Chad’s Morning Brief: New Emails Show Lerner Targeted GOP Senator, Wendy Davis Answers Questions Again About Her Past, and Other Top Stories

Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of June 26, 2014. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.

Wendy Davis Talks to CNN

Wendy Davis gave another interview on the anniversary of her filibuster. In an interview with CNN, Davis continued to defend the lies she told about her past. According to the San Antonio Express-News, Davis also talked about the filibuster.

Wednesday's report by CNN's Gloria Borger re-visited the energy of the filibuster, the crowds it drew and Davis' announcement for governor. Then the story pointed out questions about the help Davis got from her second husband in attending Harvard and the age when her divorce was final, which was 21 rather than the 19 initially cited.

"Yes, most women - and I've had so many women say this to me - the date of their divorce is the date they ceased to live together as man and wife with their husband. I was a struggling single - on my way to being a single mom - when I was only 19," Davis said.

Asked what Davis would say to those "who say you were shading the record to play into your overall narrative," Davis said, "What I say is that I'm proud of my story. My story is my story."

Before Davis announced for governor last year, the San Antonio Express-News reported details of her life story that she had shorthanded, including her long second marriage to a former Fort Worth City Council member that eased her financial path before she headed to Harvard.

He was a partner in raising her daughter from her first marriage, and the two had a daughter together while she was at Texas Christian University, before law school.

The daughters stayed with him in Fort Worth for most of the time she was at Harvard. She told the Express-News last year that her mother was their nanny and she arranged her schedule to spend chunks of time with them.

You can read the full story by clicking on the link above. I don't think these softball interviews are helping Davis much.

Lerner Targeted Republican Senator

According to the AP, investigators have found emails showing that the IRS wanted to audit a GOP Senator.

Congressional investigators say they uncovered emails Wednesday showing that a former Internal Revenue Service official at the heart of the tea party investigation sought an audit involving a Republican senator in 2012.

The emails show former IRS official Lois Lerner mistakenly received an invitation to an event that was meant to go to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley presumably received Lerner's invitation.

The event organizer apparently offered to pay for Grassley's wife to attend the event. In an email to another IRS official, Lerner suggests referring the matter for an audit, saying it might be inappropriate for the group to pay for his wife.

"Perhaps we should refer to exam?" Lerner wrote.

It was unclear from the emails whether Lerner was suggesting that Grassley or the group be audited — or both.

The other IRS official, Matthew Giuliano, waived her off, saying an audit would be premature because Grassley hadn't even accepted the invitation.

"It would be Grassley who would need to report the income," Giuliano said.

The name of the event organizer was blacked out on copies of the emails released by the House Ways and Means Committee because they were considered confidential taxpayer information. Grassley and his wife signed waivers allowing their names to be released.

Grassley didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The IRS says it has lost an untold numbers of Lerner's emails because her computer crashed in 2011, sparking outrage among Republican lawmakers who have accused the tax agency of a cover-up. The emails released Wednesday were among the thousands that have been turned over to congressional investigators.

"We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States senator is shocking," Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said. "At every turn, Lerner was using the IRS as a tool for political purposes in defiance of taxpayer rights."

Lerner headed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS has acknowledged that agents improperly scrutinized applications by tea party and other conservative groups before the 2010 and 2012 elections. Documents show that some liberal groups were singled out, too.

Grassley had been an outspoken critic of the way the IRS policed tax-exempt groups even before the tea party controversy erupted last year.

In one email, Lerner indicates that she won't attend the event.

"Don't think I want to be on the stage with Grassley on this issue," she wrote.

Once again we see more evidence that the IRS was used to target Republicans and Tea Party organizations. One has to wonder what else will come out.

Other Top Stories:

Lubbock City Council Agenda

People Who Think They're Ugly Are More Likely to be Liberal

Dallas/Cleveland Make Cut for 2016 GOP Convention 

Boehner to File Lawsuit

How Thad Won

These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.