It has been obvious to anyone who has paid attention that the Obama administration made use of the Internal Revenue Service to confine and paralyze the Tea Party movement by denying many of the organizations that grew up after 2009 the tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status they sought or by delaying until after the 2010, the 2012, and, in some cases, the 2014 elections a decision on their applications. Back in May 2013, the Inspector General for the Department of the Treasury issued a report, revealing that, starting in 2010, the IRS had singled out groups with words such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles for intensive scrutiny and that at that time they “began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status (e.g., lists of past and future donors).”

With Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, and their minions in control of the Department of Justice, there was never any chance that there would be a full-scale investigation of these shenanigans and the lodging of criminal charges, and John Koskinen, who took over the agency at the end of 2013, has dragged his feet at every turn, vociferously denying that anything partisan in nature was done.

Judicial Watch, which has doggedly pursued this question through a Freedom of Information lawsuit first brought in October 2013, just discovered a smoking gun — notes taken at an interoffice meeting held in Washington DC, ca. August 2011 — where then IRS Director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements Holly Paz reported on what was going on: