Lynch To Open IRS Investigation?

Posted on May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

Department of Justice to finally open an investigation into the IRS targeting? Congressman Paul Ryan transmits letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

To read the letter and see the signatures click here. Key section of letter in part:

Ms. Lerner used her position to improperly influence agency action against only conservative organizations, denying these groups due process and equal protection rights under the law.

Ms. Lerner impeded official investigations by providing misleading statements in response to questions from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

Ms. Lerner risked exposing, and may actually have disclosed, confidential taxpayer information, in apparent violation of Internal Revenue Code section 6103 by using her personal email to conduct official business.

Paul Ryan on Thursday sent his first official letter to Loretta Lynch, the new U.S. attorney general. With luck, Ms. Lynch will take a few moments out of her international soccer crackdown to give it a glance.

Signed by every Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which Mr. Ryan heads, the letter is a forceful request that Ms. Lynch channel just a smidgen of her famed prosecutorial skill into the largest abuse of government power in decades: the IRS targeting scandal. It’s now been two full years since a little-known IRS bureaucrat named Lois Lerner admitted that her agency systematically collected the names of conservative groups, harassed them, and denied their right to participate in elections. It’s been two full years since the Justice Department opened an investigation. And it’s been two full years of crickets.

While Ms. Lynch was this week orchestrating a dramatic dawn raid and the arrest of seven international soccer officials, the IRS’s offices continued to operate as if nothing ever happened. Two years ago, in the days following the targeting revelations, the administration sacked Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller only because it had to. Ms. Lerner, who had led the exempt organizations division, was allowed to retire with full pension benefits. Holly Paz, her effective deputy, was put on administrative leave. Everyone else is still at their desks. Not a single official—there or gone—has faced prosecution.

The Ryan letter asks Ms. Lynch to finally answer his committee’s 2014 referral of Ms. Lerner to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. That referral has been largely lost to time and other headlines. Most of the focus last year was on the House’s decision to issue a contempt citation against Ms. Lerner, for improperly asserting her Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to answer its questions about her time at the IRS. In March of this year, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen, who has since resigned, informed Speaker John Boehner that he was refusing to bring that contempt citation before a grand jury.

That’s a pity. Note, though, that the citation dealt only with Ms. Lerner’s after-the-fact behavior in front of Congress. Investigators have also compiled compelling evidence that she may have broken the law while overseeing the targeting of conservative groups. Nearly a month before Mr. Boehner sent out the citation, the Ways and Means Committee (then under Rep. Dave Camp) sent a letter to Justice making the case that Ms. Lerner should be criminally prosecuted for her time at the IRS. The Justice Department has never responded to that letter.

Specifically, the committee provided documents that show three acts by Ms. Lerner that may have violated criminal statutes. One, she helped to target only conservative organizations, thereby robbing them of equal protection and due process. Two, she may have impeded the Treasury inspector general’s investigation of the matter by giving misleading statements. Three, she risked exposing (and may have exposed) confidential taxpayer information by using her personal email address to conduct official business.

And that’s only what we know so far. Congress’s problem is that the IRS has stonewalled it at every turn. The Treasury inspector general, J. Russell George, has become tentative after all the Democratic criticism of his probe. It seems the Justice Department is the only body with the powers to shake loose some answers about what happened.

The Ryan letter asks Ms. Lynch to tell him the status of that referral, and Speaker Boehner chimed in with a statement calling for the new attorney general to prove to Americans that “justice will be served.”

Ms. Lynch’s response will be enormously telling about her view of her job. Well before the IRS scandal broke, former Attorney General Eric Holder had already built a reputation as one of the most partisan and political holders of the office in history. It was never really a surprise that Justice assigned the IRS probe to a staff attorney who was a Obama donor, or that the FBI early on leaked that it didn’t intend any prosecutions, or that Mr. Holder ignored calls for a special prosecutor. The likelihood that he’d act dropped further as evidence came out that his own Justice attorneys were implicated in Ms. Lerner’s targeting.

Meanwhile, today’s IRS commissioner, John Koskinen, has been unable to acknowledge that someone at his agency might have engaged in intentional wrongdoing. This attitude, combined with Justice’s inaction, creates the scary potential of an IRS targeting repeat. When nobody in a position of authority or with police power is willing to even question whether some in the IRS might be bad actors, there is no guard whatsoever against a Lerner 2.0.

One of Ms. Lynch’s specialties in her previous post as U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York was political corruption. She knows that government officials can and do break the law. If she ignores or skirts the Ryan letter, the country will see that it has another Obama partisan sitting in the attorney general seat. If she acts, she might instead restore some public faith in two of the nation’s least respected institutions: the Justice Department and the IRS. It doesn’t seem such a hard choice.

