The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

373 Days

Over the past 373 days, the Obama administration has done its best to stonewall congressional efforts to understand who directed the weaponization of the IRS. Even so, the dimensions of the scandal have begun to emerge. Freedom of Information (FoA) requests and court orders seem to be required to uncover the truth, and they are finally beginning to work.

The administration and this president have now been shown to have lied repeatedly about the origins of the scandal (think: "it all was directed out of a field office in Cincinnati"). Their response to the early revelations was to launch a phony DoJ investigation that has never questioned anyone who has been targeted. After initally expressing "outrage", the president recently stated that "not a smidgen of evidence" existed that Washington was involved. Obama's trained hamsters in the media have purposely spiked even the most startling revelations about the scandal (Lois Lerner taking the 5th for a second time).

Katie Pavlich reports on a recent email dump that was precipitated by an FoA request:
On May 21, 2013 the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent the IRS a Freedom of Information Act request asking for "any and all documents or records, including but not limited to electronic documents, e-mails, paper documents, photographs (electronic or hard copy), or audio files," related to correspondence from January 1, 2009 and May 21, 2013 between thirteen different Democrat members of Congress and top IRS officials. Those officials include former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, former Commissioner Steven Miller, senior IRS official Joseph Grant and former head of tax exempt groups Lois Lerner. Members of Congress named in the request include Sen. Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Reid (D-NV), DSCC Chair Sen. Bennet (D-CO), Sen. Landrieu (D-LA), Sen. Pryor (D-AR), Sen. Hagan (D-NC), Sen. Begich (D-AK), Sen. Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), Sen. Franken (D-MN), Sen. Warner (D-VA), Rep. Braley and Rep. Peters (D-MI).

Since that request was received by the IRS nearly one year ago, IRS Tax Law Specialists Robert Thomas and Denise Higley have asked for more time to fulfill the request six times ...

Earlier this week Judicial Watch released documents showing Democratic Michigan Senator Carl Levin was in contact with former Deputy IRS Commissioner Steven Miller repeatedly throughout 2012 and was working with the agency on how conservative groups, specifically those working against his reelection, could be targeted through IRS rules and regulations. Last month we learned the staff of Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings had been in touch with the IRS about voter fraud prevention group True the Vote, despite direct denials from Cummings any contact with the IRS had ever occurred.
But no worries, there's not a smidgen of evidence that anything is wrong, is there?

The IRS scandal is considerably more serious than Watergate. It has profound national implications and indicates that unlike the IRS of the Nixon era, this IRS has become politicized and is perfectly willing to do the bidding of Democrats who need help overcoming their opposition.

Democratic attempts to whitewash and/or stonewall this investigation have succeeded, so far. For the sake of the country, I hope that the slow drip of information on the IRS scandal turns into a flood, and those responsible in the nation's capital pay a very high price. People within the IRS and politicians who requested them to attack other American citizens should be thrown in jail.