IRS Off the Hook: No Criminal Charges Over Tea Party Targeting

The FBI is not planning to file criminal charges involving the Internal Revenue Service's extra scrutiny of the Tea Party and other conservative groups, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing law enforcement officials.
The newspaper quoted officials as saying that investigators probing the IRS actions, which unleashed a political furor in Washington, did not uncover the type of political bias or "enemy hunting" that would constitute a criminal violation. The evidence showed a mismanaged agency enforcing rules it did not understand on applications for tax exemptions, the Journal reported.
The case is still under investigation, but criminal charges were unlikely unless unexpected evidence emerged, officials familiar with the probe told the paper.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment when queried by Reuters.

If there are no criminal charges as expected, the FBI is likely to see a backlash from already skeptical conservative groups which had raised the idea that the administration would not police itself.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa last week questioned whether a prosecutor handling the case for the Justice Department could remain impartial when he donated to the Obama campaign.

And just last week, The Washington Times reported that some conservative groups were only just being contacted  by the IRS, raising the question of just how thorough an investigation the FBI conducted.

Cleta Mitchell, another attorney representing some of the targeted groups, said last week her clients have not heard from investigators.

"Normally, don't you first interview the victims?" Mitchell said. "I mean, I've watched enough cop shows over the years. You interview the victims. You don't interview the perp."

FBI Director James Comey told reporters last week when asked about the IRS probe, "It's an investigation that we're still working, and that's an important one for us." He declined to comment on whether the FBI believed a crime had been committed.
In May, a senior IRS executive made an unexpected public apology at a legal conference for what she described as improper scrutiny by the agency of conservative political groups.
The apology set off weeks of investigation and controversy, culminating in findings that Tea Party-linked political groups applying for tax-exempt status had been subjected to extra review and delay by employees at an IRS Cincinnati field office.
Republican lawmakers attacked President Barack Obama's administration over the issue, accusing the agency of political bias.
Obama asked then-acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller to resign in the days after the disclosure, and the FBI opened an investigation.



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California Lawmaker Pushes Bill Extending Obamacare To Undocumented Immigrants

 

 

A California state lawmaker plans to introduce legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to have access to government health insurance plans.
The lawmaker, state Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, said if the current focus of healthcare reform is make sure everyone has access to coverage programs, the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States cannot be omitted.
“We’ve made enormous strides to reduce California’s uninsured population with the implementation of the [federal] Affordable Care Act, but we won’t have a truly healthy state until everyone has access to quality, affordable coverage,” said Lara, head of the state Latino legislative caucus, in a press release. “Immigration status shouldn’t bar individuals from health coverage, especially since their taxes contribute to the growth of our economy.”
Federal laws preclude undocumented immigrants from many programs – including state insurance ones – that receive federal funding.
The healthcare reform measure, called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), does not allow participation by undocumented immigrants. In California, Covered California, the healthcare exchange that is part of ACA, excludes undocumented immigrants, the Los Angeles Times said.
Lara’s office said in a press release that about a million California residents would be left out of the coverage overhaul because they are undocumented. About another million undocumented immigrants get some form of health care benefits through their place of work, the Times said.
Some of the possible ways undocumented immigrants could get access to health care coverage are expanding Medi-Cal, the state’s plan for low-income people, or through a program linked to Covered California that does not receive federal funding, the Times said.
“Access to preventive care keeps people healthier by providing regular check-ups and screenings, and early diagnosis of health problems ensures those problems can be treated before they become overly expensive,” said Lara’s press release.
“By ensuring everyone has access to health care, we can improve the health of our entire community, limit the overcrowding of emergency rooms, and reduce the costs of healthcare in California.”
Some state Republicans object to Lara's views on allowing undocumented immigrants to get access to government insurance programs.
Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks, a candidate for governor, said, "California cannot afford to create another incentive to attract people to come to our state illegally in pursuit of taxpayer-subsidized benefits. It's shameful that … Lara would trade on the plight of those who are ineligible."

GOP rep: Require food stamp recipients to work

A Republican congressman renewed his call Sunday for Congress to require able-bodied adults on food stamps to work or volunteer in order to keep receiving the benefits, as the rolls of the welfare program have grown to a record 47 million people. 
"I think it makes sense," Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., said on "Fox News Sunday," after a week during which the Obama administration proposed new initiatives to target poverty. Both parties are floating ideas to address poverty and "income inequality," 50 years after the "War on Poverty" was first waged, to limited success.
Southerland's proposal was included in a House-passed version of a food stamp bill approved this past fall, but the House and Senate still have not agreed on final legislation addressing both food stamps and farm subsidies.
Southerland, co-chairman of the Republican Study Committee's Anti-Poverty Initiative, stressed that his plan would exclude disabled people, seniors and children. He claimed most people would agree that food stamp recipients should work, train, look for work or volunteer while on the benefits.
But Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, noted that the other part of the House Republicans' bill would cut billions from food stamps over the next decade, and said many households receiving the benefits are in fact working households.
"You're actually sending a very bad message about work," he said.
The House and Senate remain at odds over how and at what level to fund food stamps, which cost nearly $80 billion in fiscal 2012.
The House bill would cut nearly $40 billion over the next decade. The Senate plan, however, would cut just $4 billion.