Meanwhile, Mexico Still Corrupt

Posted on May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

You hear very little about the corruption, the massacres and the crimes in Mexico mostly because the cartels and criminals have killed or bought off the media. Once in a while some items are passed on for publication. Do you ever wonder what the president of Mexico is doing? Do you wonder if the United States or the United Nations pays attention to Mexico?

Mexico is a failed state, examples below.

US Banks Close Branches Along Mexico Border to Prevent Money Laundering

Major US banks have recently closed branches along the southern border with Mexico in an attempt to crack down on money laundering, a reflection of the ease with which Mexican drug traffickers can legitimize illicit proceeds north of the border.

In recent months, major banks such J.P. Morgan and Bank of America have closed their branches in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, reported The Wall Street Journal. Other banks, including Wells Fargo and Chase, have reportedly closed hundreds of customer accounts, many of which belonged to Mexican nationals.

The anti-money laundering measures come amid tightening regulations stipulating that banks can be hit with stiff fines if they fail to adequately monitor suspicious accounts, reported National Public Radio.

Banks on the Mexican side of the border have also recently stepped up their efforts to combat money laundering operations. Some Mexican banks have started refusing to accept US dollars, according to The Associated Press.

InSight Crime Analysis

US banks have real reason to fear criminal networks will use their financial services to launder money. Arizona has previously been singled out as a principal money laundering destination for Mexican drug cartels, and bank executives told The Wall Street Journal that Southern California and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas are also high-risk border areas. As evidenced by the recent decisions, in some cases it is easier for banks to simply close accounts and branches rather than attempting to keep criminals from using their financial services.

Several high-profile cases point to the ability of Mexican drug traffickers to legalize their illicit funds via the US banking system. In 2010, Wachovia (which is now Wells Fargo) reached an agreement with the US government after prosecutors found that at least $110 million in drug proceeds had been laundered through the bank. In 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also uncovered a scheme in which Mexico‘s Zetas cartel laundered money through a horse racing enterprise by using Bank of America accounts.

In addition, the decisions by major banks to close their border branches suggest that putting pressure on banks — rather than going after individuals or criminal networks — may be the most effective way to combat money laundering. A recent legal decision, in which a conviction was overturned in the Zetas horse racing case, demonstrates just how difficult it can be for prosecutors to go after the money launderers themselves.

The case of 43 the missing/dead students:

He said three alleged gang members claimed the students were handed over to them by police.

They said some were already asphyxiated and they shot the others dead, before setting fire to all the bodies.

A total of 43 students went missing after clashing with police on 26 September in the town of Iguala.

A spokesman for their families said they would not accept they were dead until it had been officially confirmed by Argentine forensic scientists working on the case.

Bags found near river

The suspects from the Guerreros Unidos drug gang were recently arrested in connection with the disappearances.

Relatives of the missing said they had been told that six bags of unidentified human remains had been found along a river near where the students vanished.

There was this case in 2013 in Mexico:

MEXICO CITY — He admitted being a salaried killer for a drug cartel, the kind of assassin who preferred slashing his victims’ throats.

On Tuesday, after serving three years behind bars, he was released from a Mexican detention center and was on his way to the United States — where he would soon live as a free man.

Or, rather, a free boy.

The killer, Edgar Jimenez Lugo, known to Mexican crime reporters as “El Ponchis,” is 17 years old. He was 11 when he killed his first victim, and he was 14 when he was arrested, in December 2010, at the Cuernavaca airport, along with luggage containing two handguns and packets of cocaine.

Back then, Jimenez’s tender age transformed him into a media phenomenon, one that shocked Mexico, and the world, into recognizing the extent to which the country’s brutal drug war was consuming its young. And now it is one of the reasons why Jimenez — who claims to have killed four people at an age before most kids get their learner’s permit to drive — will soon be mingling with the residents of San Antonio.

Under the laws at the time in the Mexican state of Morelos, where he was prosecuted, Jimenez could be sentenced to a maximum of only three years of incarceration because he was a minor. A judge ordered him released Tuesday, a few days before his three years were up.

And because he is a U.S. citizen, born in San Diego, he has every right to return to his home country.

“Apparently he’s paid his debt for whatever crimes he was convicted of [in Mexico], and I’m not aware of any charges the U.S., federal or state, has against him,” Michelle Lee, an FBI special agent based in San Antonio, said Tuesday. “The situation with him is really no different than any other U.S. national who commits a crime, completes their sentence and is released.”

Jimenez, who had lived, and killed, in Jiutepec, a town near the popular resort city of Cuernavaca, was on a plane headed to San Antonio, where he has family, Jorge Vicente Messeguer Guillen, the Morelos government secretary, said in a TV interview.

