The Obama Justice Department has finally picked someone to to lead what's supposed to be an investigation into the use of the IRS to suppress conservative political activity and target conservative donors.
And surprise, surprise! It's Barbara Kay Bosserman, a trial lawyer in the Justice Department whose an Obama donor as well as a hardline Obama partisan and Democrat. She's listed as having donated more than $6,000 to the president’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, as well as several hundred dollars to the national Democratic Party.
Needless to say,Reps. Darrell Issa and Regulatory affairs subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan are livid.
“The department has created a startling conflict of interest,” Mr. Issa and Mr. Jordan said in a letter sent Wednesday and reviewed by The Washington Times. “It is unbelievable that the department would choose such an individual to examine the federal government’s systematic targeting and harassment of organizations opposed to the president’s policies.”
No kidding. After it was discovered (after numerous outright lies and stonewalling) that the IRS had been used for partisan purposes to deliberately target conservative groups for delays an denial of 501C status as well as to audit and harass conservative donors, President Obama promised that the FBI and the Justice Department would conduct a full investigation.
Of course, eight months later absolutely nothing's been done and there have been no results, and the FBI and Justice Department are refusing to give him any information at all. In fact, the FBI is actually using the fact that there's supposedly an ongoing investigation gong on as an excuse to refuse to release any of the documents Issa has asked them for.
And to add to this travesty, the Justice Department is claiming that their policies forbid them from considering an employees political affiliation when giving out assignments.If anyone seriously believes that if Barbara Kay Bosserman were a Republican who donated to Romney, she would have had any chance at all of getting the job, you probably still think that if you like your health insurance you can keep it.
Issa and Jordan warned Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that the refusal FBI to cooperate could rise “to the level of criminal obstruction” of Congress’. oversight responsibilities. In response, the Justice Department promised to at least brief congressional investigators on the status of the FBI investigation, but then refused to follow through.
A good example of the4 level of IRS corruption we're talking about here is a brief response to Rep. Issa concerning a different letter by Stephen D. Kelly, assistant director of the FBI’s office of congressional affairs:
Catherine Engelbrecht, a chief organizer of King Street Patriots, said she felt the government was targeting her after the FBI made repeated inquiries about someone who attended a King Street Patriots meeting.
In its letter to Mr. Issa, the FBI said it contacted the King Street Patriots after receiving a complaint in 2010 that a member of the group had said he wanted to start a revolution and had visited a firing range.
Mr. Kelly said FBI agents checked with the group, which said the man attended a training session but was asked to leave. Mr. Kelly said the group provided an address the man had given, but that address turned out to be false. When the FBI ultimately tracked down the man, he “indicated that his remarks were made in jest.”
“The King Street Patriots were questioned concerning their limited relationship with the individual in question,” Mr. Kelly said in the FBI letter.
But that doesn’t jibe with Ms. Engelbrecht’s recollection, nor with the paper record that was released. In a heavily redacted copy of one of the FBI’s contact reports, which Ms. Engelbrecht obtained, the FBI makes no mention of the individual Mr. Kelly said the agency was investigating. Instead, the report lists the contact as part of “community outreach.”
Ms. Engelbrecht said the FBI made a half-dozen inquiries over the course of a year. She said she also fielded inquiries at her business from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; faced an audit by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of Engelbrecht Manufacturing; and underwent an IRS audit of her personal tax returns.
She's by no means the only one.
Rep. Issa and his colleagues in the House are never going to get a straight answer on anything from the Obama Administration.They need to get the Select Committee going and appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate this and the myriad other scandals swarming around the Obama White House like flies around manure.
Otherwise, nothings going to happen.
the FBI and Justice Department are refusing to give him any information at all
ReplyDeleteMaybe you're unaware, but all government departments have been told not to give any documents to Issa, solely because every time he gets a document he leaks it to the press. You can't do business with a person like that and you certainly can't turn over documents in the middle of an investigation when the person asking for them has a habit of disclosing the information to the nearest reporter.
So these agencies may sound like they're hiding something, but they're only doing it because it's impossible to investigate or secure a conviction when a member of congress is routinely putting your investigation in jeopardy. Hence the government-wide edict to ignore Issa.
The ironic thing is that without Issa, the republicans would have a lot more info on Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS issue, etc. than they currently have, but he apparently had other priorities (getting on tv being near the top) and now that info will never see the light of day.
Otherwise, nothings going to happen.