Bush's Fault

Standards for Impeachment

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article II, Section 4

Impeachment is the constitutionally specified means by which an official of the executive or judicial branch may be removed from office for misconduct. There has been considerable controversy about what constitutes an impeachable offense. At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates early on voted for "mal-practice and neglect of duty" as grounds for impeachment, but the Committee of Detail narrowed the basis to treason, bribery, and corruption, then deleting the last point. George Mason, who wanted the grounds much broader and similar to the earlier formulation, suggested "maladministration," but James Madison pointed out that this would destroy the President's independence and make him dependent on the Senate. Mason then suggested "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," which the Convention accepted.
Because "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" was a term of art used in English impeachments, a plausible reading supported by many scholars is that the grounds for impeachment can be not only the defined crimes of treason and bribery, but also other criminal or even noncriminal behavior amounting to a serious dereliction of duty. That interpretation is disputed, but it is agreed by virtually all that the impeachment remedy was to be used in only the most extreme situations, a position confirmed by the relatively few instances in which Congress has used the device.
The word "impeachment" is popularly used to indicate both the bringing of charges in the House and the Senate vote on removal from office. In the Constitution, however, the term refers only to the former. At the Convention, the delegates experimented with differing impeachment proceedings. As finally agreed, a majority vote of the House of Representatives is required to bring impeachment charges (Article I, Section 2, Clause 5), which are then tried before the Senate (Article I, Section 3, Clause 6). Two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict before an official can be removed. The President may not pardon a person who has been impeached (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1). If an official is impeached by the House and convicted by the requisite vote in the Senate, then Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, provides that the person convicted is further barred from any "Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States." The convicted official also loses any possible federal pensions. With a few exceptions, those impeached and removed have generally faded into obscurity.
In The Federalist No. 64, John Jay argued that the threat of impeachment would encourage executive officers to perform their duties with honor, and, used as a last resort, impeachment itself would be effective to remove those who betray the interests of their country. Like the limitations on the offense of treason, the Framers placed particular grounds of impeachment in the Constitution because they wished to prevent impeachment from becoming a politicized offense, as it had been in England. Nonetheless, Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist No. 65, also warned that during impeachment proceedings, it would be difficult for Congress to act solely in the interests of the nation and resist political pressure to remove a popular official. The Framers believed that the Senate, elected by the state legislatures, would have the requisite independence needed to try impeachments. The Framers also mandated a supermajority requirement to militate against impeachments brought by the House for purely political reasons.
There have been several impeachment proceedings initiated since the adoption of the Constitution, principally against judges in the lower federal courts. The most important impeachments were those brought against United States Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805, against President Andrew Johnson in 1867, and against President William Jefferson Clinton in 1999. None of these three resulted in removal from office, and all three stand for the principle that impeachment should not be perceived as a device simply to remove a political opponent. In that regard, the caution of the Framers has been fulfilled.
President George Washington appointed Samuel Chase to the Supreme Court in 1796. Washington had been warned of Chase's mercurial behavior, but Chase had written the President that, if he were appointed, he would do nothing to embarrass the administration. In his early years on the Court, Chase kept his pledge and did render some fine decisions clarifying the powers of the federal government. In the election of 1800, however, when Thomas Jefferson ran against Washington's Vice President and successor John Adams, Chase earned the ire of Jefferson's emerging Republican party. For one thing, Chase actively took to the hustings to campaign for Adams (a move rare for sitting judges even then). What finally brought President Jefferson to approve of efforts by his party's representatives in Congress to remove the judge was a grand-jury charge Chase made in Baltimore in 1803. There Chase lamented the Jeffersonian restructuring of the federal judiciary in order to abolish the Circuit Court judgeships that the Adams administration had created, and the Maryland Jeffersonians' abolishing a state court and establishing universal male suffrage in Maryland. Chase argued that all of this was plunging the country into "mobocracy." Chase voiced sentiments common to a wing of the party of Washington and Adams, but Jefferson and his men believed that to have a federal judge publicly articulating such views was harmful to the government, and they moved against Chase. In addition to citing his behavior in Baltimore, the impeachment charges included several counts based on Chase's conduct during controversial trials in 1800 against Jeffersonian writers who had been prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 (a temporary measure that punished libels against the government).
