WASHINGTON – Lois Lerner, head of the IRS tax exempt organizations division, told the House Oversight Committee that she had done nothing wrong before invoking her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and not testify.

“I have not done anything wrong,” Lerner said in a brief opening statement. “I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules and regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

Lerner said she “would very much like to answer the committees questions today,” but that her counsel had advised her not to testify, in light of the Department of Justice criminal investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

Because she was taking the Fifth, Lerner said, “I know that some people will assume I’ve done something wrong. I have not.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the committee, subsequently dismissed Lerner from the hearing.

WATCH VIDEO:

Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy objected, saying that the committee should operate like a courtroom, “and she just testified, she just waived her Fifth Amendment right to privilege.”

“You don’t get to tell your side of the story and not be subjected to cross examination. That’s not the way it works. She waived her right to Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing an opening statement, she ought to stand here and answer our questions,” Gowdy said, a statement which prompted applause from the audience.

But ranking Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings noted that the committee does not operate the way a federal court room does, and she was permitted to remain silent, and to leave.

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Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/22/lerner-i-have-not-done-anything-wrong-then-pleads-fifth/#ixzz2U3GbzywU

May. 21, 2013 10:26am – by  Becket Adams

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Getty Images)

Raymond Maxwell, one of four State Department employees recently disciplined by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made headlines this month for penning slightly cryptic verses critical of the agency’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

And now Maxwell, who was placed on forced “administrative leave” despite his claim had no role in consulate-related security issues, is back in the news for ditching the poetry and outright accusing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of making him the Benghazi scapegoat.

“The overall goal is to restore my honor,” Maxwell said in an interview with The Daily Beast.

The former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, who is currently stuck in a sort of legal limbo, has filed grievances regarding his treatment by the State Department’s human resources bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, the report notes.

Maxwell is the only official in the bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (i.e. the group responsible for Libya) to lose his job over the September 11 attacks.

“I had no involvement to any degree with decisions on security and the funding of security at our diplomatic mission in Benghazi,” he said.

Maxwell was placed on forced “administrative leave” on December 18, the day after the Accountability Review Board released its report on the Benghazi attack. The department placed him on leave so that it could decide whether he should be permanently “let go.” However, here we are five months out and no decision has been made.

The disciplined State Department official sits at home and waits.

A department spokeswoman declined to comment on why Maxwell and three other State officials were disciplined, saying only that the ARB suggested someone be disciplined over the death of four Americans.

Read More from The Blaze

Monday, May 20, 2013

Thomson/Reuters

Mile-wide Tornado Churns Across Oklahoma City Suburbs

A huge tornado touched down on Monday near Oklahoma City, and the National Weather Service urged residents to immediately take cover as a massive storm system in the middle of the country threatened to pummel as many as 10 states. “The tornado on the ground right now is huge and has hit through populated areas,” Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said on CNN. She said it was too early to know the extent of the damage, but live television showed extensive destruction in the area.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths from the tornado, which was near Moore, Oklahoma, in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

National Weather Service meteorologist Brynn Kerr said a tornado warning had been issued for two counties in central Oklahoma. A warning means that residents should immediately find shelter.

Two people were killed on Sunday from tornadoes in Oklahoma and at least 39 were injured.

The National Weather Service predicted a 10 percent chance of tornadoes in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. It said parts of four other states – Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa – have a 5 percent risk of tornadoes.

The area at greatest risk includes Joplin, Missouri, which on Wednesday will mark two years since a massive tornado killed 161 people.

The latest tornado in Oklahoma came as the state was still recovering from a strong storm on Sunday with fist-sized hail, blinding rain and tornadoes.

Two men in their 70s died in the storm, including one at a mobile home park on the edge of the community of Bethel Acres near Oklahoma City, said Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Office of Emergency Management. Thirty-nine people were injured around the state as storms toppled trees and tore up rooftops, she said.