ReplyDeleteand that's just the way boehner wants it.
frankly i think it would be better for the tea party if anon were appointed.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by.
There's something I think you're perhaps unclear on and you're not alone. The White House and the federal agencies you mention have a legal and constitutional duty to cooperate with congresses' oversight function, and that means Issa's committee.
Not to do so actually is considered obstruction of justice,ala' Nixon and Bill Clinton.
The reason the Obama administration has managed to get away with it so far is interesting.
There used to be a U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel that was truly independent. That was the office people like Kenneth Starr and the Watergate era's Archibald Cox operated out of.
Oddly enough, that office was replaced in 1999 as one of Bill Clinton's last acts in office by the similar sounding but very different Office of Special Counsel, controlled by the Justice Department and run by an Obama appointee.
As I'm sure you can appreciate,in the lawless way the current administration operates , stuff like IRS-gate, Fast and Furious and Benghazi is not going to be 'investigated' with any degree of diligence by the current Attorney General or the appointee in charge of the Office of Special Council.
Normally, in something like this the next step in all this would be a special independent prosecutor named by the Attorney General, the way Nixon's AG Elliot Richardson appointed Archibald Cox. We all know that isn't going to happen. And there obviously isn't going to be any media firestorm to gin up public pressure to appoint an independent council the way there was with Nixon.
So the House is going to have to name their own prosecutor via the courts since the U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel no longer exists. That's a much more lengthy process, particularly with Speaker Boehner fighting it every step of the way.
So any 'lack of information' has nothing to do with Issa leaking or not leaking, if that's how you refer to him informing the public of what's going on.it is simply politically motivated obstruction of justice,no matter what tall tales anyone's telling you.
Regards,
Rob
Actually, you're not quite right. Oversight is allowed to subpoena, but the party being subpoenaed is allowed to refuse if it can be proven that the request is in bad faith or will compromise government security. As Issa has leaked almost every document he has put his hands on, it would be idiotic for the FBI to submit to his request.
ReplyDeleteAnd these aren't tall tales. Issa's modus operandi is to subpoena documents and then give them to newspapers to score political points. He commonly redacts material that he thinks might hurt his argument and then won't allow anyone else on the committee to the see the unredacted version.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/hhs-darrell-issa-obamacare-aca-101097.html
if that's how you refer to him informing the public of what's going on.
Issa's job is to get these documents and present them in front of a committee, not a pack of reporters. Surely you see the difference? If the shoe were on the other foot...?
In other words, if you want a true investigation, Issa is not doing you any favors. If you feel like sticking with him out of some sense of loyalty, then you're just helping out Obama, who loves the fact that Issa's recklessness is serving as a shield for him. Why shoot yourself in the foot?
Hi Tim,
ReplyDelete*chuckle* Only a partisan site like Politico would headline a story about a bunch of liars like Sebelius and her pals at Health and Human Services refusing to cooperate with Congress because they don't trust someone! Talk about projecting!
Let's examine what you're saying here.
A subpoena is a legal demand to appear and give testimony.
None of Obama's people have bothered to attempt to argue that the subpoenas are in 'bad faith' let alone prove it. They have simply failed to appear whenever possible, and the people at the top have done their best to cover their behinds by ordering their subordinates not to appear and testify. That's why Congress(both Houses) have not been able to interview any of the survivors of the Benghazi fiasco, for example.
I don't see how allowing that would 'compromise national security' or anything else but President Obama's approval ratings and inflated ego or Mrs. Clinton's election plans.
Or answering questions on the dysfunctional ObamaCare website. 'National security'? On a website that's a hacker's dream, with 'navigators' having access who don;t even have to have a criminal background check?
And how would complying with subpoenas on Fast and Furious or IRS-gate affect 'national security'? 8months and the White4 House is only now picking some one the head an 'investigation'? And they pick a highly partisan Justice Department lawyer rather than an independent prosecutor?
If that's the argument, then no White House needs to ever cooperate with congressional oversight on anything,That's a direct assault on separation of powers.
Congressional subpoenas that aren't complied with are in exactly the same situation as subpoenas issued in a civil or criminal trial. One needs to go before a judge and ask him or her to issue a court order under threat of contempt.
Since our current Attorney General has more regard for partisan politics and covering himself than justice and the rule of law,the House will have to go to court themselves to get a court order...but they can only do it after they go through the motions with the White House.
