One year ago, Barack Obama told Bill O’Reilly that there wasn’t even a smidgeon of corruption at the IRS. If that statement was true, why is the Obama administration refusing to share documents related to the IRS targeting scandal?
Bob Cusack of The Hill reported yesterday:
Obama administration won’t release IRS targeting documentsThe Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations.The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups.TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article.
The Department of Justice, which hasn’t been politicized in any way, may be partially to blame for the slowness of the investigation.
Judicial Watch published this report last week:
New Documents Offer Glimpse into Criminal Investigation of Obama IRS ScandalDOJ Emails Suggest IRS Counsel’s Office Slowed Investigation(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released new internal Department of Justice (DOJ) documents revealing that the Internal Revenue Service Office of Chief Counsel’s office delayed approval of an IRS employee’s meeting with DOJ and FBI investigators into the Obama IRS targeting scandal. The emails also detail the involvement the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division with the investigation. The documents show, the Public Integrity Section was investigating the IRS scandal only a month after it reached out to Lois Lerner about prosecuting targeted tax-exempt entities. This is the first window into the criminal investigation of the alleged IRS abuses.The Public Integrity Section previously has been tied to an effort to work with the Obama IRS in an effort to prosecute the very groups and individuals critical of the Obama administration and the president’s reelection that the IRS has admitted to illicitly targeting.
You’ve got to hand it to Obama—he makes Nixon look like an amateur.
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