ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Darrell, we're supposed to be doing oversight, not witch hunting. You realize now that the IRS targeted not just conservative and Tea Party groups but also liberal and progressives groups.
DARRELL ISSA: Don't you tell me how to run my own committee Elijah! I know there's a White House connection to all of this!
ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Is that so? Tell me. Why would the White House go after the conservative and Tea Party groups and liberal and progressive groups as well? Does President Obama hate his own party too?
DARRELL ISSA: Elijah, you're the ranking member, I'm the Chairman. You don't run this committee.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank describes a perfect summary of how the IRS investigation has revealed something that is more of a would-be scandal than a real scandal at all:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
This is how a scandal implodes:
First, the head of the investigation overpromises. “This was a targeting of the president’s political enemies, effectively, and lies about it during the election year so that it wasn’t discovered until afterwards,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, said in May of the IRS targeting scandal. He later declared President Obama’s press secretary a “paid liar” for stating otherwise.
Next, facts emerge to undermine the investigator’s presuppositions. Documents released by Ways and Means committee Democrats this week show that the IRS, in addition to targeting tea party groups, also had “Be on the Lookout” (BOLO) lists for groups using descriptors such as “progressive,” “health care legislation,” “medical marijuana,” “paying national debt” and “green energy.”
Finally, evidence surfaces that the investigator stacked the deck. Tuesday night, the Hill newspaper quoted a spokesman for Treasury’s inspector general, Russell George, saying the group was asked by Issa “to narrowly focus on tea party organizations.” The inspectors knew there were other terms, but “that was outside the scope of our audit."
So in short, the IRS "scandal" as Darrell Issa and others in the GOP and the Tea Party have argued is where the investigation initially revealed there was a White House-IRS connection that represented a White House vendetta against the Tea Party. Issa and his followers basically continued to make the case of this connection with providing absolutely no evidence. Since then, new evidence points a bigger picture than just Tea Party and conservative targeting and proves this is no longer a partisan issue. Issa and others are not satisfied by this and in the meantime, the Inspector General responsible for doing the investigation in the IRS is criticized by the Democrats on the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, as well as the House Ways & Means Committee for not making a thorough enough investigation.
An important point to stress is that the new information that has been brought forth by sources is not propaganda or cherry-picked to serve one ideology. It's been brought by reliable sources not hell-bent on any agenda, even if the sources happen to be registered in a political.
But none of this seems to be registering in Darrell Issa's brain as evident per his Tweets. Issa by the way is a Tweetaholic and definitely not hesitant to be partisan in any way he choses:
Right Senor Issa but there's also this from the Acting IRS Commissioner:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Acting IRS commissioner Danny Werfel told Congress Thursday that progressive groups seeking tax-exempt status were inappropriately flagged by IRS officials, in addition to tea party and conservative groups.
At the same time, a letter from a Treasury Department watchdog to Congress suggests that while progressives were flagged, tea party groups were subject to a much higher level of scrutiny.
Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Werfel acknowledged that the word "progressive" did appear on a "be on the lookout" (BOLO) list that IRS officials used to target groups for further scrutiny.
"The types of political organizations on these BOLO lists are wide ranging, but they do include 'progressive,'" he said.
Nevertheless, Darrell Issa issues tweets defending the Inspector General on progressive groups not being targeted not once but:
Yes, you got it. Issa tweeted seven times on the liberal/progressive groups not being a target according to the Inspector General. Apparently Issa couldn't get enough followers or responses from the first tweet that he had to go for more. Or maybe he's a Twitter freak.
Going back to Dana Milbrank's column article, he points out that Darrell Issa really was set on making things partisan on investigating President Obama and the White House:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Now Issa has fallen to Burtonian levels of credibility. He’s launched a dozen or so probes, but what often begins as a legitimate inquiry into government failure turns quickly into a lunge for the Oval Office, missing each time.
Even before the Republican victory in 2010 gave him the chairmanship, Issa announced the discovery of “Obama’s Watergate” — the White House floating an administration job for a Democratic congressman to keep him out of a Senate primary. Issa backed off after learning that the Bush administration had done similar things.
Shortly before the 2010 election, Issa told Rush Limbaugh that Obama “has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.” He later said Obama isn’t “personally corrupt” but his administration is.
Here's the video transcript in 2010 from CNN on the Darrell Issa who had just done any interview with Rush Limbaugh and tried his very best to do damage control on his accusation that President Obama is one of the most corrupt U.S. Presidents in history. This reveals that Issa has in fact had a personal vendetta against Obama, much like his personal vendetta against former California Governor Gray Davis when he launched the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall Race:
ED HENRY: I've been reading a lot of the profiles the big newspapers have been doing as you get ready to take the gavel and you've been talking about bipartisanship, working with Democrats on your panel but that's not the approach you took. Before the election, you went on Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Let's listen to that.
