Michelle Malkin And Fox Hosts Allege IRS’s Lois Lerner Tried To Force GOP Candidate Out Of A Race
by Noah Rothman | 8:51 am, May 30th, 2013
Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin appeared on Fox & Friends where she and the hosts revealed a bombshell allegation regarding the IRS targeting scandal. Quoting a report in an Illinois-based political blog, Malkin and the Fox hosts detailed a story about how Lois Lerner, the suspended IRS director implicated in the targeting of conservative groups, had previously attempted to intimidate a GOP Senate candidate in 1996 out of the race while she was at the Federal Election Commission.
“As you know, the Tea Party was on the ropes for a couple of years, and now we know why,” Brian Kilmeade began. “Because the IRS was not green lighting it, was auditing it, and putting them through hoops to get their okay in many cases.”
He noted that a series of Tea Party groups have now sued the federal government for discrimination.
“I think this administration should be quaking in its boots,” Malkin said. “These are organizations that the administration and these top IRS officials – not merely these low-level rogues – were targeting because they knew they could be intimidated. They did not have deep pockets like some of the big, juicy corporate targets and larger nonprofit organizations.”
full: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/michelle-malkin-and-fox-hosts-allege-irs%E2%80%99s-lois-lerner-tried-to-force-gop-candidate-out-of-a-race/
The candidate in question, Al Salvi, ran for the US Senate in Illinois in 1996 against current senator Dick Durbin to replace retiring Sen. Paul Simon. He first told his story to the Illinois Review, a right wing blog:
Salvi made a personal loan to his campaign for $1.1 million to fund the last campaign ads in the expensive Chicago television ad market. News of that loan and the filed FEC complaint dominated Chicago media headlines towards the end of the campaign, suffocating the life out of Salvi's threatening momentum.
"We couldn't get our message out because day after day, the media carried story after story about the FEC complaint," Salvi told Illinois Review in an exclusive interview.
After Salvi lost to Durbin, he was left to face the FEC complaints. The Commission alleged that the Salvi committee:
Reported bank loans to Mr. Salvi as personal loans from the candidate, never identifying the source of the funds;
Failed to report debts to the candidate;
Failed to file 48-hour notices for personal advances from the candidate; and
Failed to disclose campaign-related payments by the candidate to vendors and a bank.
A federal district court dismissed the case against Salvi in 1999, and the FEC appealed it to the 7th U.S. District Court of Appeals.
It was while dealing with the FEC complaint that Salvi says he first met Lois Lerner, then the head of the FEC Enforcement Division.
During one conversation with Lerner, she offered a deal Salvi says he'll never forget, and neither will his brother and attorney, Mike Salvi.
"She said, 'If you promise to never run for office again, we'll drop this case,'" Salvi recalled.
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