Several hundred homes and buildings were thought to have been damaged or destroyed and approximately 7,000 customers were left without power in Oklahoma. “There is definitely quite a bit of damage,” Cain said.

Fallin declared 16 counties disaster areas, and she and other local and state officials were touring damaged areas on Monday morning.

MULTIPLE TWISTERS

More than two dozen tornadoes were spotted in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and local news reports. Hail stones, some as large as baseballs, were reported from Georgia to Minnesota, NOAA said.

Wind gusts of 72 miles per hour (115 kilometers per hour) were reported near Gardner, Kansas, and 60 mph in Atchison, Kansas. The high winds toppled trees, downing power lines and smashing cars and rooftops in communities around the Midwest.

A tornado that touched down southwest of Wichita, Kansas, on Sunday afternoon was rated an EF1 on Monday by the National Weather Service. The most powerful is an EF5. The tornado stayed on the ground for about 4.5 miles, with winds of 86-110 mph, the service said.

The tornado damaged homes and outbuildings, felled trees and knocked out power to about 11,000 residents but caused no injuries, said Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Division of Emergency Management.

“We came through this one very fortunate,” Watson said.

In southwest Missouri, a tornado touched down shortly after midnight Monday in Barton County, said Tom Ryan, the county’s director of emergency management. The tornado damaged some farm buildings and two houses but caused no injuries, he said, noting that it struck in a rural area.

Just east of Barton County, in Dade County, the tornado tore off roofs at a grocery store, golf course and city swimming pool complex in Lockwood, said Bob Kitsmiller, director of emergency management for the county, adding that no injuries were reported.

Forecasters were particularly aggressive in issuing warnings on Sunday evening. The National Weather Service’s storm prediction center in Norman, Oklahoma, posted a Twitter alert on a tornado about to strike Pink, a town on the edge of Oklahoma City.

“Large tornado west of Pink!” the post read. “Take cover RIGHT NOW in Pink! DO NOT WAIT!”

The storm also prompted an unusually blunt warning from the central region of the National Weather Service, which covers 14 states.

“You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter,” it said. “Complete destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to people and animals.”

Pat Slattery, National Weather Service spokesman for the U.S. Central region, said the advisory was part of a new warning system reserved for severe tornadoes with the potential to form into “supercell” storms, which produce powerful winds and flash flooding.

The tornado season in the United States had been unusually quiet until last week, when a tornado struck the town of Granbury, Texas, killing six people.

© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Severe-Weather-tornado-oklahoma/2013/05/20/id/505434#ixzz2TsRkBDnR
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May 20, 2013 By Patrick Goodenough

Pakistani Christians protest against the country’s blasphemy laws and violence targeting their minority community. An independent U.S. watchdog has urged the executive branch every year since 2002 to designate Pakistan as a “country of particular concern” over religious freedom violations. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – As the State Department prepares to release its annual report on international religious freedom Monday, a key issue for many Americans concerned about religious persecution is whether it will blacklist a handful of particularly egregious violators – or, as in previous years, ignore the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The question is especially sensitive in the case of countries where the plight of minority Christians has worsened, even as their governments benefit significantly at the cost of U.S. taxpayers.

Among the religious freedom violators are four of the top ten recipients of U.S. foreign aid in fiscal year 2013 – Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq and Nigeria. Another is Vietnam, whose communist government has seen its diplomatic and economic ties with the U.S. improve dramatically over the past seven years.

On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry will release the administration’s report on the state of religious freedom around the world in 2012, a requirement under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), which sought to enhance the importance of religious freedom in the pursuit of U.S. foreign policy.

The primary tool available to the executive branch under the 1998 legislation is the designation of “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) – those whose authorities either commit or are judged to tolerate violations of religious freedom. CPCs are subject to U.S. sanctions or other measures designed to prod governments to improve.

Currently designated CPCs are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.

