Twin announcements by the DOJ: protecting the administration’s friends, destroying its enemies
Why, isn’t this what a nice Orwellian Department of Justice ought to be doing?
The Justice Department will not seek criminal contempt charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner, the central figure in a scandal that erupted over whether the tax agency improperly targeted conservative political groups.
Ronald Machen, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a seven-page letter this week that he would not bring a criminal case to a grand jury over Lerner’s refusal to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March 2014. The House approved a criminal contempt resolution against Lerner in May 2014, and Machen’s office has been reviewing the issue since then.
Senator Robert Menendez was indicted on federal corruption charges on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press, setting the stage for a bitter court fight and putting his political future in doubt.
The charges had long been expected and Mr. Menendez, a 61-year-old Democrat of New Jersey, has promised to fight them. He has offered no indication that he plans to step down or relinquish any power while he goes through that process.
Maybe Congress should hurry up and approve Lynch. She couldn’t be worse than Holder, and although I doubt she’s better it’s remotely possible. If they don’t confirm her, Holder just stays in office till someone else is appointed and confirmed, and if it’s not Lynch it will be another Obama lackey, perhaps a worse one.
[NOTE: I’ve written many previous posts about Lerner and Menendez, although this is the first post that discusses both of them together. Just do a search on the blog for either name and you will find them.]
They should rename it the Department of Just Us.
2 tier justice, the 1%, cronies, etc doing the tyrants bidding get a free pass
those who don t fall in line will get hounded by IRS & Justice
I wonder if the platoon mates exposing Bergdhal have heard from the IRS yet
I blame the voters …
I blame the Repubics …
… They surrendered on the abortion bill, surrendered on executive orders on illegal immigration, common core. They helped push through $3.5 trillion in deficits this last year. They won’t fight Obamacare. They voted to confirm Katz Unstein (ph). They thwarted the bill on the NSA data collection. They’re still not doing anything on Benghazi. They haven’t done anything on the targeting of conservatives with the IRS. They haven’t done anything on the VA. They also threw an election against Chris McDaniels to Thad Cochran. They actually went to the Democrats and played the race card. I mean, I can get that from Hillary Clinton’s people….
We had to have the house. Then we had to the House. Then we had to have the House and the Senate. Now we have to have the White House. And then when they get the White House, the House, and the Senate then it becomes the Bush administration where it’s just as bad on deficits and everything else. They don’t have any intention of doing anything….
…However, leaving the GOP is a bad idea, for two reasons:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/fix-gop-don-t-abandon-it_898649.html?nopager=1#
WTF!
I’m assuming Holder can’t be impeached.
No surprise that Obama DOJ won’t enforce the Rule of Law.
I’ve written many times that the House has its own constitutional power to hold Lerner in contempt and jail her until she purges herself of her own contempt.
And the House has done so in the past. Jailed a guy in a hotel!
John and Trey need to man up.
When the left perverts justice they use the fact that they have perverted justice to prove that they were correct all along. Lois Learner is a prime example. They use the fact that they will not prosecute her as evidence that she was innocent all along and that the Republicans were smearing an innocent woman. Their tactics reminds me of a true story I read in which a group of men gang raped a woman and then claimed that she was a worthless slut because she had had sex with several men. The sad fact is that moral difference between many leftists and the gang rapists is difficult to distinguish.
g6loq:
The Lois Lerner DOJ investigation was the result of the House Republicans’ contempt citation of Lerner. What more can Congess do to Lerner? Seriously, what? They have a limited amount of power and have used it. They have investigated Benghazi although probably not as relentlessly as one would like. But again, what can they do? They have held Holder in contempt. Etc. etc.—they have certainly done something rather than nothing. It has been ineffective because (a) their powers are limited; (b) they are not forceful or charismatic speakers; and (c) the American public is mostly jaded and uninterested. The public doesn’t care in part because of the MSM, but mainly because people have lost the sense of what the US should be. Cynicism and lack of interest abounds.
I am glad that you agree that the GOP should not be abandoned, and I’m certainly not saying the GOP is great (I have many quarrels with it), but I don’t expect people to work miracles that are beyond the powers given them.
Cornhead:
I thought they couldn’t jail her if her contempt was merely taking the Fifth inappropriately.
You’re certainly more of an expert on that than I am, though.
Neo: Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she first said she “did nothing wrong” and then took the Fifth.
Apparently DOJ has spun out a legal opinion that dear Lois did not waive her rights.
Trey has a different opinion. I say the House should jail her and see if a judge will issue a writ of habeas corpus. The House has its own constitutional powr of contempt. That’s the habeas issue.
