Rep. Trey Gowdy blasted the Justice Department for stating last month that there was “no evidence” of criminal intent in the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups.
“Never do you have direct evidence of intent,” Gowdy, a former prosecutor, said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.
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The South Carolina Republican cited numerous examples of “circumstantial evidence,” all of which resulted in discrimination against Tea Party nonprofits, regardless of the tax agency’s intent.
Gowdy noted Lois Lerner, former head of the IRS tax-exempt unit, had sent several emails that indicated she harbored a bias against conservatives.
“She worried mightily that a Republican control of the Senate might be tantamount to a Republican president, and she wasn’t thrilled about that,” he said of Lerner. “She referred to the Tea Party as ‘very dangerous.'”
The Justice Department announced last month that it would not pursue charges against anyone involved in the alleged targeting of conservative groups by Lerner’s unit, despite several congressional investigations that unearthed evidence of misconduct.
In announcing that decision, Gowdy noted, the Justice Department said it found “no evidence of any intent to discriminate.” Gowdy questioned Attorney General Loretta Lynch on why the agency said it didn’t even find “insufficient evidence.”
“Every case is different,” Lynch said. “We gather all the evidence, we gather all the facts, and we apply the law to those facts.”
Gowdy dismissed her suggestion that the Justice Department often has more evidence of intent than was present in the IRS case.
“As I read her emails, even some of the mediocre prosecutors on this panel, I think, could get to a jury based on the evidence that we have,” Gowdy said of Lerner’s records.