But a handful of other countries deserve to be on the list too, in the view of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent body established under the IRFA, comprising unpaid commissioners appointed by congressional leaders and the administration.

When it released its own yearly report three weeks ago, the USCIRF pressed for Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam to be designated CPCs.

In some of those cases, the recommendation has been disregarded for years.

Pakistan, home to some of the world’s most notorious blasphemy laws, has evaded CPC status despite USCIRF recommendation every year since 2002, as have Turkmenistan since 2000, Egypt since 2011, Nigeria since 2009, and Tajikistan since last year.

The other two, Iraq and Vietnam, were both previous designated CPCs. The Bush administration removed Iraq in 2004, following the fall of Saddam Hussein regime; and Vietnam in 2006, citing improvements as a result of active lobbying of the communist authorities in Hanoi.

Each year since 2008 the USCIRF has recommended that Iraq be returned to the CPC list. In the case of Vietnam, the commission never agreed with its delisting, and has recommended its return every year since, also to no avail.

Last week House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) introduced legislation calling on the administration to relist Vietnam as a CPC, citing authorities’ refusals to grant legal recognition to churches, as well as assaults, harassment, imprisonment and home destructions targeting Christians.

Last year’s State Department report on international religious freedom referred to “continued reports of abuses of religious freedom” in Vietnam and said that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior State Department officials “raised religious freedom concerns with government officials and called for continued improvements in religious freedom.”

Those diplomatic efforts did not appear to have had any effect, however: The report also noted that Hanoi “did not demonstrate a trend toward either improvement or deterioration in respect for and protection of the right to religious freedom.”

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report earlier this year examining compliance with the IRFA noted tensions between the USCIRF and State Department as each has sought to do its respective job.

The report prompted USCIRF chair Katrina Lantos Swett to underline in a letter to the GAO that the commission’s “mandate is neither to conduct diplomacy nor balance religious freedom against other U.S. national interests.”

Swett said the USCIRF recognized that its role “sometimes poses a challenge for the State Department” – but also noted that “at times, our findings draw the ire of offending governments that would prefer their shortcomings remain hidden.”

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations could be “fatal” for the Obama administration if it turns out that anyone in the White House was aware of it.

Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Krauthammer called the IRS situation “the one scandal that people have a visceral sense about” — it’s the one U.S. institution, besides the military, that can do very serious harm.

Going after conservative groups based on their politics is “a violation that everybody — left or right– understands,” he added.

Krauthammer urged that there’s no suggestion that Obama knew what was happening, “but if there’s any indication that there were people in the White House who knew, who orchestrated, who encouraged or whatever, then it can be a fatal problem.”

Obama ducked a direct question on Thursday about whether he or anyone else in the White House had known what was happening.

Krauthammer said he wasn’t comparing the current situation to Watergate, but pointed out that the second article of impeachment against Richard Nixon was abuse of the IRS.

“The one issue that can fell a presidency is the corruption of the IRS coming from on high,” Krauthammer said.

Watch below, via Mediaite: 

VIDEO

May 17, 2013 by Joel B. Pollak

Live Updates

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Former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Acting Commissioner Steven Miller, who only took over in November and resigned this week at President Barack Obama’s behest, will testify before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday on his role in targeting Tea Party and conservative groups for audit or excessive review. 

Miller was the first senior IRS official to be disciplined in the scandal, though the problems began before he took over the IRS, and other senior officials were aware of the problem and appear to have misled Congress.

Though Miller’s resignation was reported as a decisive step by the president, his term had been due to expire in early June. Joseph Grant, had been appointed only several days before as Acting Commissioner of the IRS’s tax exempt and government entities division, has also resigned.