And I should add that Lerner had some supposedly great lawyer for her House hearing. Malpractice mistake if he approved her little speech before invoking her constitutional right.
g6loq,
Are you responsible for what you don’t know? If you’re duped and fooled by a liar(s) are you equally culpable for the wrongs that they do?
Beck is absolutely right and so are those who say that abandoning the Republican Party will bring further ruin upon America. Their hope is that somehow, by some miracle, the Left can be stopped. Beck, parker, you and I know better, that the train wreck that looms ahead cannot be stopped and that those who continue to support the GOP will be, unjustly but convincingly to the LIVs, held responsible for the coming debacle.
That false meme will ‘hold water’ with the LIVs because the GOP did little to nothing to stand against the path that the democrats and Left have embarked America upon and in their silence and refusal to vote for the “obvious good” that democrats advanced, Republicans prevented democrats from protecting the country.
Thus those who continue to vote for GOP candidates will be convincingly painted to the LIVs, as the ones responsible for the disaster that has befallen America. That is a large part of the Left’s game plan, to create chaos and crisis and to blame it all on the Republicans and conservatives and luddite reactionaries, who stand in the way of progress and equality. To blame it all on those who “cling to their guns and bibles”. To blame it all on those “small minded” religious people who are devoted to their religious “crap.” To blame it all on those who gay thought leader Michaelangelo Signorle on Sirius 127 today defined as needing to be “re-educated.”
There’s a shit storm coming people and its aimed right at us. When people are enraged enough and have a scapegoat, they’ll give up all their freedoms to ‘get’ the ones they hold responsible for their misery.
Sounds like the *bottom up, top down* scenario Glen Beck used to warn about.
I wrote about the futility of this way before Holder announced his retirement, but it was in the context of impeachment and removal.
I said that Obama has NEVER appointed anyone who wasn’t a political hack, so any replacement would be just as bad.
I assumed at the time that Holder would go and a deputy (just as bad) would take over.
The only detail I didn’t foresee was Holder’s interminable departure.
He’s like one of those furniture stores that is forever going out of business, but never quite manages.
Holder or a clone will be there until the end. The position is FAR too important to leave to chance, as we’ve just seen.
We’ll just have to wait it out.
…. (b) they are not forceful or charismatic speakers; and (c) the American public is mostly jaded and uninterested. …
In short non-entities in the land of the sheep, home of the docile …
I’d say, the Repubics have been remiss since the Gingrich years. Abandoned principles, went for policies and perks. Thus the jaded population.
In a very real sense it is Bush’s fault. … Ah!
I agree with Geoffrey Britain that a shit storm’s coming with an orgy of scapegoating.
GB in a previous thread indicated he’s a proponent to go with the flow till it’s time to act. In other words: “let it burn”.
Could be. Winston had the charisma and forcefulness but could not deflect/preclude the disaster that was WWII.
I am as much a Daoist as the next guy, no point in swimming against the tide. Yet … There is got to be a way. Can do, that’s the American way! Or was …
This piece, see the comments. Surprising.
Maybe there are 3 percenters waiting to pounce …
Senate doesn’t have to hold a vote on Lynch. Turnabout is fair play as Reid never held votes.
So Holder stays on as a lame duck that wants out (and missing that big payday) or he vacates the office and the next in line is “acting” or something.
Either way Barry will whine.
Matt_SE:
Obama and Holder, joined at the hip.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Holder stayed till the bitter end.
Obama and Holder, joined at the hip.
Neo certainly nailed that one …
Very, very bad actors …
Found at comments in the above referenced Observer piece this, The indictment .
Bastard.
It could be that Menendez will be a monkey’s wrench:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/04/01/menendez-rips-doj-political-motive-to-silence-me-after-14-count-indictment-unveiled/
No honor amongst thieves and … so on.
“GB in a previous thread indicated he’s a proponent to go with the flow till it’s time to act. In other words: “let it burn”.” g6loq
Not exactly, I am not in favor of ‘letting it burn’. I am in favor of doing all that we can that is constitutionally legal, recognizing that, barring a ‘wild card event’, legal remedies such as voting will almost certainly be inadequate to the task before us.
I don’t believe we can awaken the LIVs, critical to turning the tide. At this point with Obama’s approval rating near 50%, nothing will awaken the LIVs but a very hard dose of reality.
They are in near complete denial and willfully blind, as neo makes clear with Mead and other examples of apologia, now settling upon Obama being an incompetent fool. Since if he’s a knave, it makes them face their own incompetent and depraved foolishness.
GB
It will take a giant disaster to make people wake up. And it will need to be directly attributable to Obama to really make things clear. ISIS crossing our open southern border and conducting a big attack in a major city is one thing that comes to my mind.
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