Who is the other official #whistleblowers identified, along with Thibault, as being "deeply involved" in launching DOJ's "false-electors scheme" criminal probe?
Richard Pilger, Director of the Election Crimes Branch, who has a history with Lois Lerner & IRS targeting.
THREAD 1:
2. Here are key pages from the 2014 Congressional report, at republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl…
Pilger contacted Lerner in 2013 asking to coordinate with the IRS on an idea from @SenWhitehouse for DOJ to "piece together false statement" cases against certain nonprofits.
3. You remember Lois Lerner.
She's the IRS official held in contempt of Congress.
And yet, @TheJusticeDept refused to even present the contempt citation to a Grand Jury, as required by statute.
politico.com/story/2015/04/…
4. Just as it refused to present the Eric Holder contempt citation to a Grand Jury.
washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-che…
5. Back to Lerner and Pilger.
According to a Lerner email, Pilger told her:
"DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond."
...to the marching orders of a Democrat Senator.
6. ...and the press. A @nytimes article that "the IRS assisted in preparing" becomes the catalyst for @FBI to start Hoovering-up confidential tax filings (pun intended).
7. Then Pilger sets-up a meeting with Lerner to coordinate and discuss how to get access to nonprofit donor lists and tax info to do some "6103 fishing."
26 U.S.C. § 6103 is supposed to protect the confidentiality of your tax returns from political abuse.
8. Lerner and Pilger worked together "to arrange for the transmittal of 1.1 million pages of non-profit tax return information to the FBI."
9. Although @TheJusticeDept initially claimed the information was public, it later conceded that the data dump from the IRS to the FBI "did, in fact, contain confidential taxpayer information protected by federal law."
10. So there's the history on how Richard Pilger, DOJ's Director of the Election Crimes Branch, helped the FBI collect a "massive database" of confidential tax information from the IRS about Americans engaged in "lawful political speech," according to the Congressional report.
11. Pilger quit (temporarily) in a huff over his disagreement with Attorney General Barr about whether law enforcement agents should be able to interview witnesses and pursue leads about ballot fraud in the 2020 election without Pilger's permission.
cnn.com/2020/11/09/pol…
12. NPR thought it was a big deal, and published his resignation email. But, he resumed his previous position in February 2021 under the Biden administration.
npr.org/sections/live-…
13. More on Pilger from the October 2021 @SenJudiciaryGOP Majority Staff Report
judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
14. Under Pilger's leadership, the Election Crimes Branch asserted the authority to veto investigative steps to uncover ballot fraud, although it lacked any authority to do so.
In reality, "the AG gets to make that call."
15. Pilger resigned when Barr insisted that, actually, the AG is in charge. Then the press pretends (when it suits them) that the career bureaucrat is the one with the authority.
This is how the permanent bureaucracy dictates policy w/o accountability to your elected leadership.
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