Once in San Antonio, Messeguer said, Jimenez would be sent to what he referred to as a “support center” but would not be locked up.

Graco Ramirez, the Morelos governor, said in a separate TV interview that Jimenez’s rehabilitation in the Mexican penal system had been “notable.” He also said that Jimenez had to leave Mexico because his life might be in danger.

U.S. State Department officials would not elaborate on what Jimenez’s living arrangements would be when he arrived in Texas. Nor did they clarify what Messeguer meant by a “support center.”

“We are aware of Edgar Lugo’s upcoming release by the Mexican authorities following completion of his sentence,” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said in a statement Tuesday. “We are closely coordinating with our Mexican counterparts and appropriate authorities in the United States regarding Edgar Lugo’s release.

“Due to privacy considerations, we do not publicly discuss details of matters involving U.S. citizens,” he said.

Jimenez’s case is far from unique. In February, a 13-year-old boy was arrested in the state of Zacatecas along with a group of gunmen. The boy, identified as Armando, confessed to participating in at least 10 slayings. He was freed because the state criminal code does not prosecute minors younger than 14. A month later, the boy and his mother were found slain along with four other people.

In 2011, a 15-year-old who went by the name Erick was arrested and said he worked for the same group that Jimenez did, participating with other teenagers in kidnappings and drug dealing. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.

U.S. Declares Cuba Normal Despite Terror History

Posted on May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

As you read this short notice, consider that now that relations with Cuba have been formally normalized, will the next step be to turn Guantanamo over to Cuba and terminate the lease, which was designed in perpetuity?

Kerry signed the order on Cuba today placing Cuba back to a pre-Cold War status. Only 3 countries left that carry the distinction of a state sponsor of terror .

The step comes as officials from the countries continue to hash out details of restoring full diplomatic relations, including opening embassies in Washington and Havana and returning ambassadors to the two countries. Friday’s removal of Cuba from the terrorism list had been a key Cuban demand.

President Barack Obama recommended to Congress last month that Cuba be removed from the U.S. list, triggering a 45-day congressional notification period.

State Sponsors of Terrorism

Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism are designated pursuant to three laws: section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act, section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, and section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act. Taken together, the four main categories of sanctions resulting from designation under these authorities include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions.

Designation under the above-referenced authorities also implicates other sanctions laws that penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with state sponsors. Currently there are three countries designated under these authorities: Iran, Sudan, and Syria.

Country	Designation Date
Iran	January 19, 1984
Sudan	August 12, 1993
Syria	December 29, 1979

Recommendation to Rescind Cuba’s Designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism

(Apr. 14): In December 2014, as a critical component of establishing a new direction for U.S.–Cuba relations, the President directed the State Department to launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism and provide a report to him within six months. Last week, the State Department submitted a report to the White House recommending, based on the facts and the statutory standard, that President Obama rescind Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Country Reports on Terrorism

U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.

The U.S. State Department keeps a summary and classification on countries. To read further on those go here.

Lawyers ask Court to Drop Obamacare Case

Posted on May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

Very little is being reported on the legal case where the House of Representatives is suing over Obamacare. Administration lawyers are asking for the whole case to be dropped. If the case moves forward and a ruling is delivered on the side of the House, Office of Management and Budget and Health and Human Services has no plan B.

The basis of the case is money, where the administration ‘is paying health insurance companies over a decade to reimburse them for offering lowered rates for poor people. The House argues that Congress never specifically appropriated that money, and indeed denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is paying it anyway.

The House says this amounts to unconstitutionally co-opting Congress’ power of the purse. The administration insists it is relying on an existing pot of money that it is allowed to use.’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama administration attorneys urged a federal judge Thursday to throw out a politically charged lawsuit by House Republicans over the president’s health care law, but encountered plenty of skeptical questions.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer interrupted Justice Department attorney Joel McElvain to ask in the opening moments of his argument, as he tried to assert that the House hadn’t suffered a particular injury in the case and therefore lacks any basis for suing.

“I have a very hard time taking that statement seriously,” Collyer said. She ended the hearing without ruling, telling both parties: “I have lots of ideas. I just haven’t decided yet.”

At issue in the case is some $175 billion the administration is paying health insurance companies over a decade to reimburse them for offering lowered rates for poor people. The House argues that Congress never specifically appropriated that money, and indeed denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is paying it anyway.

The House says this amounts to unconstitutionally co-opting Congress’ power of the purse. The administration insists it is relying on an existing pot of money that it is allowed to use.

Thursday’s hearing focused on whether the House has legal standing to bring the suit at all. The administration says it doesn’t, arguing the House has not been injured and is just advancing abstract complaints about the implementation of the law. The administration argues the House has many other remedies available, such as passing a new law.

