Report: Lois Lerner has been Placed on Administrative Leave (Updated: Lerner was Directly Involved in Abuse)

NRO’s Eliana Johnson reports that some disciplinary action may have been taken against IRS abuse scandal figure Lois Lerner.

Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service’s director of exempt organizations, has been placed on administrative leave, according to a source in the agency’s Cincinnati office.

Lerner on Thursday afternoon sent an e-mail to employees in the exempt-organizations division she oversees stating, “Due to the events of recent days, I am on administrative leave starting today. An announcement will be made shortly informing you who will be acting while I am on administrative leave. I know all of you will continue to support EO’s mission during these difficult times.” She concluded, “I thank you for all your hard work and dedication,” adding, “The work you do is important.”

So important that it helped Barack Obama win re-election.

IRS agents such as Lerner are supposed to avoid committing the “10 Deadly Sins.” According to GovExec, they are:

1. Willful failure to obtain the required approval signatures on documents authorizing the seizure of a taxpayer’s home, personal belongings or business assets.

2. Providing a false statement under oath with respect to a material matter involving a taxpayer or taxpayer representative.

3. With respect to a taxpayer, taxpayer representative or other employee of the IRS, the violation of any right under the Constitution or federal laws such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1990 Americans W ith Disabilities Act.

4. Falsifying or destroying documents to conceal mistakes made by any employee with respect to a matter involving a taxpayer or taxpayer representative.

5. Assault or battery on a taxpayer, taxpayer representative or other employee of the IRS-but only if there is a criminal conviction, or a final judgment by a court in a civil case, with respect to the assault or battery.

6. Violations of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, Treasury Department regulations or IRS policies for the purpose of retaliating against, or harassing, a taxpayer, taxpayer representative, or other employee of the IRS.

7. Willful misuse of the provisions of Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for the purpose of concealing information from a congressional inquiry.

8. Willful failure to file any return of tax required under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 on or before the date prescribed to do so.

9. Willful understatement of federal tax liability.

10. Threatening to audit a taxpayer for the purpose of extracting personal gain or benefit.

She violated at least three of those. Maybe it takes violating a majority of them to get fired?

Update: The official IRS timeline of abuse says that Lerner learned of it in 2012 and stopped it. Turns out, whenever she learned of it, she sent letters out to several of the abused groups that continued it.

Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to 15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012. The letters, such as this one sent to the Ohio Liberty Council on March 16, 2012, informed the groups applying for tax-exempt status that the IRS was “unable to make a final determination on your exempt status without additional information,” and included a list of detailed questions of the kind that a Treasury inspector general’s audit found to be inappropriate. Some of the groups to which Lerner sent letters are still awaiting approval.