Lois Gail Lerner (born October 12, 1950) is an American lawyer and former US federal civil service employee. Lerner became director of the Internal Revenue Service Revenue Service (IRS) Unit in 2005, and later became a central figure in the IRS 2013 targeting controversy in targeting conservative groups, either denying them a tax-exempt status or suspending the status until they could no longer take part which is effective in the 2012 election. Lerner resigned because of the controversy. Investigations by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, completed in 2015, found "substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia" but "found no evidence that IRS officials acted on a political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other motive that did not deserved to support criminal prosecution. "
Video Lois Lerner
Early life and education
Lerner graduated from Northeastern University. He earned his doctorate from the Law College of Western New England.
Maps Lois Lerner
Career before the IRS
After graduating law school, Lerner became a staff attorney in the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice.
Lerner later joined the General Election Commission (FEC) general advisory office as an assistant general advisor in 1981. He spent twenty years in the FEC, designated as the General Counsel for Enforcement (head of the FEC Enforcement Division) in 1986. Lerner was acting as a general adviser to FEC for the first six months of 2001.
Internal Revenue Service Career
Lerner joined the Internal Revenue Service in 2001, as the Director of Rules and Agreements in the function of the TEGE Organization.
In January 2006, he was appointed Director of the Liberation Organization. In that capacity, Lerner leads an organization of 900 IRS tax law enforcement officials responsible for various compliance activities, including checking the operational and financial activities of the excluded organization, processing applications for tax exemptions, providing direction through personal letter decisions and guidance technical. , and educate customers and reach the liberated community.
controversy 2013
On May 10, 2013, prior to the public release of the audit findings, Lerner replied what was later revealed to be a question implanted at an American Bar Association (ABA) meeting stating that the IRS is "apologizing" for what he called the "totally inappropriate action ". Lerner said that extra surveillance had not been centrally planned and had been done by low-level "fronts" at Cincinnati's office. The Washington Post later reported that the documents indicated that "IRS officials at Washington's headquarters asked conservative groups asking about donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials at El Monte and Laguna Niguel's offices in California sending a similar questionnaire to groups affiliated with the tea group. "Commissioner Lerner, then acting IRS Steven Miller, later testified to Congress that he had discussed with Lerner how he made revelations and apologies using questions planted at the ABA meeting, not on two days before the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means.
On May 10, 2013, in a conference call with reporters, Lerner apologized that the Tea Party and other groups have been targeted to audit their applications for tax exemptions. Lerner told them at a conference call that, in an effort to manage a large number of tax exemption applications between 2010 and 2012, the agency has identified several applicants using "shortcuts" such as targeting apps containing terms such as "Tea Party" or "patriot" in the title they. Lerner said, however, that such actions are not driven by political agendas, but added, "We made some mistakes, some did not use good judgment.... For that we apologize." Lerner also said that only about 25 percent of the applications marked were Tea Party related, but admitted that everyone who came out of the group was "completely inappropriate and not the way we should do something."
Administration of leave and resignation
On May 23, 2013, the IRS placed Lerner on paid administration leave. As a temporary replacement, IRS Acting Commissioner Daniel Werfel was named Ken Corbin, formerly Deputy Director of Submission Processing, Wage, and Investment Division, as acting director of the Exempt Organizations Division. Then, while still in administrative leave, Lerner officially resigned, and retired from the IRS, effective September 23, 2013.
2014 Contempt of Congress citation
In May 2014, Lerner was declared a humiliation of Congress in connection with his Fifth Amendment call not to testify on this matter before the congressional committee. Resolution of humiliation, H.Res. 574, was introduced to the United States House of Representatives on May 7, 2014 by Representative Darrell Issa, Republic of California.
On May 7, 2014, the resolution was granted on 231-187 votes, with all Republicans and six Democrat votes in favor, and any other Democrats opposed. Representative Steve Stockman introduced the action (never taken by the House) that, if adopted, would direct Chairman John Boehner to instruct the House sergeant with a weapon to capture Lerner for insulting Congress.
In a seven-page letter to Chairman Boehner dated March 31, 2015, US Attorney for Columbia District Ronald Machen said that the Justice Department would not pursue criminal defamation charges against Lerner. Machen disagreed with Issa's claim that Lerner had waived his constitutional right against self-torture by making an opening statement to the hearing in May 2013 in which he made a brief opening statement stating that he was innocent before applying for the Fifth Amendment privilege. In a statement, the US Attorney's Office wrote: "Ms. Lerner does not rule out the privilege of the Fifth Amendment by making a general claim of innocence The Constitution will give Lerner an absolute defense if he is prosecuted for humiliation."
Cyber ​​court calls for Lerner email messages
In 2014, the House Oversight Committee under Issa issued a call for all Lerner email messages. A subpoena directs FEC chair Lee E. Goodman to submit all emails sent to or from Lerner, or copied to Lerner, from the last 28 years, starting from January 1, 1986, before commercial email.
