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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Why is the GOP dragging their feet on the IRS-Tea Party Scandal?



GOP Drags Their Feet


Question of the day  -  If House Republicans are so "upset" at IRS stonewalling why has no one been held in contempt of Congress????

Call me crazy (and many do) but maybe the GOP leadership is happy to have the IRS butt-fuck Tea Party because to them the Tea Party is their enemy.

The head of the Internal Revenue Service told House Republicans on Wednesday that it would take years to provide all the documents they have subpoenaed in their probe of how the agency handled tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status.


The comments by IRS chief John Koskinen drew a frosty response from Republicans who run the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, one of several congressional panels investigating the controversy. The panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned him he should comply with the request "or potentially be held in contempt" of Congress, a sometimes threatened but seldom-used authority reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) called Commissioner John Koskinen's response “dismal by my standard” as Republicans pressed the IRS chief for more than four years worth of emails from Lois Lerner, the former agency official at the center of the controversy.
Koskinen eventually agreed to comply with the request but insisted the agency had already handed over all emails relevant to congressional investigations.

To Republicans, that was an indication that the commissioner is more concerned with managing the political fallout of the agency’s treatment of groups seeking 501(c)(4) status than helping their committee complete its inquiry.

“What part of 'all' don’t you and the IRS understand?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Koskinen about Lerner’s emails. “We don’t care what you think is irrelevant.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who could succeed Issa as Oversight Committee chairman in the next Congress, told The Hill after the hearing that Republicans wouldn’t rush into a contempt charge.

But he made clear that, with the GOP also unhappy with how the IRS has responded to subpoenas, Republicans would go to great lengths to get information they think they need.

Nobody wants to go there. We’ll be very deliberate in our process,” Chaffez said. “But subpoenas are not optional.”

GOP lawmakers have signaled that they’re interested in holding Lerner, who has outraged Republicans on the panel twice by asserting her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, in contempt of Congress.


Read more: The Hill.com

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