Midday Roundup: IRS hack attack strips data from 100,000 taxpayers

Tax hack. Congress is demanding answers after officials with the Internal Revenue Service admitted part of the agency’s website was hacked earlier this year. The attack compromised the personal information of about 100,000 taxpayers. The breach occurred in a part of the IRS website that allows taxpayers to request copies of past tax returns. In what officials describe as a “sophisticated” attack, the hackers used data previously collected on the taxpayers to sneak past authentication methods requiring Social Security information, dates of birth, tax filing status, and street addresses. They even had the answers to identity verification questions that should have been known only to the taxpayers who set up the accounts. The agency’s main computer system, where taxpayers make electronic filings, was not affected, officials said. The attack started in February and continued through mid-May. Half of the 200,000 attempts to access the system succeeded.

Foiled again. President Barack Obama’s immigration action will continue on hold for now. A federal court Tuesday denied the administration’s request to lift an injunction preventing the government from granting deferred deportation to people in the United States illegally. The president’s announcement in November that he would grant work permits to immigrants here illegally and shield them from deportation led 26 states to sue, claiming federal overreach and financial hardship. Obama administration officials maintain the president is within his rights to direct the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation policy. But a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the approval rate on the president’s previous immigration executive order was too high to reflect executive discretion. “The president’s attempt to bypass the will of the American people was successfully checked again today,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement following the ruling.

Confused young man? Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has weighed in on the Bowe Berdahl prosecution. McChrystal told Fox News that after Bergdahl allegedly deserted in 2009, the military made a massive effort to get him back. “One, because he is one of our soldiers, right thing to do; second is, we didn’t want him to get taken by the Taliban and then put into Pakistan like we assumed they would,” McChrystal said. Bergdahl was held captive by the Taliban for five years. As the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the time, McChrystal was informed of Bergdahl’s capture and reported he had walked off intentionally: “I think he was a confused young man, was my assumption at the time, and I think that probably will turn out to be the judgment of time.” Critics blasted the Obama administration last year for exchanging five Guantanamo Bay detainees for Bergdahl. In March, the Army charged Bergdahl with “misbehavior before the enemy” and desertion.

Federal oversight. The U.S. Justice Department has reached a settlement with the City of Cleveland over alleged police brutality. Under the agreement, the Cleveland Police Department will issue new guidelines for the use of force. It also calls for more community engagement, more stringent accountability, and more training for police officers. After an 18-month investigation, the Justice Department found Cleveland police engaged in a pattern of unnecessary deadly force in dealings with minority suspects. Announcement of the settlement came just days after protests rocked Cleveland when a white police officer was cleared in the shooting deaths of two unarmed African-American men.

Iranian injustice. The trial of Iranian-American reporter Jason Rezaian began yesterday in Iran behind closed doors. The Iranians charged Rezaian with espionage after holding him in prison for 10 months. The Washington Post reporter’s brother, Ali Rezaian, said the charges are a sham: “It’s unlike the Iranian court system and Iranian government to keep things private when they can go out and use propaganda against people. They’ve done that in every other case, but in Jason’s case for 10 months they’ve been very, very quiet and that just proves what we’ve always known—there’s no evidence against him.” Iranian authorities arrested Jason Rezaian at his home in Tehran in 2014 along with his wife, who faces a separate trial.

WORLD Radio’s Jim Henry and Mary Reichard contributed to this report.