The House Monitoring Committee also called the IRS for all e-mails to and from Lerner and other employees, such as Lerner's subordinates, Holly Paz, General Counsel William Wilkins, and chief of staff Jonathan Davis. At the March 2014 hearing, IRS commissioner John Koskinen said that the IRS at the time provided 690,000 pages of documents to the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee and 420,000 documents passed to the House and Senate surveillance commission. Koskinen said that the IRS has spent 10 months and $ 15 million adhere to various investigations to date, and it could take months or years to comply with calls from a broader court.
In 2014, in further pursuit of the Congressional Congressional inquiry, the House Surveillance Committee, chaired by Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), issued a court call to all Lerner email messages during that time. A few months later, the IRS told Congress that they did not have all of their email messages, because their hard drives crashed, causing them to disappear, that the IRS had taken steps to recover email messages, but that was not possible. The IRS Inspector General's office said, however, that they found backup computer tapes, and would attempt to reorder the e-mails from the backup tape. However, Investigators The Commission said that when they later went on to get a backup tape from the IRS, IRS employees in the backup tape unit said that no one from the IRS base had ever asked them.
Hard drive failure and deletion of Lerner email back-up tape
In June 2015, IRS Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus said that 424 backup tapes, most likely containing missing emails, were deleted in March 2014 - a month after the IRS said it was aware that some were missing. Lerner emails due to hard drive crashes, and although the email was then under calls from the Supervisory Committee. He declared, however, that their investigation "found no evidence that the abolition was done... to destroy evidence or hide information from Congress," and noted that there is a "remote possibility" that additional emails may still be found. He said that officials are examining the possibility, however, of criminal activity.
In June 2015, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Russell George and his deputy, Timothy Camus, told the Supervisory Committee, an investigation by them has been able to recover more than 1,000 emails that the IRS did not surrender to Congress. Their investigation can not determine why Lerner's computer crashed, but it was, "Prior to our investigation, and our attempt to recover lost Ms. Lerner's e-mail, the IRS did not search, review or check two separate sources of backup tapes, server hard drives, or laptop loaner that eventually generates a new email that was previously kept secret. "
In a statement released June 25, 2015, the IRS said it had "fully cooperated with the investigation," but admitted that the backup footage should not be removed. "The IRS acknowledges there is a clear communication disruption in one part of the organization regarding the need to maintain and retain records and backup information," the statement said, noting that internal reviews found the deletion unintentional.
An email account named "Toby Miles"
On August 23, 2015, the IRS told the federal court that Lerner had the second personal email account he used to run the IRS business. The account was created under the name "Toby Miles." Disclosure occurs in a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, which demands to get Lerner's email release. According to Eliana Johnson of National Review, a former colleague said that Toby Miles is the name of the dog Lerner.
The FBI found no evidence to support criminal prosecution
The US Justice Department and the FBI began an investigation into the IRS controversy in May 2013. In October 2015, the DOJ announced the closing of the investigation and would not file criminal charges. The determination came after nearly two years of investigation, in which DOJ and FBI interviewed more than 100 witnesses and reviewed more than one million pages of IRS documents.
In a letter to the chairman of the Justice Committee of the House of Representatives Bob Goodlatte, the Virginia Republic, announced the closing of the case, Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter J. Kadzik wrote that while "our investigation found substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment, and institutional institutions. No IRS employee reported any allegations, concerns, or allegations that the handling of tax-free applications - or any other IRS function - is motivated by political bias, discriminatory intent or corruption. "Kadzik writes," We found no evidence that IRS officials act on the motives political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that will support criminal prosecution. " Kadzik claimed that the inquiry specifically relieved Lerner of criminal liability, and decided that Lerner was actually the first official to recognize the problem and try to correct it.
The reaction to the investigative conclusion is divided into partisan lines. Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, chairman of the Supervisory Board and Government Reform Committee, said that the decision not to prosecute "the volume of evidence ignored in public records and attempts to impede legitimate requests", and that "giving Lois Lerner a freedom of pass only strengthens the idea that government officials are above the law and that there are no consequences for error. "Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat, a ranking member of the Supervisory Committee, said that" For the past five years, the Republican Party in the House of Representatives has wasted literally millions of dollars from all types of investigative rabbit -holes, Planned Parenthood, Benghazi - absolutely no evidence of illegal activity I believe Americans have higher expectations for their elected officials, and they want Congress to start doing its job and focus on important issues, instead of being silly, attacks that are financed by taxpayers. "The chairman of the Goodlatte House Justice Committee, the recipient of the DOJ letter, said the DOJ's decision was" disruptive. Americans should be concerned that this kind of politicization continues to be allowed by this administration and the Department of Justice is accused of wrongdoing ", and 19 members of the Supervisory Board and Government Reform Committee headed by Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
Personal life
Lerner is a former president of the Board of Ethics Governance (COGEL).
He's married to tax attorney Michael R. Miles.. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Lerner has been seen as an immoral figure. Larry M. Noble, who worked with Lerner at FEC when Noble was general counsel there (1987-2000), described Lerner as "truly one of the more political people I have met." Kenneth Gross, who first employed Lerner in the SEC in the early 1980s and is now a partner in Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & amp; Flom, said of Lerner that there was "not a political bone in his body."
See also
- Seek Lois Lerner in the humiliation of Congress (H.Res 574; 113th Congress)
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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