Watchdog obtains IRS-FEC email exchange

October 31, 2013, 08:00 pm @TheHill escerpt:

A conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, said it obtained an email chain from the Internal Revenue Service in which the department provided confidential tax information to the Federal Election Commission.

The watchdog group obtained the exchange from a freedom of information request made shortly after congressional investigators began prodding the agency on whether it inappropriately shared confidential tax information about a conservative group applying for tax-exempt status.

Leaking Information about conservatives isn't new for Obama's IRS

Lois Lerner, then-IRS director of Exempt Organizations, who was quoted in the emails has since retired.

Judicial Watch said the IRS sent the FEC annual tax returns, request forms for tax-exempt status, and articles of organization. The watchdog received the information from the FEC. It said the IRS had not yet complied with its request for information.

Sharing taxpayer returns would violate federal law.

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The House Ways and Means subcommittee on Oversight released a portion of the email exchange in July questioning whether the IRS had shared confidential information. Congressional investigators had since requested more information. The exchange between Lerner and the FEC dates back to 2009.

“These extensive emails and other materials provide a disturbing window into the activities of two out-of-control federal agencies: the IRS and FEC,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement accompanying the release. “And there is the very real question as to whether these documents evidence a crime.”