Other current and former IRS and Treasury officials have yet to be held accountable, including Lois Lerner, who first acknowledged the scandal on May 10, and former IRS Douglas Shulman, who told Congress in 2012 that Tea Party groups were not being targeted.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced earlier this week that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would begin a criminal investigation of the IRS. Congressional Republicans have indicated that they will not be satisfied with a DOJ probe or the internal Treasury investigation released earlier this week, but will seek answers independently as they attempt to uncover who was responsible for the abuse and how widespread it has become. There are suspicions that the problem extends beyond the IRS alone and includes other federal agencies.

While some Democrats have acknowledged the seriousness of the scandal, and President Barack Obama has called the conduct “outrageous,” Democratic leaders have attempted to turn the scandal into an argument for overturning the Citizens United case, which enabled political spending by tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations.

Many senior Democrats, in fact, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had already asked the IRS to investigate such groups, possibly prompting or contributing to the abuse that eventually emerged at the agency.

Update 11:10 a.m. EDT: Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) chides Miller for splitting hairs on the definition of “targeting.” He nails Miller with a tough question: why was the American Bar Association (ABA) informed of the IRS abuses before Congress? Miller cannot explain–nor can he explain why the IRS, which evidently planted the question and answer at the May 10 ABA meeting, chose not to do more to inform Congress.

Update 10:41 a.m. EDT: The hearing is in recess for 15 minutes.

Update 10:30 a.m. EDT: Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH) asks Miller a question that is on the minds of many as new revelations emerge: why did he promote Sarah Hall Ingraham, who was at the IRS division in question when the abuses occurred, to lead the IRS division responsible for administering the agency’s new Obamacare duties? She’s an outstanding public servant, says Miller.

Update 10:22 a.m. EDT: Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) continues the Democrats’ obfuscation by going through a history of money in politics back to Buckley v. Valeo (1976).

Update 10:16 a.m. EDT: Under questioning from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Miller says that he had no contact about these issues with the White House or the Obama campaign or activist organizations, but that he did discuss them with the Treasury and may have had some contact with the Pro Publica organization after the allegations of leaks first emerged.

If you did nothing wrong, Nunes asks Miller, why resign? Miller provides a “buck stops here” answer. (It’s both a dodge and an admirable answer, since that ethic is sadly missing elsewhere in Washington today.)

Update 10:14 a.m. EDT: McDermott tries going after Republicans on Obamacare, getting Miller to confirm that the IRS cannot obtain the personal health records of patients under Obamacare. Unfortunately for both, that is precisely what a new lawsuit alleges happened to sixty million Americans.

Update 10:10 a.m. EDT:  Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) blames Congress and Citizens United for the problem, ignoring the fact that only conservative groups and not left-wing groups were targeted.

Update 10:07 a.m. EDT: Look out. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chair of the House Budget Committee, reads Miller the timeline of his statements to, and correspondence with, Congress, noting when he became aware of the IRS’s abuses. He notes that Miller’s obligation is to tell “the whole truth” and not to omit or cover up any known facts. “How can we not conclude that you misled this committee?”

Miller says that he did not, arguing that the targeting or harassment “implies political motivation.” Ryan goes back to the documents–Mille was specifically asked what he was “aware of.” Miller says his understanding was not about the unfair treatment but about the treatment of the complaints from the groups involved.

Again, Ryan goes back to the timeline, noting that Miller had been briefed already by the time he responded to the committee that conservative groups were being targeted–”You knew that, but you did not mention that to this committee.” Miller maintains that he answered truthfully. (It is an increasingly unconvincing response.)

Update 9:58 a.m. EDT: Rep. Charles Rangel, a tax cheat himself, turns the Democrats’ performance on the committee into a true theater of the absurd by pleading Miller’s case and insisting on hearing his story of personal persecution. A bit of projection, apparently, from Mr. Rangel, who provokes laughter by bungling the name of the Democrats’ most-hated-case, Citizens United.

Update 9:54 a.m. EDT: Rep. Kevin Brady (R-NY) asks Miller about a woman in his district–apparently Catherine Engelbrecht, whose case has been extensively documented by Breitbart News–who was not only targeted by the IRS but other agencies. He closes by asking Miller whether more information has been leaked; Miller says he would be “shocked” if it had. Brady says that the committee will likely have to hear about it through the press first.

