Earlier this week, lost in the hub bub surrounding the Supreme Court’s decisions on DOMA, Prop 8 and the Voting Rights Act, was this revelation that the IRS Inspector General’s report on the IRS was deliberately limited to only discussing Tea Party groups, and the IG says it was Congressional Republicans who ordered this limitation. We now know that the IRS targets both tea party groups and progressive groups, singling out the terms progressive and occupy in 2011 just as they singled out tea party and patriot. Thus, it would appear that the Inspector General perjured himself before the House Oversight Committee when he said the IRS targeting was limited to the conservative groups and terms.
Andrew Sullivan says the IG must resign due to such perjury. He is half right. But he conveniently ignores the true scandal here.
The Treasury inspector general (IG), whose report helped drive the IRS targeting controversy, says it limited its examination to conservative groups because of a request from House Republicans. A spokesman for Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, said they were asked by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) “to narrowly focus on Tea Party organizations.”
Darrell Issa must be arrested for obstruction of justice at once. If he had any honor he would resign, as should every single Republican on that committee. They purposefully and with malice aforethought attempted to create a scandal where none existed. And in so doing, they interfered with the investigation into what actually happened at the IRS.