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House Republicans on Friday accused Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew of obstructing their investigation into the IRS’s targeting of tea party and conservative groups, and issued subpoenas for more agency documents. Oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa sent a scathing latter to Lew blasting him and Obama for dismissing the GOP’s claims about IRS targeting as a phony scandal, saying that Lew has attempted to thwart his investigation. (Snip) The IRS came under scrutiny when its auditor reported earlier this year that the agency had singled out groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names for special scrutiny when the...

When Obama condemns “phony scandals,” we can assume investigators are getting warm. Back on May 13, President Obama reacted heatedly to news that the IRS had delayed and harassed conservative groups applying for nonprofit status. “I have got no patience with it, I will not tolerate it, and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this,” he told reporters. How is the president living up to that pledge? At best, meh. At worst, we are seeing a slow-motion cover-up. In a speech he made last week, he railed against an “endless parade” of “phony scandals”...

Amazingly, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew doesn't think it's "appropriate" for him simply to ask the IRS's chief counsel (and President Obama's political appointee) William Wilkins what he knows about the targeting scandal. Obviously, it's much easier to continue to insist that there's "no evidence" of wrongdoing if one goes far out of one's way to avoid learning any potentially unwelcome facts. Jack Lew Refuses To Answer If William Wilkins Has Been Asked About IRS Targeting

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Treasury secretary Jack Lew on Sunday got specific about President Obama’s contention that “phony scandals” are distracting lawmakers from tackling the important issues facing the country. With regard to the IRS’s targeting of tea-party groups, Lew said, there is “no evidence” that any political appointee was involved in the matter, and “The attempt to try to keep finding that evidence is creating the kind of sense of a phony scandal that was being referred to there.” “We have to distinguish reality from the part that is phony,” Lew told NBC’s David Gregory. He went...

The Obama administration dug in Sunday on its vow to reject proposed spending cuts by congressional Republicans in upcoming budget talks, but declined to say whether the president would veto their proposals or allow a government shutdown. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama will neither sign government funding bills that slash domestic spending nor negotiate with Republicans over spending cuts to reduce the federal debt limit. He also said the president was not going to accept a budget in which domestic spending is further cut to soften the blow to Defense spending.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace went after Treasury Secretary Jack Lew over the investigation—or lack thereof, in Wallace’s estimation—of alleged targeting by the IRS of conservative 501(c)(4) groups. The IRS scandal—which had receded in recent weeks after an audit by the Inspector General revealed progressive groups were scrutinized in addition to conservative organizations, and produced no evidence linking the behavior to a political appointee—was revived this week when President Barack Obama’s invoked “phony scandals” in his speech in Galesburg, Illinois. Lew was directed by Obama to follow up on the Inspector General’s report

Obama: "...the economy is far stronger now than it was four and a half years ago." ...as long as one ignores the reality of the following chart... We've seen macro "Hope" and micro "Reality", but for the man in the street, it would appear from the chart above that the trajectory for 'recovery' green shoots is decidedly down and getting worse... even as the President tells the American public they are so much better off... (h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Sunday warned Congress against manufacturing a crisis over federal spending in the months ahead, as looming deadlines set the stage for a repeat of the political deadlock which two years ago triggered worldwide financial market turmoil. "We have already done a lot of deficit reduction," he said in an interview on NBC. "We need to get the debt limit extended in a way that doesn't create a crisis," Lew said.

The Talk Shows July 28th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Treasury Secretary Jack Lew; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Lew; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.; Christine Quinn, candidate for New York mayor.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Rogers; Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.THIS WEEK (ABC): Lew; Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Lew; Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Video: Does the number $16.7 trillion ring a bell? It's the debt ceiling. It's the line in the sand that must not be crossed. And to protect that line we have a Republican Congress. But that line has been crossed and not a peep out of Congress or the major news media. Obama's unelected bureaucrat, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, just unilaterally hiked the national debt of the United States another $51 billion dollars. And how did he do it? Simple. He just did it. No Senate. No Congress. No problem. He simply called it a "standard set of extraordinary measures"...

