No, IRS targeting not phony scandal
Published 9:13 pm Sunday, February 9, 2014
The evidence is clear — the Internal Revenue
Service targeted groups opposed to President
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Barack Obama in the months leading
up to the 2012 elections. Even Obama himself
admitted as much.
Now, however, he calls the debacle a “phony
scandal,” and put the investigation in the hands of
one of his loyal supporters. And he says questions
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about issue are “unfair.”
Man up, Mr. President. You owned the scandal
before. And you’ll continue to own it, whether you
acknowledge it or not. It’s denials and claims of “unfairness”
that are prolonging the scandal — not Fox
News or the conservative media.
It’s useful to recall the facts of the case. The Associated
Press’s timeline of the scandal begins in
June of 2011.
“Lawmakers send the first of at least eight letters
asking the IRS to address complaints that conservative
groups are being subjected to burdensome
screening in their applications for tax-exempt status,”
the AP reports of those early days of the scandal.
“June 29: Lois G. Lerner, in charge of overseeing
tax-exempt organizations at the IRS, learns at a
meeting that groups are being targeted, according
to the inspector general. Lerner is told that groups
with ‘Tea Party,’ ’Patriot’ or ‘9/12 Project’ in their
names were being red-flagged. Statements in case
files that are critical of the country’s leadership or
that want to ‘make America a better place to live’
also prompt examination.”
As the election nears, the targeting gets worse,
AP explains.
“Now the IRS is on the lookout for references to
the Constitution or Bill of Rights in the materials of
organizations seeking tax-exempt status, for ‘political
action type organizations involved in
limiting/expanding government,’ and more,” it
notes.
In March 2012, the cover-up begins, when “IRS
Commissioner Douglas Shulman tells Congress
there is ‘absolutely no targeting’ of groups based on
their political views.”
That story fell apart in 2013, when Lerner, called
before Congress, apologized for the targeting, but
then invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and left a
congressional hearing.
Obama initially called the targeting “outrageous.”
“There’s no place for it,” he said in a Super Bowl
game-day interview with Fox. “And they have to be
held fully accountable.”
That was then; this is now.
Now he says there was “not even a smidgen of
corruption.” Rather, “There were some bone-headed
decisions.”
Worse, he complained that the IRS scandal was
only lingering because of Fox News and the conservative
media.
As Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law
and Justice (the legal group representing many of
those targeted by the IRS) notes, “The intentional
misuse of government office to deprive Americans
of their constitutional rights and thereby sway the
outcome of public debates is the very essence of
corruption in a constitutional republic. Drafting the
government bureaucracy into partisan politics is
more than a ‘boneheaded mistake,’ it’s a threat to
the integrity of our democracy.”
And finally, it’s beneath a sitting president to
complain about fairness — something more commonly
heard on the elementary school playground
than in the corridors of power.
Responsible elected officials own up to their mistakes.
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