By Ben Barrack
Consider something we’ve talked about before – the 501(c)(3) approval letter for the Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF), headed by Malik Obama, the President’s half-brother. There are plenty of red flags with the approval itself, before we even get into what BHOF does and who Malik consorts with, namely terrorist leaders of a terrorist state.
As we and others have pointed out, Lois Lerner’s signature is at the bottom of BHOF’s tax-exempt approval letter:
However, Ms. Lerner’s name is not the only one on that document belonging to an IRS employee. Consider the name Renee Railey Norton, who appears to be the one responsible for processing Malik’s 501(c)(3) approval. Ms. Lerner is on paid leave, raking in $3400 / week. Is Ms. Norton on paid leave or is she still working in Cincinnati?
The question that should be asked of Ms. Norton involves her intricate knowledge of the process. Did she question the application before processing it? If yes, who overrode her? If no, why did she do it? Also, if no, it would seem that Ms. Norton has opened up a huge can of worms relative to granting tax-exempt status to a foundation whose founder works for a terrorist state.
Let’s introduce another name into the equation – Elizabeth Hofacre. She is a staffer at the Cincinnati IRS office and she is not the least bit happy that Lois Lerner has pointed to “rogue” employees in Cincinnati as being the source of IRS malfeasance. Hofacre has named Carter Hull as the person who provided direction to her when it came to screening Tea Party groups.
Via The Hill:
Elizabeth Hofacre, the Cincinnati staffer, said that she started receiving applications from Tea Party groups to sift through in April, 2010. Hofacre’s handling of those cases, she said, was highly influenced by Carter Hull, an IRS lawyer in Washington.
Hofacre’s comments are at variance with those of Lerner and Steven Miller, who recently resigned as interim IRS Commissioner. Bother Lerner and Miller have pointed to the Cincinnati office when questioned about how this was allowed to happen. Hofacre is having none of it:
“I was appalled and I was infuriated,” Hofacre said. “Because they are inaccurate, and everybody that has been making those statements should know they are inaccurate.”
Here is a Fox News report on the subject (h/t GWP):
There have been many comparisons between this IRS scandal and Watergate but we’re now beginning to see similar behaviors from people who have a big problem with having it tied around their necks. Consider James McCord, a senior CIA security officer who later took a job working to re-elect Nixon in 1972. When McCord and the other four burglars were caught, the whole thing began to unravel.
On 21st December, 1972, McCord wrote a letter to Jack Caulfield: “Sorry to have to write you this letter but felt you had to know. if Helms goes, and if the WG (Watergate) operation is laid at the CIA’s feet, where it does not belong, every tree in the forest will fall. It will be a scorched desert. The whole matter is at the precipice right now. Just pass the message that if they want it to blow, they are on exactly the right course. I’m sorry that you will get hurt in the fallout.”
Despite being advised by Caulfield of McCord’s threat, Nixon fired his CIA Director, then the trees began to fall:
In February, 1973, Richard Helms was sacked by Nixon. The following month McCord carried out his threat. On 19th March, 1973, McCord wrote a letter to Judge John J. Sirica claiming that the defendants had pleaded guilty under pressure (from John Dean and John N. Mitchell) and that perjury had been committed.
Clearly, Hofacre does not have the relative power in this scandal that McCord did in Watergate but one thing is certain; there are employees at the Cincinnati office that resent their office being pinned with the blame of targeting conservative groups, in much the same way that McCord didn’t want his agency blamed in Watergate. The letter signed by Lerner that also bears the name of Renee Railey Norton transcends the part of this scandal that is grabbing headlines, which should give the Cincinnati office even greater pause when weighing the benefits of silence while taking blame.
In the case of McCord, he didn’t want the CIA to take the fall in an operation that involved burglarizing the offices of the opposing campaign’s headquarters. In the case of Lerner – and now Renee Railey Norton – the expeditious, preferential, retroactive, and illegal approval of the Barack H. Obama Foundation’s 501(c)(3) implicates both women in funding terrorism.
McCord spent a couple of months in jail for his role in the burglary after being sentenced to one to five years by Sirica, the same judge to whom McCord sent the letter that led to the truth coming out. According to a 1975 UPI News Report,
Sirica granted McCord an early parole:Sirica gave no reason for his parole order on a motion from Mann (McCord’s attorney). But Mann had sought the immediate release of McCord because of the key role he played in unraveling the Watergate cover-up.
Based on what we now know about the BHOF’s Malik Obama, Lerner and Norton could go away for a lot longer than that.
Doing what McCord did might help avoid the worst.