Posted on 05/20/2013 2:08:35 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot
Senior White House staff knew of the ongoing investigation into the IRS's targeting of conservative groups ahead of the release of a report from a Treasury Department inspector general, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday, but held off on informing the president to wait for a final report.
With the knowledge of an investigation, the White House held to a "cardinal rule" that it should not get involved in an external investigation, Carney said during his daily briefing. "No one in this building intervened in an ongoing independent investigation or did anything that could be seen as intervening," he said.
"To the chagrin of some who would have liked us to get more in front of this, we appropriately waited," Carney later added.
White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler was informed of the IG's audit on April 24, Carney said, and was told that the audit was nearing its conclusion and that a report would be forthcoming indicating that several IRS employees were involved in targeting groups with "tea party" and "patriot" in their names for additional scrutiny.
Carney was more vague last week, telling reporters that Ruemmler's office was informed of the existence of an investigation during the week of April 22, but informed of little more. On Monday, he said that some staff in the counsel's office were told of the report -- and others nearing completion -- a week earlier, on April 16.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Plausible deniability refers to the denial of blame in loose and informal chains of command where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible, meaning confirming responsibility for the action is nearly impossible. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such act or any connection to the agents used to carry out such acts.
In politics and espionage, deniability refers to the ability of a “powerful player” or actor to avoid “blowback” by secretly arranging for an action to be taken on their behalf by a third party—ostensibly unconnected with the major player. In political campaigns, plausible deniability enables candidates to stay “clean” and denounce advertisements that use unethical approaches or innuendo based on opposition research.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Plausible%20deniability
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Obama uses this often.
LOL! Why would they tell Obama? They told Valerie.
Is it just me, but why do I have the feeling that President Obama secretly knew all along what was going on?
That is, am I supposed to believe that this President who seems to know everything, somehow did not know about this mess long ago? Give me a break.
Plausible deniability. Chumps, all of them.
Exactly
It seems that his whole life he's pretended to be black to get undeserved advantages. Now he's either in way over his head (a total idiot) or he's totally corrupt. I'd almost prefer that it was that he's totally corrupt.
Stupidity is not an excuse. If one gets in over their ability, they're still responsible. JMHO
well we were first told nothing bad at all had happened.
then we were told it was a rouge operation by a handful of obscure low level clerks in an Ohio office somewhere.
then we were told that , yes, someone higher up did have to order such a widespread “non-event” to take place...
now we are told that “senior White House operatives knew” all about it, but somehow or other did not do their duty and advise their boss that anything so very serous was even going on that could bring down his Presidency
ok. in about 4 days it has gone up 4 times... right to the door of the Oval/Oral Office.
the cat is getting out of the bag.....
this report is sufficient for Congress to subpoena the “high level WH officials” and find out the rest of the truth. But it should be coming out very soon anyway...
you can almost bet on it....
stay tuned!
(and nobody believes anybody but O was at the source of the order for this major nationwide shift in the operations of one of our largest and most powerful governmental agencies....stay tuned!)
i.e. they "acted stupidly"
Worked for Benghazi.
Some reporter said that doesn't that mean that the WH would be not informed of ANY investigation going on...in other words that it would never know anything about the most important things.
Ridiculous.
Yea, that’s my story
And I’m stickin with it
....for now
That is why the tale gets more and more fantastic.....
But yeah you had it summed up right.
Should say WH staff claims.... ...
Yes. Remember last week Obama was asked if he knew about the targeting?
His response... "I only found out about the REPORT a few days ago."
He completely sidestepped the question about the targeting. Blatant evasion.
You’re probably right. :sigh:
And we were led to believe that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had been done away with.
He also knows about the gay basketball player. Staff is just telling him about the wrong things.
Staff is putting the shiny objects in front of Obama and he is very easily distracted I think.
How convenient ...
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