Documents show Lois Lerner got $129,300 in BONUSES while she presided over alleged IRS scheme to discriminate against conservative nonprofits

  • 'Retention' bonuses were paid in 2010, 2011 and 2012 in order to keep Lerner from leaving the IRS
  • Payouts were later canceled because continuing them would have put her over the legal limit of how much a federal employee can earn
  • Bonuses came in the same years when Lerner's IRS subagency was targeting tea parties and other conservative groups with extra scrutiny
  • Liberal groups sailed through, however, and the practice was later condemned by Republicans in Congress
  • The IRS higher-ups who approved Lerner's bonuses ultimately resigned in disgrace, and Lerner was allowed to retire with a full pension 

By David Martosko, U.S. Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: | Updated:

Disgraced former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner got $129,300 in bonuses between 2010 and 2013, during the years when she allegedly supervised a program targeting conservative nonprofit groups with intrusive levels nad scrutiny that liberal group managed to avoid.

Lerner, then in charge of the IRS's Exempt Organizations Division, drew a top-tier salary that reached $177,000 – plus a 25 per cent 'retention bonus.' 

That's a federal workforce perk designed to keep high-ranking officials from retiring or jumping to more lucrative offers in the private sector.

Those annual bonuses, valued at an average of $43,000, only stopped because continuing them would have pushed her over the legal limit of how much a government employee can earn.

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Former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner received massive cash bonuses from the federal government while her department was targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny based on political-sounding words in their names

Former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner received massive cash bonuses from the federal government while her department was targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny based on political-sounding words in their names

Lerner famously appeared before Congress in May 2013 and offered an opening statement pleading her innocence – but then invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer any questions

Lerner famously appeared before Congress in May 2013 and offered an opening statement pleading her innocence – but then invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer any questions

The Washington Free Beacon obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act request showing the shocking payouts, which came in the same three years – 2010, 2011 and 2012 – when her department was throwing up roadblocks that stopped hundreds of tea parties and other right-wing groups from obtaining the tax-exempt status they needed to operate and raise money. 

Steven T. Miller first recommended Lerner for a $42,000 retention bonus in December 2009, the Free Beacon reported, when he was the Acting IRS commissioner. She got $43,050 and $44,250 in the next two years.

But in November 2012 the IRS determined that continuing to make the payouts each year would violate a federal regulation that sets a hard limit on federal workers' earnings. 

With another retention bonus, she would have been earning more than the maximum allowed, which was $230,700.

But at the end of 2009 she had become eligible for retirement, and Miller wanted to keep her on the job.

'Ms. Lerner is eligible for retirement and as an attorney with extensive experience would likely command a much greater pay and benefits if she left the Service,' he wrote then. 'Without a retention incentive she will leave the (Internal Revenue) Service.'

'Her unique blend of specialized technical expertise, broad organizational knowledge, and leadership skills cannot be matched,' he added at the time.

Joseph Grant, Lerner's immediate supervisor as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt division, approved the massive check along with Miller himself. 

Grant would later resign in disgrace in May 2013, at President Barack Obama's specific demand, after the depth of Lerner's alleged scheme became known Grant 'retired' one day later.

Lerner waited until September 2013 for her own retirement, letting the calendar advance to the point where she earned a full federal government pension. 

In May 2013 Lerner launched one of the Obama administration's most political damaging scandals by planting a question during a tax accountants conference about how her subagency scrutinized right-wing tax exemption applicants that the administration thought might be political groups in disguise.

She acknowledged that organizations with words like 'tea party' or 'patriot' in their names were processed differently, on a schedule that could stretch out for years.

CRYING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK: Lerner retired with a full federal government pension

CRYING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK: Lerner retired with a full federal government pension

Lerner knew at the time that the IRS Office of Inspector General was ready to release an audit report exposing the practice of singling out conservatives. That report came out just four days later. 

The IRS, the inspector general wrote, 'used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention.'

A congressional investigation, now nearly two years old, stalled in 2014 after IRS Commissioner John Koskinen claimed years' worth of Lerner's emails were lost during a hard-drive crash.

Emails tha twere recovered showed Lerner caomplaining that political conservatives were 'crazies' and 'a**holes.' 

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