The proceeding against Chase was part of a broader Jeffersonian assault on the judiciary, and it was widely believed, at least among Federalists, that if it were successful, Chief Justice John Marshall might be the next target. None of the specifications brought against Chase charged him with any criminal conduct, and their thrust seemed to be that his legal rulings were simply not in accordance with Jeffersonian theory on how trials ought to be conducted or how juries should function. There was substantial legal precedent behind each of Chase's rulings, however, and although he may have been guilty of having a hair-trigger temper, it was also clear that to permit his removal would seriously, perhaps permanently, compromise the independence of the judiciary. The requisite two-thirds majority of Senators could not be cobbled together to remove Chase, and, in fact, members of Jefferson's own party even voted for acquittal. From that time to this, the Chase acquittal has been understood to bar the removal of a Supreme Court Justice on the ground of his political preferences. Subsequently, there have been several attempts to begin impeachment proceedings against particular Justices, but none has ever prevailed in the House.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded to the presidency following Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, was impeached because of his failure to follow procedures specified in federal legislation (passed over his veto) that prohibited the firing of Cabinet officials without the permission of Congress. The legislation, known as the Tenure of Office Act, was arguably unconstitutional because it compromised the independence of the executive. Nevertheless, the radical Republicans, who then controlled Congress and who recoiled at President Johnson's active hostility to their plans to protect the newly freed slaves, sought to keep the sympathetic members of Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet in office. When Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the gauntlet was thrown down, and impeachment was voted by the House. Though just as political as the Chase impeachment proceedings, there was some support for the Tenure of Office Act (Alexander Hamilton, writing in the The Federalist No. 77, had suggested that the consent of the Senate would be necessary "to displace as well as to appoint" officials). As it turned out, the conviction of Johnson failed in the Senate by only one vote.
The administration of President William Jefferson Clinton was beset by assorted scandals, many of which resulted in the appointment of special federal prosecutors, and several of which resulted in the convictions of lesser officials. One of the special prosecutors, Kenneth Starr, recommended to the Congress in 1998 that it consider evidence that the President had obstructed justice, tampered with witnesses, lied to a grand jury, and sought to conceal evidence in connection with a civil proceeding brought against him involving claims of sexual harassment. President Clinton denied the charges, but the Arkansas federal judge who presided in that civil proceeding eventually cited and fined Clinton for contempt based on his untruthful testimony.
A majority of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted in early 1999 to impeach the President based upon Judge Starr's referral. The House managers argued that what the President had done was inconsistent with his sworn duty to take care that the laws of the nation be faithfully executed. When the matter was tried in the Senate, in February 1999, however, the President's defenders prevailed, and no more than fifty Senators (all Republicans) could be found to vote for conviction on any of the charges.
The only other time a President came close to being impeached was the case of Richard M. Nixon. He resigned from office in 1974, after a House Committee had voted to put before the full House a number of impeachment charges, the most serious of which was that he had wrongly used the FBI and the CIA in order to conceal evidence that persons connected to the White House had participated in a burglary at the Democratic Party's offices at the Watergate apartment complex. Nixon avoided impeachment, though not disgrace.
There is no authoritative pronouncement, other than the text of the Constitution itself, regarding what constitutes an impeachable offense, and what meaning to accord to the phrase "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." When he was a Congressman, Gerald R. Ford advocated the ultimately unsuccessful impeachment of a Supreme Court Justice by defining an impeachable offense as anything on which a majority of the House of Representatives can agree. As impeachment is understood to be a political question, Ford's statement correctly centers responsibility for the definition of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" in the House. The federal courts have thus far treated appeals from impeachment convictions to be nonjusticiable. Nixon v. United States (1993). Even if the issue of impeachment is nonjusticiable, it does not mean that there are no appropriate standards that the House should observe.
Some scholarly commentary at the time of the Nixon impeachment proceedings argued that the actual commission of a crime was necessary to serve as a basis for an impeachment proceeding. However, the historical record of impeachments in England, which furnished the Constitution's Framers with the term "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," does not support such a limitation; at that time, the word "Misdemeanors" meant simply "misdeeds," rather than "petty crimes," as it now does. The issue was revisited at the time of the Clinton impeachment, when those who sought to remove the President from office, basing their arguments principally on the English experience and The Federalist No. 64, claimed that a President could be removed for any misconduct that indicated that he did not possess the requisite honor, integrity, and character to be trusted to carry out his functions in a manner free from corruption. As James Iredell (later Associate Justice of the Supreme Court) opined in the North Carolina ratifying convention, impeachment should be used to remedy harm "arising from acts of great injury to the community."
On the other hand, some have argued that a President should not be impeached unless he has actually engaged in a major abuse of power flowing from his office as President (although judges, who serve during "good behavior," have been impeached for conduct occurring outside of their official duties). In the end, because it is unlikely that a Court would ever exercise judicial review over impeachment and removal proceedings, the definitional responsibility to carry them out with fidelity to the Constitution's text remains that of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Stephen B. Presser