“The House cannot sue the executive branch over the implementation of existing federal law,” McElvain insisted, adding later: “Nothing limits the right to come back and enact new legislation.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, arguing for the House, vehemently disagreed.

“We believe we have established what can only be viewed as a concrete injury,” Turley said in court. “I find it astonishing that this can be viewed as an abstraction.”

Frustrated House Republicans authorized the lawsuit over Democratic objections last summer, in the run-up to the congressional midterm elections. They had already voted dozens of times to repeal all or parts of the law known as Obamacare, but as long as President Barack Obama is in the White House they have no legislative solution.

Thursday’s hearing, the first in the case, comes as the Obama administration and lawmakers of both parties anxiously await a Supreme Court ruling on a different lawsuit that challenges other portions of the health law and threatens insurance subsidies for millions of Americans.

It’s not clear whether the House suit will make it that far. Previous attempts by members of Congress to sue past administrations have been tossed out, although the House health lawsuit is the first by the full House against a sitting president.

Collyer, a 2003 appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, gave the House side reason to be hopeful with her aggressive sparring with the Justice Department’s McElvain. She will rule at a later date.

The partisan political backdrop of the lawsuit resonated at various points in the courtroom, including when Collyer questioned whether impeachment could be an alternative remedy rather than suing. She then quickly added, addressing the spectator gallery filled with reporters: “I don’t mean to suggest… Don’t anyone write that down.”

In addition to the issue over appropriations the House lawsuit accused the administration of acting unconstitutionally in delaying deadlines in the law for employers to offer coverage. That appears to be a weaker claim and was not discussed in court Thursday.

WH Declares that Iraq/ISIS is Iraq’s Problem

Posted on May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

If you wonder why there is no strategy to defeat ISIS, it is because the White House, meaning Barack Obama and Susan Rice have formally declared that the civil war in Iraq and Syria belong to others to handle. The United States will not be responsible for securing Iraq, PERIOD.

This has been known for quite some time at the Pentagon and military leaders including the SecDefs, both Hagel and Carter have written and voiced their immediate requests for a strategy. There are liaisons between the Pentagon and Congress that provide information to key lawmakers, there is no doubt that the Pentagon is reaching out for some real help from Congress. When Senator Dick Durbin, who is anti-war requests a strategy and safe zones of the military and the White House, the case is proven, Congress is current on the bumbling by the White House with regard to ISIS.

Earlier this month, Durbin asked Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Ash Carter about the feasibility of establishing the zones when they testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Durbin is the ranking member of the powerful subcommittee, which controls the Pentagon’s purse strings.

Carter added, “We would need to fight to create such a space, and then fight to keep such a space.” The Pentagon readily admits the Islamic State cannot be defeated without addressing the glaring Syria question, but it has adopted an “Iraq first” strategy toward the terrorist group, focusing U.S. airpower in a country where the government requested it. But after the fall of Ramadi last weekend, more lawmakers are renewing calls for deeper U.S. military involvement, including embedding American troops with Iraqi forces to call in airstrikes.

President Obama, after months of equivocation over how to respond to the takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria by radical militants, announced in September that the United States would “lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” the White House swung quickly into action, sending proposed legislation to train and equip Syrian rebels to Capitol Hill that same day.

Unfortunately, the White House failed to consult with the Pentagon—which would be doing most of the rolling back—on the timing or details of the announcement.
To be part of the U.S. coalition, members had to offer some assistance. That assistance could be any type of cooperation with such participation as MRE’s, a terrorism training class, publishing bulletins, fighter jets, approved air-space for refueling or just holding a conference call. Exactly, what kind of help is Estonia or Greece offering? Here is the document on the coalition members and requests for involvement.

While U.S. aircraft are flying a handful of sorties a day, 70% of the aircraft return to base without dropping ordnance because of lack of approval and no quality ground-controllers delivering coordinates. We are just wasting fuel and essentially practicing an air campaign.

Our military knows how to fight this fight as they have successfully performed the operations before. Today, on the ground in Iraq are Shiite militia, Iranian proxies coordinating ground operations for the sake of their future victory, Iraq will belong to Iran, as will Syria. In the case of Syria however, the forecast is it will be a split state between Iran and Russia. The same is likely for Libya.

Today, Bashir al Assad is running an aggressive campaign to defeat al Nusra and ISIS under the promise of future financial support from Iran. Assad’s success will be fleeting at best, even while Hezbollah is aiding in some measure to protect the regime. Once again, the U.S. air operations in Syria are in coordination with Assad, consider that both state’s aircraft have been in the air at the same time. That puts the U.S. siding with Hezbollah. Yes…real twisted conditions for sure.