The Insiders: A special prosecutor in the IRS matter is inevitable

This administration’s management of the Obama Internal Revenue Service scandal so far consists of a slow-walking, rolling disclosure of facts; equal parts equivocation, amnesia and indignation from IRS witnesses; deer-in-the-headlights non-responses by the White House press secretary; parsed, lawyerly statements from the president himself; and now one of the central key players is taking the Fifth. And all this comes from what the president claimed would be the “most transparent administration ever…” If we give the president the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows the truth is going to come out, the question remains: Does the administration appoint the special prosecutor sooner or later? The calculus inside the White House is how to best protect the president’s political interests. They have two options. They could delay the appointment and let more of the story develop, weather the ugly piecemeal disclosures, give the players time to get their stories straight and lawyer-up and hope Republicans continue their overreach, giving the whole affair a nutty partisan patina. Or, they could accelerate the appointment of a special prosecutor, thereby slowing the congressional inquiries and giving Jay Carney some relief from his daily embarrassing routine by supplying him with the escape hatch of not being allowed to comment on matters associated with the special prosecutor’s ongoing investigation. Not to mention, the White House all the while could blast the appointed counsel as a partisan ideologue à la the hatchet job that was done on Ken Starr. Anyway, if the president is innocent, he will end up needing and wanting a special prosecutor sooner rather than later. If he and his White House already have too much to hide, then they must clam up, cry partisanship and hope their allies on the Hill and in the media have the stamina for the long

Andy McCarthy, who knows a lot about counsels and the DoJ and criminal procedure, argues against a special counsel:

Let’s put law and atmospherics aside and try to be completely practical. The imperative in the IRS scandal is not criminal prosecution. It is political accountability: to lay bare what corrupt officials have done, for the purpose of swiftly determining whether they are unfit to hold offices of public trust and whether the system in which they operate tends to corruption. The appointment of a special counsel would undermine that goal.
The moment a prosecutor — special or otherwise — takes over, the public flow of information stops. All witnesses will claim that the pendency of a criminal investigation means they cannot discuss the matter “on advice of counsel.” They will cease cooperating with congressional investigators. The prosecutor will claim that grand-jury secrecy rules bar comment about the expansive investigation (a claim the government routinely makes, even though the rules actually bar comment only by the prosecutor, investigative agents, and grand jurors — not the witnesses).

The objective here should not be to throw a few corrupt officials in the can. Rather, it should be to disgrace the Regime and shatter Americans' confidence in their government and thereby gin up the votes to retake the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. In order to do that, all the shocking facts must be placed before the public.

A House select committee holding a series of lengthy hearings is probably the best vehicle to accomplish those objectives.

"The objective here should not be to throw a few corrupt officials in the can. Rather, it should be to disgrace the Regime and shatter Americans' confidence in their government and thereby gin up the votes to retake the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. In order to do that, all the shocking facts must be placed before the public."

I'm not buying the line from McCarthy. We saw today that people will clam up any time perjury or potential criminal charges are on the line.

These congressional hearings are completely and utterly impotent. They are very limited in their power and ability to pursue wrongdoing where ever the trails lead. They will be ignored by the vast majority of the public and all of the little peons will continue their personal conspiracies with impunity unless their job, pension, and freedom is jerked away from them - with maybe clawback of their hefty bonuses.

They need to be rolled in order to "out" the real masterminds. Justice needs to be served on the statists who believe they are impervious to the rule of law and are bringing about the death of our republic.

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