Posted on 11/08/2013 3:11:09 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is giving a jolt to the congressional probe of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups with a new subpoena that was issued late Thursday night.
Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have for months sought documents from the Treasury Department that they say would detail a wide range of interactions with the IRS well before the public learned that conservative groups were singled out for extra scrutiny.
The subpoena, the second that Issa has issued since the controversy broke, came as House Republicans are struggling to find any officials outside of the IRS with links to the targeting controversy — and as the matter has largely been shunted to the side by other issues such as ObamaCare.
"The American people deserve to know the full extent and breadth of the IRS's misconduct and the Treasury Department's awareness of this misconduct," Issa and Jordan wrote to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in September.
Oversight’s subpoena comes just days before the six-month anniversary of the controversy, which broke May 10 after a top IRS official, Lois Lerner, acknowledged the agency had wrongly singled out Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status.
The revelations caused a stir up and down Pennsylvania Avenue before being overshadowed by the conflict in Syria, the government shutdown and most recently the error-ridden rollout of President Obama’s signature healthcare law.
Still, even outside of Issa’s newest subpoena, there’s evidence that the targeting controversy could soon return to the forefront.
Senate Finance investigators have been working on a bipartisan inquiry into the targeting for the better part of six months, with an eye toward releasing a report in December.
Committee aides say Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), are aiming to have the report out this year, though the report could easily slip into 2014 due to delays caused by the shutdown.
Finance members from both sides of the aisle have said they think their report will shed significant light on how and why the targeting occurred, after having taken pains to contrast their approach to the partisan acrimony generated by the House’s investigation.
“We’ve been doing an awful lot of work that we don’t talk about. We don’t have a hearing every whipstitch,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told The Hill on Thursday. “So I think we’re going to have something substantial here fairly quickly.”
“I think we chose, from a standpoint of our oversight of it, not to do it publicly,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
“Right now, we have great bipartisan cooperation, which should give great comfort to the American people that when the final report comes out, we will have identified those things that need to be changed or those things that potentially broke the law.”
Still, some senators have expressed concern that the Finance report will, at best, be released some seven months after the agency first disclosed the targeting.
“But I trust Max Baucus to follow through on it,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), another Finance member. “We should go ahead and finish the IRS as fast as possible.”
Issa and Jordan, along with top Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, originally sought information from Treasury in June, including details about a briefing before the 2012 election that the inspector general for tax administration gave to Treasury’s general counsel.
The GOP lawmakers are also seeking any input that Treasury might have given IRS higher-ups before they testified before Congress in 2012, including appearances after senior officials learned of the targeting.
In all, House Republicans are seeking information in nine different areas, dating back as far as January 2009.
The Oversight Committee says it has received around 1,200 pages from the Treasury Department, and that several of their questions have gone totally unanswered.
The panel subpoenaed the IRS for more information in August after top lawmakers in both parties complained about the department’s slow response.
“Secretary Lew is responsible for ensuring that all responsive documents and communications held by officials in his agency are produced to this Committee,” an Oversight spokesman, Ali Ahmad, told The Hill.
Treasury has said for months that House Republicans were reaching out to the wrong people.
Treasury’s Alistair Fitzpayne insists that Russell George, the inspector general who outlined the IRS targeting, has answered many of the GOP’s questions.
Furthermore, Fitzpayne has told Republicans, the Obama administration has taken a hands-off approach to tax administration, just like its predecessors.
Meanwhile, House Republicans continue to plug away at an investigation that has grown more complex over time.
The Ways and Means Committee is now examining whether the IRS continued to target conservative groups with audits after they were approved for tax-exempt status — bringing the investigation into yet another agency office, in Dallas.
Republicans have also brought up the targeting as they probe the ObamaCare rollout, stressing that the IRS plays a big role in overseeing subsidies created by the law.
"In the wake of the IRS scandal caused by an effort to target Americans because of their political beliefs, Americans concerned about the IRS and how they will handle this personal and private information have every reason to be concerned," Issa said at an October hearing.
But House Democrats say that Republicans are overplaying their hand, and argue there was no partisan motivation — only incompetence — in the targeting.
Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on Ways and Means, this week said GOP talk about a “culture of corruption” at the White House has proven to be overblown.
“There is zero evidence that the White House was involved in this,” Levin said.
America is justifiably FURIOUS with Issa.
No one is in jail for Fast&Furious ... OR ANYTHING ELSE.
> But House Democrats say that Republicans are overplaying their hand, and argue there was no partisan motivation — only incompetence — in the targeting.
Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on Ways and Means, this week said GOP talk about a “culture of corruption” at the White House has proven to be overblown.
“There is zero evidence that the White House was involved in this,” Levin said.
Then prove it by having 0 hand over all his phone records and Oval Office “tapes” for examination. We already know their response is going to be refusal based on national security concerns..Even if they did it would be fiction as the WH would direct the phone company to omit many of the calls that would expose the corruption. Most ‘transparent’ administration ever.
They have to stall Issa for three more years?
No problem. They’ve already done it for five.
They are shooting off fireworks, when what is needed is 105 mm Howitzer shells.
In other words Democrats need have no fear of anything Issa or Orrin hatch will do, they are merely making a show. Putting on a fireworks display that will end with nothing but smoke left in the sky, and no damage done.
How many times now have we seen Issa’s fireworks and seen that smoke drift away with nothing done?
Issa must need some campaign contributions so he pretends to do his job for a few minutes to fool a few more people.
No Impeachment of Obama means Support of Obama
Issa is a Fraud.
“Issa is a Fraud.”
No kidding. All these investigations and no outcome. No
one held responsible and no incarcerations. All he does is
expose the evidence so the administration and the media
know who and what to hide. That’s what a false opposition
party does.
Dead End Darrel strikes again. I’m tired of the disclosures...until people start going to jail, then it’s just more hot air and dead ends...and a waste of our tax dollars. How much more needs to be exposed before SOMEBODY DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT? Fast and Furious, Benghazi...good Lord, how much more do we need?
Levin’s remarks also stood out for me. They seem rather boilerplate.
It would appear that the headline is all we ever get.
Issa is useless and/or must be in league with Obama and the DOJ. I can’t imagine that not being the case.
It’s not enough to invoke articles of impeachment and to vote to mpeach in the House, you will need the Senate to convict (which is why Clinton did not get convicted of lying to Congress).
In 2014 there are 12 vulnerable dem senators who voted against Mike Enzi’s 2010 proposal to allow people to keep their insurance plans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gViWnQBO7Nw
You replace these senators with republicans and impeachment for the IRS targeting as well as Fast & Furious is on the table.
Did you think issa had power to throw people in jail? He’s not a judge.
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