Jesse Berney - December 29, 2014 The holidays are a wonderful time to gather with family and friends, celebrate the traditions of your faith, renew your spirit of love toward all mankind, and bury embarrassing news so that no one ever sees it. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa celebrated the holidays this year by finally releasing his long-hyped report on the IRS “scandal” in which he claimed the Obama administration took revenge on political opponents by targeting them for scrutiny of their tax status. Why release it during the holidays? Because the report proved once and for all that the White House did nothing wrong. The IRS was doing its job. Organizations who claim tax-exempt status under 501(c)4 status are supposed to be “social welfare” organizations, and it’s the responsibility of the IRS to ensure primarily political groups don’t use the status to evade donor-disclosure rules. The IRS looked into groups with both conservative and liberal keywords in their names, because that’s how you’d find groups that conduct primarily political activities. The only group that lost its tax-exempt status was Emerge America — a liberal one. There was zero connection between the IRS’s activities and the White House. The administration did not direct the IRS, an independent agency, in any of these matters, in any way. This isn’t the first time Issa has thundered on about a supposed Obama scandal that has turned into nothing upon closer examination. He’s led the charge into the investigation of the Benghazi terrorist attacks of September 2012, but countless hours and millions of dollars spent revealed no wrongdoing by the administration. Solyndra turned out to be one bum investment in a largely successful program promoting renewable energy. Fast and Furious was a terrible operation by a law enforcement agency that started well before Obama took office. Issa has shown again and again he’ll pursue any sniff of scandal if it has some hope of tainting the president — no matter how thin the evidence. But he’s run out of time; thanks to term limits he’s stepping down from the chairmanship of his committee in the new year.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 23:45:35 +0000
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