Darrell Issa says that the IRS targeting of conservatives was coordinated out of the Washington headquarters office and that he and other lawmakers are getting the proof.
From CBS News:
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., citing the testimony of IRS employees who spoke to his committee behind closed doors, argued Sunday that the tax agency’s targeting of conservative groups was not the result of a few “rogue agents” in the Cincinnati field office, as the IRS and the Obama administration have insisted, but the product of a direct order from IRS headquarters in Washington.”As late as last week, the administration’s still trying to say there’s a few rogue agents in Cincinnati,” Issa said on CNN. “When in fact the indication is they were directly being ordered from Washington.”As evidence, Issa pointed to the testimony of IRS employees from the Cincinnati office who spoke to his committee and indicated that IRS headquarters in Washington requested a sample of applications from conservative groups for tax exempt status.
Rep. Elijah Cummings provided a press release to CNN and called Issa’s statements “reckless.” But Issa has thus far stood firm in his accusations, even when challenged by CNN’s Candy Crowley on the point that he’d released only excerpts of the testimony.
“The whole transcript will be put out,” he said.Issa lit into the White House for its shifting account of the targeting scandal, calling White House press secretary Jay Carney a “paid liar” who is “making up things and “saying whatever is convenient at the time.””This is a problem that was coordinated, in all likelihood, right out of Washington headquarters and we’re getting to proving it,” he promised.
Meanwhile, former White House senior adviser David Plouffe appeared on ABC’s “This Week” over the weekend to defend against the notion that any of the IRS targeting was political. He downplayed the whole ordeal, as did fellow panel guest Arianna Huffington, and suggested that most Americans prefer to focus on the economy and not all these scandals.
“All these things deserve thorough investigation,” Plouffe said. “The question is, is that all Congress is going to do? Are we just going to be obsessed with scandal and trying to score political points, or the American people could not be screaming any more loudly, ‘worry about us.’ ‘Work on the economy.’”
Seems every time this administration comes under fire, everyone suddenly wants to just work on the economy and ignore those pesky scandals. We’re six months into this president’s second term – is the economy not something he should have been focusing on all along?
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