Contact: Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch, 202-646-5172
 
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2016 /Standard Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch today released 72 pages of Department of Justice documents revealing email conversations between Department of Justice officials and the staff of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) regarding the criminal prosecution of Tea Party groups for alleged violation of IRS rules.

The conversations were in preparation for a briefing by Justice Department officials for Sen. Whitehouse's staff and for a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing on April 9, 2013. One internal agency email exchange indicates Sen. Whitehouse's interest in seeking criminal prosecution of groups targeted by the IRS:

From: Erb, William (OLA)

Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 4:54 PM

To: Raman, Mythill (CRM) [REDACTED] (CRM);Wroblewski, Jonathan (CRM); Hulser, Raymond (CRM); Smith, Jack (CRM); Burton, Faith (OLA); Levine, Doug (OLA); Suleiman, Daniel (CRM); Lenerz, Daniel J. (CRM); Shatz, Eileen M. (TAX); OBrien, Paul (CRM); [REDACTED] (CRM); [REDACTED] (CRM); Cimino, Ronald A. (TAX)

Cc: Buretta, John (CRM): Agrast, Mark D. (OLA); [REDACTED] (CRM)

Subject: RE: New Whitehouse question regarding Campaign Finance Investigation and Prosecution

Importance: High

All: New question from Sen. Whitehouse. Sen. Whitehouse is likely to ask AAAG Raman whether the Department of Justice is too deferential to IRS in deciding to prosecute 501(c) organizations that make false statements regarding their political activities in their IRS filings. Sen. Whitehouse is curious why, for example. if a 501(c) tax organization files were leaked, and they clearly showed that make false statements, why the Department of Justice wouldn't prosecute the case by itself and not wait for the IRS. Looping in the Tax Division who also can help CRIM come up with a quick response. Thanks, Bill.

Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a federal court order in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v Department of Justice (No. 1:14-cv-01239)).

Later, at the Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, Sen. Whitehouse asked why the Department of Justice wasn't prosecuting political groups on its own, independently of the IRS.

"I would urge that the Department and the Service get together and rethink whether in these two specific areas, which I think bear little resemblance to traditional tax violations and are in fact very plain-vanilla criminal cases, whether or not that deference to the IRS is actually serving the public interest at this point, or whether the Department could not proceed to… put together a criminal case showing a fairly straightforward false statement or a fairly [straightforward] shell corporation disclosure violation."

The newly released emails show that following the hearing, at the request of Justice Department lawyers, Sen. Whitehouse's staff sent over examples of the organizations Whitehouse had in mind for prosecution. They included American Future Fund, Crossroads GPS, Americans for Responsible Leadership, Freedom Path, American is Not Stupid, Inc., RightChange.com II, and A Better America Now. All of these are conservative organizations.

MORE: www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/democratic-senator-sought-justice-department-irs-criminal-prosecutions-conservatives-2013