IRS Cover-Up Continues
PHOTOS.COM
Two days ago, Lois Lerner, the director of the Internal
Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations division, told the House
committee investigating the IRS scandal that she didn’t do anything
wrong. She then refused to answer any questions and invoked her
Constitutional right against self-incrimination. In other words, she
pleaded the 5th.
So far, both Congressmen and reporters trying to find out who knew
what and when they knew it are having a mighty hard time getting anyone
to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” about
this spreading scandal.
We now know that White House officials were told of the accusations
and a resulting internal investigation long before the news became
public. But we’re supposed to believe that no one told President Barack
Obama about it. Just like the rest of us, he didn’t know anything until
the story made national TV. Sure.
Turns out that several other things we have been told are simply not
true, either — like the fairy tale that Obama fired the acting
commissioner of the IRS. Acting Commissioner Steven Miller’s appointment
was going to end early next month anyway.
Nor did the commissioner in charge of the tax-exempt division get the
ax. James Grant, a veteran IRS bureaucrat, quietly announced his
retirement as of June 3. The IRS issued a very respectful statement
about Grant’s departure, without any hint of a problem or that he had
had suffered any sort of punishment or disgrace.
In other words, despite all of the claims to the contrary, not a
single person in the IRS has lost his job over the scandal. In fact, the
one person who was supervising those so-called “rogue” IRS employees
when the infractions occurred not only wasn’t dismissed or demoted, she
actually received a promotion.
In fact, Grant was made commissioner of the tax-exempt department
only a little while ago. For the past three years, his boss was a woman
named Sara Hall Ingram. And she didn’t get fired or demoted over the
abuses by her staff; she got
promoted.
That’s right. Ingram is now the director of the IRS’s Affordable Care
Office. As hard as it may be to believe, the person in charge of the
division at the IRS that singled out patriotic groups for special
scrutiny is now the chief enforcer of Obamacare. Doesn’t that make you
feel warm and cozy?
Oh, by the way, Ingram was handsomely rewarded for all of her efforts
on behalf of the regime.
Check out the loot that a grateful government
awarded her while her employees were putting the squeeze on Tea Party
types: In addition to a six-figure salary, Ingram collected bonuses of
$34,400 in 2010, $35,400 in 2011, and $26,550 in 2012.
Who says crime doesn’t pay?
When The Media Turn On Obama
Yes, I know, it’s probably too much to hope that most of the
mainstream press will put down their rose-colored glasses long enough to
take a hard, unvarnished look at their liberal hero, Obama.
But it doesn’t take many cracks in the dyke for the truth to start
leaking out. And in the past few days, there have been several
encouraging signs that many in the media are starting to look past the
White House spinmeisters. When they do, no wonder they’re deeply
disturbed by what they see.
I call as my first witness Bob Woodward. Along with his partner, Carl
Bernstein, Woodward helped expose the Watergate scandal back in the
1970s that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Woodward says he sees a similarity between those events and the
scandals that are now embroiling the Obama Administration over events in
Benghazi, Libya.
“I have to go back 40 years to Watergate, when Nixon put out his
edited transcripts of the conversations,” Woodward said. “He personally
went through them and said, ‘Let’s not tell this, let’s not show this.’”
The famed reporter says the controversy is not going to go away any
time soon. “I would not dismiss Benghazi,” he said, “It’s a very serious
issue. As people keep saying, four people were killed.”
Meanwhile, Bernstein said the actions of Obama Administration officials who seized the phone records of
Associated Press
reporters were “outrageous.” He added that even if Obama did not know
about the details of the action, he was certainly aware of the policy.
Now we’ve learned that three years ago, the Justice Department labeled
FOX News
correspondent James Rosen as a possible co-conspirator in a criminal
case involving leaked classified information. The government lawyers did
so to justify going through Rosen’s personal emails. But at no time was
Rosen notified that he was a target of the probe, as the law requires.
This obvious violation of Rosen’s 1st Amendment rights should alarm
every reporter and editor in the country. Heck, it should make all of us
furious at the Administration’s callous disregard of our Constitutional
guarantees. But, then again, when has the Obama Administration paid
more than lip service to the U.S. Constitution anyway?
As more and more reporters refuse to accept the White House’s absurd
explanations for events and start digging for the truth themselves, much
of what they find will alarm them. Who knows what could happen as more
of this Administration’s deceit is revealed?
Consider, for example, what happened when a reporter from
The Washington Post talked
with an IRS worker in the Cincinnati office — you know, one of those
“rogue employees” who allegedly decided on their own to target
conservative groups with extra scrutiny.
“We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do,”
The Post quoted
the indignant staffer as saying. “Everything comes from the top. We
don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing
off on them. There has to be a directive.”
And even when aides do come to the Administration’s defense,
sometimes they just dig the hole deeper. That’s what happened when Dan
Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to Obama, made the rounds of the Sunday
morning talk shows five days ago. Instead of defusing questions about
the three crises that have engulfed the White House, Pfeiffer only made
matters worse.
His first miscalculation came when he appeared on “Fox Sunday Morning”
with
Chris Wallace. The reporter wanted to know where the President was, and
what he was doing, the night of the terrorist attack on our consulate
in Benghazi. Was he monitoring events from the Situation Room? “That’s a
largely irrelevant fact,” Pfeiffer replied.
Oh, really?
The aide seemed to like that dodge so much that he tried it again when he appeared on
ABC’s
“This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. The host pressed him about the
growing IRS scandal: “What does the president believe,” he asked. “Does
the president believe that [targeting conservative groups] would be
illegal?”
Pfeiffer replied, “The law is irrelevant.” A visibly astonished
Stephanopoulos replied, “You don’t really mean the law is irrelevant, do
you?”
Yes, George, they really do. The truth is whatever they say it is. And how dare anyone question them about it.
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) put it well when he said, “The president’s
entire program is based on giving more and more power to the same
executive branch agencies demonstrating themselves this week to either
be criminally incompetent or tyrannically corrupt.”
And Lee concluded, “This is what always happens when government gets
too big. The Founders knew that over time, either the people would
control the government or the government would control the people.
That’s why they bequeathed us a constitutionally limited government — a
republic, if we could keep it.”
We’ve seen other Presidents try desperately to sweep a growing
controversy under the rug. But the truth can defeat them every time, if
sufficient pains are taken to bring it to light.
Let’s do our part to continue shining the spotlight where it’s needed the most. And watch the cockroaches scurry for cover.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.