Sullivan & Cromwell Professor of Law

Northwestern University School of Law

Obama administration cutting ties with HealthCare.gov contractor

The Obama administration is cutting ties with contractor CGI Federal over its handling of the problem-plagued HealthCare.gov, months after the troubled Oct. 1 launch.
The Washington Post first reported that federal health officials plan to sign a year-long, $90 million contract with Accenture. A source later confirmed the decision to The Associated Press.
The government's contract with CGI was up at the end of February anyway, but the administration apparently is deciding not to renew it. According to the Post, officials concluded CGI was not effective in fixing the myriad problems with the federal ObamaCare website.
A statement to Fox News from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said only that it is working with contract partners "to make a mutually agreed upon transition to ensure that HealthCare.gov continues to operate smoothly for consumers."
The statement continued: "We continually evaluate our needs and remain focused on ensuring consumers have access to affordable, quality coverage, and more than 1.1 million already have enrolled in a private plan in the federal Marketplace."
Republicans are not letting up in their criticism of the law's implementation.
"A change in contractors does not change the sad state of this law," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement.
Enrollment through the federal website has picked up considerably since the Oct. 1 launch, when many were blocked from accessing the site due to technical glitches.
But outside experts had to be brought in and many lawmakers criticized CGI and other contractors who had been working for years on the project.
At first the administration said the problem was not having enough equipment to handle the high level of interest. But major software and design flaws quickly emerged. For example, unlike most e-commerce sites, HealthCare.gov had no way for prospective customers to browse health plans without first opening an account. That only created more computing work for the overwhelmed system to handle.
The administration later acknowledged HealthCare.gov was down 60 percent of the time in October.
The White House sent in a troubleshooter, management consultant Jeffrey Zients, who managed to turn things around by the end of November. Since then, more than 1 million people have signed up for coverage, and when state-run websites are counted, enrollments total more than 2 million.
CGI and other contractors have told Congress that there was not enough time to properly test the system and also meet the administration's Oct. 1 deadline for launching it.

Dem senator under fire for pressuring agency to change insurance cancellation stats

Democratic Colorado Sen. Mark Udall is under fire following reports that his staff pressured the Colorado Division of Insurance to walk back its claims that 250,000 people in the state had their health insurance canceled due to ObamaCare. 
"It's downright shameful that Sen. Udall would attempt to intimidate state employees to give him political cover," Colorado GOP Chairman Ryan Call told FOX31 in Denver.
The allegations surfaced Thursday after the news site Complete Colorado published emails between Udall's office and the Colorado insurance agency last November. At the time, controversy was heating up over the hundreds of thousands of insurance cancellation notices going out -- the cancellations undercut President Obama's campaign-trail assertions that those who like their health plans can keep them.
Udall's staff challenged the Colorado agency for saying there had been 249,000 cancellations.
"Sen. Udall says our numbers were wrong. They are not wrong," one insurance department official wrote, according to a Nov. 14 email. "Cancellation notices affected 249,199 people. They want to trash our numbers. I'm holding strong while we get more details. Many have already done early renewals. Regardless, they received cancellation notices."
The dispute apparently was over the fact that many of those receiving cancellation notices were also being offered renewals.
"We reached out to the Dept. of Insurance because 250,000 cancellations was radically different than the number we were hearing from the insurance industry," Udall spokesman Mike Saccone told FOX31 Denver. "In fact, 96 percent of Coloradans who received 'cancellation letters' were offered an opportunity to renew their current coverage. To the average Coloradan, that is not a cancellation."
Udall's office wanted that clarification to be made.
But the tone of the emails drew accusations of intimidation.
One email showed the same insurance agency official telling colleagues she got a "very hostile phone call" from Udall's deputy chief of staff.
Another email showed a Udall staffer telling the division "we need to move on this ASAP -- or we'll be forced to challenge the 249K number ourselves."
Brook Hougesen, a spokeswoman with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that Udall "authorized his staff to pressure and intimidate state officials to manipulate health care cancellation statistics resulting from ObamaCare."
Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., also wrote a letter on Thursday to state Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar pressing for details about their insurance cancellation calculations.
Salazar told the Denver Post there was no "ongoing pattern of intimidation" with Udall's office.
Udall also told the Denver Post it was "really important to correct the record."

Chris Christie