25 tea party groups sue Obama administration, IRS By: Byron Tau May 29, 2013 02:11 PM EDT A conservative watchdog group filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of 25 tea party groups against the Internal Revenue Service and Obama administration officials. The complaint, filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, alleges that the Obama administration overstepped its authority and violated the First and Fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It’s the latest in the unfolding legal drama over the IRS’s admitted targeting of tea party groups — a scandal that has already cost the acting head of the...

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Friday urged congressional leaders to raise the debt limit and insisted that the White House is not going to negotiate over the increase because lawmakers have "no choice." "We will not negotiate over the debt limit," Lew wrote. "The creditworthiness of the United States is non-negotiable. The question of whether the country must pay obligations it has already incurred is not open to debate." Lew said that while President Obama is willing to discuss plans to reduce the nation's deficit with Congress, those talks must be kept separate from any effort to raise the nation's...

BRUSSELS (AP) — European countries should ease off their austerity and adopt more growth-friendly policies, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Monday as he kicked off a series of meetings with the region's top leaders. America's biggest trading partner and the world's largest economic bloc has entered the fourth year of its debt crisis, which has plunged many of the 27 EU governments into recession. The U.S. administration hopes Europe will relent in its focus on debt reduction, which has been hurting growth through spending cuts and tax increases. Lew, who became treasury secretary in February, started his first official...

If you’re an amoral person with political connections, it’s possible to make a lot of money. Warren Buffett lined his pockets by making a government-subsidized investment in Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis.The rest of us suffered and he got richer, but the left seems to be okay with that perverse form of redistribution because he supports class-warfare tax hikes. Sort of like buying an indulgence in the Middle Ages.Hey, nice work if you can get it.But Buffett may be an amateur compared to the crony capitalists at Citigroup.The just-confirmed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was given a huge bonus for...

The nomination of Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary has uncovered a lot of dirt about the man, but it also has a lot of dust swirling, regarding the incestuous relationship between the Obama administration and Wall Street that the White House would probably prefer to have kept buried. The story surely tarnishes the President’s image as “a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street.” In Lew we find much of what President Obama publicly derides—but, as Forbes reports, is “prepared to accept from his closest associates.” In 2009, Obama said it was the “height of irresponsibility” and “shameful”...

Every so often, you get a “teaching moment” in Washington, and we now have an excellent opportunity to educate lawmakers about the “offshore” world because President Obama’s nominee to be Treasury Secretary has been caught with his hand in the tax haven cookie jar. Mr. Lew not only invested some of his own money in a Cayman-based fund, he also was in charge of a Citi Bank division that had over 100 Cayman-domiciled funds.As you can imagine, Republicans are having some fun with this issue.Mitt Romney was subjected to a lot of class-warfare demagoguery during the 2012 campaign because he...

Jack Lew, White House Chief of Staff doesn't know why ObamaCared doesn't apply to the WH staff (February 13, 2013).

I point this out, not because I think that Lew’s erstwhile Cayman Island holdings in and of themselves should be a discrediting factor in his nomination to replace Tim Geithner as head of the Treasury Department; again, if politicians are looking for someone or something to blame for wealthy people looking to save more of their own money by moving it to offshore accounts, then maybe they should start with our ridiculously uncompetitive and bulky tax code. Quite blaming the symptoms, people, and try blaming the disease instead. I point this out, because of the spectacular showcase it provides into...

Jack Lew, the White House Chief of Staff can't answer basic questions about the attack on Benghazi (February 13, 2013).

No matter how Jack Lew performs at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, his nomination to be Treasury Secretary has already produced one big winner: the Cayman Islands. The Caribbean low-tax haven is getting a political rehabilitation thanks to Mr. Lew's participation in a Cayman-based fund he invested in while working at Citigroup C +0.16% from 2006-2008. For years Democrats have denounced the Caymans, which has no corporate income tax, as a refuge for tax cheats. In 2012 President Obama ripped Mitt Romney for investments based there. But now an Obama spokesman suggests that Mr. Lew's Caymans investment, a Citigroup...