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SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH'S MIXED TRACK RECORD TARGETING HIGH-PROFILE POLITICIANS
Issa released a June 2014 report that said the DOJ arranged the meeting with Lerner after Smith read a September 2010 New York Times article, “Donor Names Remain Secret as Rules Shift," which opened with an anecdote about a conservative group.
The report revealed Lerner and an IRS commissioner, Sarah Ingram, spoke with the reporter on background for the article.
After reading it, Smith wrote to DOJ colleagues: “Check out [the] article on front page of ny times regarding misuse of nonprofits for indirectly funding campaigns. This seems egregious to me — could we ever charge a [18 U.S.C. §] 371 conspiracy to violate laws of the USA for misuse of such non profits to get around existing campaign finance laws + limits? ... IRS Commissioner sarah ingram oversees these groups. Let’s discuss tomorrow but maybe we should try to set up a meeting.”
Smith testified in May 2014: “I remember there being a concern in the article that there was[n’t] appropriate enforcement here, and I wanted to discuss.”
Smith organized meetings with his senior leadership, including Richard Pilger, director of the DOJ’s Election Crimes Branch, with one meeting saying the DOJ considered a “possible 501 / campaign finance investigation.”
Jordan told Deputy Attorney General James Cole in July 2014 that a special counsel was needed to investigate the IRS scandal.
“The fact that Richard Pilger and Jack Smith had interaction with Lois Lerner in 2010 and 2013, that you had a data base of 1.1 million pages of taxpayer information, donor (c)(4) information, you had it for four years, and some of that information was confidential — all that fact, all that cries out for a special prosecutor,” Jordan said.
Smith recommended his unit meet with Ingram to discuss DOJ enforcement. Pilger expressed skepticism and told Smith it would be "very challenging as criminal work in the near term." Nancy Simmons, the unit’s senior counsel, said she didn't see "a viable way to make a prosecutable federal case.”
Smith nevertheless pushed forward. Pilger reached out to Ingram’s office in September 2010 to set up an IRS meeting. Ingram told her staff, ‘‘We have to do this,’’ and asked Lerner to organize.
Pilger met with Lerner and other IRS officials, saying the goal was to talk with Lerner about being “more vigilant to the opportunities from more crime in the ... 501(c)(4) area.”
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/trump-special-counsel-jack-smith-involved-lois-lerner-irs-scandal