Update 9:51 a.m. EDT: Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) tries a bit of too-clever political spin, saying that both sides condemn political targeting by the IRS, and suggesting that it also happened under the “previous administration,” i.e. the Bush administration, because it happened under Shulman. There is no record of such targeting under Bush, and no record of left-wing groups being targeted under Shulman either under Bush or Obama.

Update 9:43 a.m. EDT: Rep. Boustany (R-LA) plays a video of Shulman’s testimony to Congress from 2012 in which he denied that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups. He asks Miller whether Boustany was telling the truth. Miller says that Shulman was “incorrect” and that the Tea Party was not “targeted” as such but was the victim of a process of centralization as the number of groups applying for tax exempt status grew.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has already debunked that argument (via Hot Air), showing that the IRS scrutiny of Tea Party groups began before the IRS could have noticed an increase in applications for tax exemption.

Update 9:40 a.m. EDT: Levin tries shifting blame, asking Miller who was in charge of the IRS when the abuses began (“Shulman”) and who appointed Shulman to his post (“Mr. Bush”). So for Democrats, the strategy remains: it’s Bush’s fault, notwithstanding that the abuses occurred entirely on President Barack Obama’s watch.

Update 9:37 a.m. EDT: Camp asks George about the leak of a conservative organization’s confidential documents by the IRS to the progressive media organization Pro Publica; George says an investigation is not currently ongoing.

Update 9:35 a.m. EDT: Camp closes his questions to Miller sharply, asking him whether he ever informed Congress about IRS abuses when he became aware of them. When you have an obligation to tell the truth, Camp asks him, and you fail, “what is that called?” Miller ducks: ”I always answer questions truthfully, Mr. Camp.” In other words, he denies lying to Congress.

Update 9:30 a.m. EDT: Camp’s initial questions are about what Miller knew and when he knew it–and to whom he reported it. Miller says that he first learned about some abuses in the press, and cannot remember exact dates. Interestingly, despite his apparent resignation earlier this week, Miller is still Acting Commissioner of the IRS.

Update 9:25 a.m. EDT: Following a hard-hitting, straightforward opening statement by the Inspector General, Miller apologizes on behalf of the IRS for the mistakes that were made “and the poor service that was provided.” He says that the motivations for the IRS’s conduct were not political but that “foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient.”

Update 9:15 a.m. EDT: The opening statements of both Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) and Ranking Member Sander Levin (R-MI) expressed outrage that the committee had been misled. Levin cautioned the committee against using the hearing as a “bootstrap” to re-fight the 2012 elections or prepare for the 2014 elections. Camp swore in the witnesses–including Miller and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George–saying that it was not customary to do so, but that the IRS had misled the committee in the past.

Published May 16, 2013
Posted CWN: May 17, 2013

March 29, 2013: People are taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol near Falfurrias, Texas. (Reuters)

Hundreds of illegal immigrants with criminal records were released earlier this year as the Obama administration prepared for budget cuts, according to newly released data that challenged claims the program involved “low-risk” individuals.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement released the figures to two top senators, after a three-month delay and under the threat of congressional subpoenas.

Of the 2,226 detainees that were released in February, the department revealed, “622 have been identified as having some type of criminal conviction.”

A statement from Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., who received the stats, said 32 of them had multiple felony convictions. The department then “re-apprehended” 24 of those, the senators said, after realizing the “seriousness” of their crimes.

McCain called for those responsible to be punished.

“ICE’s reprehensible actions put Arizona at risk by setting free into our communities hundreds of detainees who were guilty of criminal offenses,” he said. “The ICE officials responsible for this must face disciplinary action and must take all actions necessary to ensure that this never happens again.”

