The IRS Scandal, Day 814

New York Post editorial, Obama’s Pathetic Attempt to Spin the IRS Scandal:

No sooner did President Obama claim last week the IRS scandal was just a mirage than new evidence emerged to show it was anything but.

The conservative group Judicial Watch says documents it obtained “confirm” the agency targeted the donors of certain tax-exempt organizations. And the Government Accountability Office faulted IRS procedures, saying they failed to prevent bias in the selection of nonprofits for audits. That’s key, since the agency has been accused of targeting conservative groups. ...

Of course, the biggest scandal of all is that Team Obama has managed to stonewall and leave the public hanging. And that no one has been held accountable.

Forbes:  President Obama Challenges IRS Scandal Narrative, by Peter J. Reilly:

So the latest in the interminable IRS scandal now on Day [810] by TaxProf Count is that President Obama has said in an interview with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show that there is no scandal involving the targeting of conservatives.  What he sees as scandalous is the underfunding of the IRS which allows people to avoid paying taxes they legitimately owe and the complexity of the Tax Code which allows multinational corporations to entirely avoid paying federal income tax.

The President’s explanation of the targeting scandal is that Congress had passed a crummy law that did not give good guidance and that people did a poor job of trying to sort out conflicting demands.   After all government is a human enterprise.

The President’s statement has drawn some sharp reaction.  The Daily Caller headline is “Obama Lies To Jon Stewart’s Face About IRS”. I had to check this out. ...

Supporters of the scandal narrative can, of course, point out many particulars that are not addressed in the President’s statement – hard drives, the TIGTA report that indicated inappropriate criteria were used.  On the other hand they have yet to come up with that really great smoking gun piece of evidence that links the President to all the tsoris that Lois Lerner and the Cincinnati gang that couldn’t sort straight dished out to Tea Party applicants for exempt status. Too bad that the President watched the Watergate hearings when he was a kid and knows better than to have damning tapes like the one I imagined back in January.

If the smoking gun is actually ever found, this interview might go down in history as Obama’s “I did not have sexual relation with that woman” moment.

Wall Street Journal, Notable & Quotable: Contempt and the IRS; A Federal Judge Asks Why the IRS Commissioner Shouldn’t be Held in Contempt for Failing to Comply with a Court Order to Produce Lois Lerner’s Emails.

From a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington on Wednesday. The judge is questioning Justice Department attorney Geoffrey Klimas about his explanation of why the government hadn’t filed a motion for him to reconsider his order to produce the emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner being sought by the watchdog group Judicial Watch:

The Court: Wait a minute. Why would it have been inappropriate if you said it’s clear that the Court had issued an oral order? And we’ve said that—I’ve said that four times. If it was clear that there was an order outstanding, why would it have been inappropriate for the government to file a motion to reconsider that clear oral order? I don’t get it.

Mr. Klimas: To clarify, it was our understanding that there was a directive from the Court that was going to be followed up with a written order. It appears—

The Court: An order to be followed up by an order?

Mr. Klimas: It appears that the understanding was misplaced.

The Court: So you needed two orders to have a clearly enforceable order? You don’t need two orders to have a clearly enforceable order, do you?

Mr. Klimas: No, Your Honor.

The Court: So there’s no reason for not complying. This is ridiculous. This is absurd. I thought you were going to say that you didn’t think the Court had issued an oral order, but that’s not what you’re saying. It’s clear from the transcript that the Court had clearly ordered rolling production on a weekly 11 a.m. basis. So why shouldn’t the Court hold the Commissioner of the IRS in contempt for not having complied with a clearly enforceable order?

• Breitbart, Federal Judge Threatens IRS Commissioner With Contempt
• Russ Fox (Taxable Talk), Judge Threatens IRS, Justice Department; IRS Closely Monitored Tax-Exempt Applications; IRS Responses to Exempt Organizations Were Designed to Stop Inquiries to Congress

• The IRS Scandal, Day 813 (July 31, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 812 (July 30, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 811 (July 29, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 810 (July 28, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 809 (July 27, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 808 (July 26, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 807 (July 25, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 806 (July 24, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 805 (July 23, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 804 (July 22, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 803 (July 21, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 802 (July 20, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 801 (July 19, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 701-800 (April 10, 2015 - July 18, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 601-700 (Dec. 31, 2014 - April 9, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 501-600 (Sept. 22, 2014-Dec. 30, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 401-500 (June 14, 2014 - Sept. 21,2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 301-400 (Mar. 6, 2014 - June 13, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 201-300 (Nov. 26, 2013 - Mar. 5, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 101-200 (Aug. 18, 2013 - Nov. 25, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 1-100 (May 10, 2013 - Aug. 17, 2013)