As I was watching the explosive IRS targeting hearing, this morning, I was reminded of Speaker Boehner’s words from eight and a half months ago. “My question isn’t about who is going to resign. My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?”
Since then, the Obama administration has gone from an initial “outrage” phase to a “phony scandal” phase, to the current old news/”what difference does it make” phase in which they think enough time has passed that they can push IRS rules on 501 (C) (4) groups that codify into law the what the IRS did to target Obama’s political opponents. And now the president feels comfortable enough to say, there’s not “a smidgen of corruption” in the IRS scandal that targeted his political opponents. That a president would say such a thing while there is an ongoing DOJ investigation, (albeit a sham investigation) should set anyone’s spidey sense a-tingling, I don’t care who you are.
“This scandal is not over,” said Washington Attorney Cleta Mitchell, who’s representing about a dozen of the targeted tea party groups. She rattled off a number of criminal offenses that have been committed in what she called, “this very ugly episode”:
“The lying has not stopped. There are lies upon lies in this ugly episode. The Commissioner of the IRS lied to Congress in March 2012 when he said there was absolutely no targeting, Mitchell declared, making sure to note that, “lying to Congress is a crime.”
She continued, “the Department of Justice refuses to investigate who it was that was responsible for releasing confidential tax information of Koch Industries to the president’s Economic Advisor who in turn , released it to the press.”
“Or who released the National Organization of Marriage’s tax return? I represent NOM – we sued the IRS to try to get to the bottom of why our confidential tax information was made available to our political opponents. Where’s the FBI in investigating?….That is a criminal offense!”
“It is a criminal offense also for the IRS to release the confidential donors of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Republican governor’s Public Policy Council.”
Conservative organizations, whose donor information was released by the IRS… That’s a criminal offense! Who’s investigating that? And finally the lies…again – it is a felony to lie to a federal agency.”
According to Justice Department guidelines, the attorney general can either pick a current U.S. attorney or a lawyer from outside the Justice Department to serve as a Special Counsel. And the person must have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decision making, and with appropriate experience to ensure both that the investigation will be conducted ably, expeditiously, and thoroughly, and that investigative and prosecutorial decisions will be supported by an informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies.”
It’s time for Holder to appoint a Special Counsel.
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