I missed this when the House Oversight Committee released it last week. This 3 minute clip hits some of the highlights of the investigation into improper targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.
The first 30 seconds or so of this clip are based on information first published by Breitbart News last year. The rest of the video rushes through what has been a long process of walk-back and denial by Democrats.
As the video notes, Democrats initially claimed this was the result of low-level staffers in a single office (rather than an organized campaign led by the President). Initially, President Obama claimed he was angry about what had happened. The anger didn’t last very long though. Within a few weeks the entire thing was being disregarded as a phony scandal.
One of the main excuses given for discounting the IRS scandal was the claim that it had actually been bipartisan. This came arose after Democrats released documents which were reported as supporting the bipartisan claim in friendly outlets like the NY Times.
Inspector General J. Russell George specifically debunked the claim that the targeting of conservative and liberal groups was comparable, but the claim is still taken seriously in some quarters of the media. This move did not win the IG any friends among Democrats, some of whom later called for an investigation into his integrity.
And of course all of this was just a prelude to the subplot about Lois Lerner’s missing emails, which has too many twists and turns to fit in a brief clip. There is probably enough material for a much longer documentary film but the clip above is a good primer.
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