targeting in which the IRS participated, is it any wonder the NSA dragnet scares the living hell out of anyone with half a brain cell?

Tomorrow is Monday; what new bombshell awaits? With each layer of the onion peeled away, the smell gets stronger. And when the lights come on, the cockroaches scurry.

Question: Do you trust the Obhammud administration? Better question: Did you ever?

Carlos says:

June 9, 2013 at 10:53 pm

The new meme is already started, with some Cincinnati manager, supposedly a “Republican,” claiming that it was he who started the extraordinary review of TEA party applications because they were setting precedent and he didn’t want everything to be bungled up and some to be approved when they shouldn’t be.

What he failed to mention was that it was only TEA party applications that were set aside (some of which have still not been approved) but the applications of liberal groups were nearly automatically approved, no questions asked.

So, what’s wrong with THAT picture?

bill glass says:

June 10, 2013 at 10:18 am

There’s still time to catch ’em and squeeze ’em. – make them talk by creating a fear of prosecution and imprisonment.

June 10, 2013 at 3:53 pm

In answer to my own question above, today it was revealed the EPA has released the personal data of 80,000 small farmers and ranchers to radical left-wing environmental groups. As was asked during Fast & Furious, how thin does the ice have to get?

Just as assuredly as the Obhammud regime has the blood of Border Patrol Agents Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata on its hands from purposefully funishing the murder weapons, such willful manipulations of circumstances as in this latest stunt carry an element for dangerous confrontation as well.

Marilyn says:

June 10, 2013 at 6:54 pm

What also happened around that time? The March, 2010, visit of the head of the “very anti-Tea Party” head of the Treasury employee’s union, which includes IRS employees, to the White House for a meeting with President Obama. Hmmm…

Awww…that sounds awfully…errr…like one of those darned conpiracists!

/sarc off

June 10, 2013 at 7:39 pm

But Drew, radical environmental groups are, for all intents and purposes, a valid part of this government! If needs be, Obhammed will sign an executive order saying so, with the proviso that all information gathered by the EPA be shared with said groups.

Sleezes, socialist whores and skanks, the whole bunch. But this is what happens when Congress, with all noble intentions, creates an agency and then tells it to create its own rules and regulations. We here in the real world call that abdication of responsibility, and certainly not what we elected them to do.