CUE RADIO FEED FROM INTERVIEW ON RUSH LIMBAUGH
DARRELL ISSA: It's going to be acrimonious, there's no question...He has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.
BACK TO CNN INTERVIEW
ED HENRY: You have said you regret saying that.
DARRELL ISSA: Well, I correct...
ED HENRY: But at the point...
DARRELL ISSA: I corrected.... What I... What I meant to say. You know, on live radio with Rush going back and forth... Uh... And by the way, that was because Rush had me on to answer the question of about coming together, having compromise. He didn't like the compromise word.
That has got to be the most irrelevant, out of tangent response one could imagine coming from a Congressman. Why does Rush not liking the compromise word have anything to do with arguing whether or not President Obama is corrupt? The correct answer Darrell Issa should have said was, "I apologize" instead of going on and on as if he's trying to make an argument that's completely blown out of proportion.
But clearly Issa doesn't know how to give a direct answer. More of the transcript below:
DARRELL ISSA: He didn't like the compromise word when I said, we're going to agree to disagree and then we're going to find the kind of common ground, the kind of compromise that makes, can get things done. In, in saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations is what I meant to say there, uh, when you hand out a trillion dollars in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent. A trillion dollars nearly in stimulus that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in, in healthcare and government, it has a corrupting effect.
Ok, let's examine the legitmacy of Darrell Issa's argument: So a corrupting effect happens because a President of the United States asks for more stimulus to battle layoff and unemployment levels and government intervention in the healthcare crisis in the U.S.? How is more government intervention a corrupting effect?
Only because Darrell Issa says so I suppose.
But he still gives no direct answer:
DARRELL ISSA: When I look at waste, fraud and abuse in the bureaucracy in the government, this is like steroids to pump up the muscles of waste...
ERIC HENRY: Well, but first of all, in TARP that was before the Obama administration. That was uh, pushed through by the Bush administration not... So how could you call the Obama administration one of the most corrupt ever if the Bush administration...
DARRELL ISSA: I...
ERIC HENRY: Pushed that through?
DARRELL ISSA: I wasn't talking about TARP legislation. What I said...
ERIC HENRY: But you said now that, that's what you meant.
DARRELL ISSA: What I said was the, the administration got this money, that money sic... trillions of dollars of extra money that was basically used like Cong... like Presidential earmarks, handing them out, deciding what to do with General Motors and Chrysler, who lives, who dies. What union gets the benefit? All of that would not have been possible if Congress had not done its job. If we'd said, Mr. President, in the case of President Bush, what is it you need? Tell us, blow by blow, dollar by dollar and we will give you the money on a case by case basis. Instead, what happened is we gave President Bush and President Obama inherited $800 billion dollars worth of walking around money with no guidelines so that what was supposed to help financial institutions ultimately bailed out car manufacturers.
A few points to address:
1) Presidential earmarks? Aren't earmarks put in legislation? How can there be Presidential earmarks? Never heard such a thing.
2) What union gets the benefit? Is that even what the TARP money was supposed to appeal for? What do unions benefit out of TARP money going to GM and Chrysler? GM and Chrysler are businesses, not unions although unions do represent auto company workers.
3) If we'd said, Mr. President, in the case of President Bush, what is it you need? Tell us, blow by blow, dollar by dollar and we will give you the money on a case by case basis. Instead, what happened is we gave President Bush Yeah. Mr. Issa, What happened when the TARP funds were set up during Bush's last months of his presidency? What happened Issa?
4) Also, Darrell Issa is contradicting himself with his own math. First he mentions "trillions of dollars of extra money that was basically used like Cong..." then he says "President Obama inherited $800 billion dollars worth of walking around money with no guidelines". Ok. So first it's trillions, then it's $800 billion. Obviously Darrell Issa is making up the numbers.
Once again, another expose into the world of Darrell Issa proving how he is, once again, up to no good.
Make sure you mark down this information and pass it on to others for firing up the base in California's 49th Congressional District if you want to target Issa for re-election and get voter registration drives going:
San Diego County Democratic Party Website: http://www.sddemocrats.org/
Address: 8340 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, Suite 10 San Diego, CA 92111
Phone: (858) 277-3367
Fax: (858) 571-0275
E-mail: info@sddemocrats.org
Contact Form: http://www.sddemocrats.org/...
While you're at it, you might as well make a visit or mount a protest in front of Darrell Issa's Vista, CA office at the following address:
1800 Thibodo Rd
Vista, CA 92081