Poor Darrell Issa. He was having such a good day. He was having a hearing, and the topic was the IRS and how the Obama administration was covering up a Huge Enormous Scandal there by refusing to prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner who everybody (in Fox Nation) knows stole the election from Mitt Romney's hands.
Even better, he had the Obama administration on the spot, because Deputy Attorney General James Cole was a witness for the hearing, and one of Issa's Republican colleagues was grilling Cole on the Department of Justice's failure to convene a federal grand jury to indict Lerner in the wake of the House's vote to hold her in contempt.
"This Congress held Lois Lerner in contempt, geez, almost nine weeks ago," Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said, citing the procedure that's spelled out in law that says the prosecutor's duty "shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury."
BOOM! Can you say PWN'D?!?! Respond to that, Cole, you Obama-enabling thug.
"My understanding of the law is that it does not strip the U.S. attorney of the normal discretion that the U.S. attorney has," Cole said. "He proceeds with the case if he believes it is appropriate to do so."
Your understanding, Mr. Cole? From whence do you get such "understanding"? Or, in Darrell Issa's words:
"If you think that's discretionary, would you please give that back to us in a legal opinion so that we can change the law to make it clear you're wrong," Issa said.
Yeah! And when we make it clear you're wrong, we're going to open up a Reagan-sized can of whoop ass on your sorry claim. Except, just when big old Darrell was King of the World and Slayer of All Things Obama, this happened:
Issa's Democratic counterpart on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) was happy to find that opinion himself, written by conservative lawyer Theodore Olson when he worked for President Ronald Reagan's Office of Legal Counsel in 1984.
"What it says is, 'We believe Congress may not direct the executive to prosecute a particular individual without leaving any discretion to the executive to determine whether a violation of the law has occurred.' That's what the opinion says -- a 1984 opinion dated May 30," Cummings said. "This was a contempt citation coming from Congress that he was talking about."
Ooops. Darrell Issa, foiled again. And this time by Ronald Reagan. Almost makes you feel sorry for him.
Ah, just kidding. Who could feel sorry for Darrell Issa?