At the time, ICE officials defended the decision as one made in order to stay within budget — as a prior budget resolution expired and the sequester was set to kick in.

Those detainees released were still said to face deportation and be under supervision. But administration officials downplayed the threat they might pose after leaving the local immigration jails.

In late February, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said: “As ICE made clear yesterday, the agency released these low-risk, non-criminal detainees under a less expensive form of monitoring to ensure detention levels stayed within ICE’s overall budget.”

But according to McCain and Levin, some of those released had lengthy rap sheets.

One of them released in Phoenix had a second-degree robbery conviction and convictions for prostitution and solicitation for lewd conduct.

Another had been convicted of an “extreme” case of driving under the influence, harassment, and causing criminal damage to property. And yet another had prior convictions for carrying a gun, felony possession of drugs, burglary, vandalism and trespassing.

In the letter to the senators, a Department of Homeland Security official said detainees “without a criminal history were prioritized.”

Nelson Peacock, assistant secretary for legislative affairs, said ICE focused on those that “posed no significant threat to public safety.” He said 1,604 of those released had no known criminal convictions and reiterated that the agency faced a 7 percent budget cut which required “significant reductions.”

In a statement Thursday, ICE said “these decisions were made on a case-by-case basis, by career law enforcement officials in the field, in order to ensure that ICE maintained sufficient resources to detain serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety through the end of the continuing resolution.”

Fox News’ Doug McKelway contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/16/ice-admits-hundreds-illegal-immigrants-with-criminal-records-released/#ixzz2TWTJpPv0

May 16, 2013

President Barack Obama dismissed calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS scandal, and evaded a question asking if White House officials knew of the IRS targeting of conservative political groups.

“I can assure that I certainly did not know anything about the [inspector general] report before the IG report had been leaked through the press,” he told reporters during a Thursday lunchtime press conference held in the White House Rose Garden.

Obama’s evasion will likely spur public suspicions that White House officials knew about, or even supported, the IRS targeting.

When asked about a special prosecutor, Obama said he would work with investigations begun by Congress and the Department of Justice.

“Between those investigations, I think we will be able to figure out exactly what happened … and we’re going to be able to implement steps to fix it. And that, ultimately, is the main priority that I have,” he said.

“I have complete confidence in Eric Holder as attorney general,” he said in response to a question about the simultaneous scandal over the department’s investigation of phone calls by reporters working for The Associated Press news agency.

Special prosecutors are appointed by the attorney general, not by Congress.

A special prosecutor would be a political nightmare for the White House, because the prosecutor would have the ability to investigate many people and offices to see if they knew — or even aided — the IRS actions.

.

IRS officials and media outlets have described suppression of conservative political groups, including tea party and pro-life groups, as well as suspected targeting of donors, activists and even at least one GOP political candidate.

The scandal is dangerous to Obama, partly because it bolsters public worries about his plans for expanding government.

The scandal has also influenced media coverage and generated wave of articles and TV clips that show tea party groups in a complimentary light.

Media outlets have become increasingly skeptical toward the administration.

During the press conference, for example, a reporter asked Obama if the scandal made him look like President Richard Nixon, who was forced from office amid multiple scandals, including the White House’s use of the IRS to target political rivals.

“I’ll let you guys engage in those comparisons,” Obama said testily. “And you can go ahead and read the history, I think, and draw your own conclusions.”

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May. 16, 2013 8:55am Jonathon M. Seidl

Police found a note inside the boat where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding and eventually captured — a note written by the suspect and claiming responsibility for the destruction, CBS News is reporting.

The note said the bombing was retribution for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the actions that have killed Muslims.

“When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” the note — which CBS reports was scrawled with a pen on an interior wall — apparently said.

According to CBS, the note is significant because it is an admission of guilt outside of the questioning administered to Tsarnaev before he was read his Miranda rights. Any admissions made during that questioning would not be admissible in court.

CBSNews VIDEO