As for Issa's methodology, I don't see it as reckless at all, nor do I agree with the notion that he's selectively keeping material from the other members of the committee. I know for a fact that when material is released, every member of the committee gets a copy, not just Issa. For the White House to just give Issa a copy would be against their own interests.And if Issa was doing what you suggest, it would give the White House a powerful tool to discredit him,simply by releasing the complete material. He's simply not that stupid either, and what you suggest defies common sense.
I think we both know - and Issa has actually shown examples - that materials are coming to the committee either with whole pages totally redacted or simply removed and missing.
I can't see what's 'reckless' about trying to get the media to do their job and the public outraged enough so that the White is pressured to finally comply with their legal responsibility and allow an honest investigation of the lawless and illegal conduct that went on. I'm sure you won't deny that IRS-Gate was a highly illegal scheme to use the IRS as a partisan political tool, and that it appears to have been orchestrated at a fairly high level in the administration. We just don't know how high yet.
Let's at least be honest here.
I could be wrong, but from some of the ways you phrase things I get a distinct feeling that you feel that these scandals are unimportant, and just partisan political attacks. If so, you might want to keep in mind that this sort of disregard for law and the Constitution is setting some very harmful precedents,and your willingness to regard this stuff in that fashion could one day come back to bite you. Parties in power change,but precedents remain.
Think about it.
-Rob-
Only a partisan site like Politico
ReplyDeleteIf this is a case of shoot the messenger, then I don't know what to tell you. I get the sense that if God himself relayed this information to you, you'd accuse him of being Obama in disguise. :) To each his own.
I guess you'll have to do the research yourself. I doubt Fox News would cover any of this, but I'm sure you'll find a news site that you agree with (what a weird thing to type) that can give you the information. Rep. Cummings has already released transcripts of interviews that Issa selectively edited and redacted, one specifically concerning the IRS investigation that proved Issa was omitting information so as to present a false narrative.
This is all public information. Google it. Or did Google become a democrat website when I wasn't looking?
The fact is, Issa has been cherry-picking and redacting information, leaking every document he can to the press, and he even had the class to file for a subpoena while Cummings was in the air, returning from Mandela's funeral, specifically so that there could be consultation or objection. Why would anyone trust him? (He is a car thief, after all).
If I was Boehner and I actually wanted to get to the bottom of the IRS affair, I'd remove Issa and put someone else in charge. But it seems more and more that this 'scandal' is falling apart - we're finding out that democrat groups were being scrutinized just as much and it's beginning to look like this wasn't targeting but simple old IRS-style incompetence. (There's copious news stories about this in the papers and online, but I don't know which reporters you 'agree' with). Boehner understands that the truth about this whole thing won't be nearly as interesting as stirring the pot and creating the impression that this is a scandal.
I don't know if you remember this, but Dan Burton used to head oversight in the 1990s and he was crazier than all get-out. He investigated the Clintons on things as small as their annual Christmas card and once shot bullets into a watermelon in his backyard to somehow 'prove' that Vince Foster was murdered by Hillary Clinton. As a result, absolutely no one took him seriously and Clinton got away with far bigger crimes. Issa is just history repeating itself. If no one takes you seriously, what exactly do you hope to accomplish?
Look at the list of people on the committee --
http://oversight.house.gov/committee-members/
As a thought experiment, just imagine how much easier it would be to keep our government in check with one of these republicans at the helm. Is Issa really worth your loyalty?
I see I was right about your motivations here as expressed in the last para of my previous comment. "We Must Protect The Obama Regime, No Matter What! Leftism uber alles!"
ReplyDeleteBTW, this shows what happens when you actually try to engage the Left in the real debate you claimed that you wanted on another thread. I just decided to indulge you to give you a chance for my own amusement to, you know, step in it.
Let's be nice, not lie to each other and pretend you actually want a real investigation of any of this stuff..OK?
Of course, you would consider FOX propaganda and something like Politico to be unbiased.And citing Elijah Cummins,an Obamabot who has done his best to impede what the committee has been trying to do since Day One?
It also makes sense that you'd want Issa out of the way and a more compliant RINO in charge. I appreciate that.
But I also have to grin when you accuse him of trying to make political points. What political points?Issa is a California Republican. Democrats control the state, voting by illegal aliens is rampant and given whose moving into the state and who's moving out, Issa has no chance of any statewide office or any political advancement whatsoever.
Could it be that Issa is simply outraged at the contempt the White House and the lawless gang inhabiting it has for our laws and our Constitution, and has determined to try to do something about it?
Oh, I know...just a ka-wazy Republican.
Have a nice day.