A new Senate report reveals that Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who led the agency's efforts to unfairly target conservative groups for extra scrutiny, once inquired about opening an audit into the compensation Bristol Palin was receiving from a pro-abstinence charity, reports USA Today.
During its two-year investigation, the Senate examined 1.5 million pages of emails from the IRS. In an addendum to the bipartisan report, Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, cited an April 2011 email from Lerner as an "example or Lerner's interest in conservative organizations."
Lerner sent the email to her supervisors asking whether the IRS should audit Candie's Foundation, a nonprofit group that educates teens on the consequences of pregnancy, which paid Palin $332,500 in compensation for being a celebrity "ambassador" for the organization. Palin is the daughter of former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
After learning of Palin's compensation from a news article, Lerner apparently thought the salary could be in violation of IRS rules prohibiting charitable groups from being for the private benefit of individuals, explains USA Today.
"Thoughts on the Bristol Palin issue?" Lerner wrote to David Fish and Judith Kindell, two IRS officials. "I'm curious that a [private foundation] can pay any amount to someone who is not a [disqualified person]? It is a [private foundation] right? Even if it were a [public charity] - would that be private benefit - what are the consequences? I'm asking because I don't know whether to send to Exam as a referral."
Hatch noted in the report that it was quite unusual for Lerner to consider an audit based on a single news article, and said that out of the 1.5 million IRS records reviewed, Lerner never referred a progressive group for an audit based on similar conditions, according to The Daily Caller.
"Lerner's willingness to act on this particular news article - among many that reached her inbox each day - shows that she was paying close attention to conservative politicians and organizations," Hatch wrote in the report.
The report concluded that Lerner "poorly mismanaged the scrutiny of Tea Party organizations and fostered a dysfunctional office culture. But Republicans and Democrats could not agree on the extent to which the IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking tax exemptions were motivated by Lerner's Democratic political beliefs," USA Today said.
Palin caught wind of the Senate report and weighed in on her Patheos blog on Thursday:
"I wonder if she also was combing through the financial records of liberal non-profits to see who she thought made too much money? I wonder if Lois also sent e-mails about other Candie's ambassadors like Beyoncé, Ciara, Jenny McCarthy, Vanessa Minnillo, Ashley Tisdale, Hilary Duff, Ashlee Simpson, Usher, Rachel Bilson, and Teddy Geiger?
Wait. I already know the answer to that question. We know the IRS reserved its scrutiny primarily for conservatives.
Looks like I almost got caught up in her assault of people who love America.
I'm honored."
