Those rogue IRS agents…
…are beginning to testify, and it doesn’t seem like they’re willing to be the fall guys. This is getting interesting—although actually it was already plenty interesting:
The agent in the Cincinnati office, in which the targeting took place, told congressional investigators that he or she was told by a supervisor in March 2010 to search for Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status and that “Washington, D.C., wanted some cases.”
The agent said that by April the office had held up roughly 40 cases and at least seven were sent to Washington. The agent also said a second IRS employee asked for information on two other specific applicants in which Washington was interested in.
When asked by congressional investigators about allegations and press reports about two agents in Cincinnati essentially being responsible for the targeting, the agent responded:
“It’s impossible. As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen. ”¦ They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.”
Here’s an article on how the bureaucratic structure of the IRS works, and why it would be nearly impossible for rogue agents to be acting on their own to accomplish the Tea Party targeting.
I have little doubt, though, that the higher-ups will continue to deny everything, and that unless there’s a smoking gun (memo, email) leading to them, it will be difficult to prove who was responsible. By “higher-ups” I also include President Obama, of course, who is already implicated by rhetorical suggestion, although that’s not the sort of proof needed.
So I doubt that the people involved left their fingerprints on any directive; it was almost undoubtedly by word of mouth. How then to prove anything? It’s a game of he-said, she-said.
It also is more and more clear that the IRS has no effective checks on it, and operates as a swollen and very powerful entity. Whether the IRS operated in the Tea Party matter more or less on their own or at the direct request of the Obama administration is both extremely important and in a much larger sense almost irrelevant: either way, it’s an extremely dangerous and ominous thing. And one that seems in retrospect almost to have been inevitable.
There was an excellent post by Monty at Ace of Spades this morning:
The IRS scandal as an example of runaway organizational culture
The problem is much bigger than just a scandal.
IRA, IRS…
Car bombs in Belfast, tax audits in Ohio.
Bravo Romeo Delta:
Ooops! Will fix.
Yes and add to the above this tidbit; ABC analyst drops bombshell: People very close to Obama authorized IRS actions
“While appearing Tuesday on KABC’S morning show, “McIntyre in the Morning,” veteran ABC News analyst Trey Hardin dropped a bombshell when he said he is convinced that the IRS scandal emanates from the West Wing of the White House.
Hardin states his case with “with a very strong sense of certainty,” but does not offer any new information to support the claim:”
“I will tell you this on the IRS front. I’ve worked in this town for over 20 years in the White House and on Capitol Hill and I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS were doing but authorized it.
It simply just does not happen at an agency level like that without political advisers likely in the West Wing certainly connected to the president’s ongoing campaign organization that didn’t know about it.”
Even liberal journalists know that the WH has to be involved.
rickl,
I read that this AM. It is a good corollary to this post. Also see Salena Zito’s Op Ed on referent power. It ties in to all of this and explains how wishful thinking (“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”) works in such an organizational environment.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/19/obamas_incredible_referent_power_118468.html
The other thing that the IRS scandal points out is an obvious truth usually hidden in plain sight. Govt service employees are often drawn to govt service because they espouse large govt and govt intervention in daily life; i.e., most likely Democrats. For example, does anyone espousing lower taxation or no taxation really want to apply for a job at the IRS? Does anyone who doesn’t believe that “saving” the environment is preeminently important want to work for the EPA?
It makes sense that such a mind set is more likely to be corrupted when a president also espouses large govt intervention in daily life (“Will no one rid me . . . .?).
I too “doubt that the people involved [at the highest levels] left their fingerprints on any directive”, fortunately it’s not critical.
It’s a virtual certainty that the Obama administration’s attack upon American’s 1st amendment rights extends far beyond the IRS. The FBI, ATF, OSHA and other major government agencies were involved (it wasn’t ‘just’ the “True the Vote” case) in the Obama attack campaign.
But there have to be some ‘fingerprints’, no way can a campaign that extensive not leave evidence of collusion, nor could such a widespread campaign have been coordinated, as it clearly was, without direction from the WH. Republicans like Issa just need to keep digging, ignoring charges of a ‘partisan witch hunt’. There’s plenty of ‘gold’ yet to be unearthed in this ‘vein of political ore’.
My key point being that legal proof is not needed in the “court of public opinion” and that, the “court of public opinion” is arguably of more importance than any legal court. No greater mortal threat to the left exists than liberals awakening to the extreme nature of the left’s agenda.
And as the weight of circumstantial evidence increases, a tipping point approaches when even the most apathetic liberal starts to wonder, where was Obama during all of this? How could he not know? He’s the boss, right?
Now that the major media outlets, out of a sense of survival, are being forced to report on the scandal with even comedians like Bill Maher and Stewart offering sarcastic criticism, public confidence in Obama is starting to erode.
Those low-information voters provide the critical political support democrats rely upon. Gradually, the Obama administration is being revealed to engage in the very type of tactics that Bush was falsely accused of, which destroys the false narrative that dems have created of Obama.
And Obama’s reputation is critical to advancing his agenda because the public’s confidence in Obama is a direct barometer of his ‘political capital’. And, without that political capital he can’t legally advance his agenda.
“Car bombs in Belfast, tax audits in Ohio.”
And that sequence can always be reversed.
Geoffrey Britain,
“But there have to be some ‘fingerprints’, no way can a campaign that extensive not leave evidence of collusion . . . .”
Stephanie Cutter, an Obama campaign advisor, has admitted to being present at meetings with then IRS commissioner Schulman. This is such a far cry from Aaron Sorkin’s Jed Bartlet (The West Wing) leaving the oval office and going to the east wing residence to make campaign calls not on govt property or on the govt dime. Democrats in practice v. democrats in theory. ‘Nuff said.
“Stephanie Cutter, an Obama campaign advisor, has admitted to being present at meetings with then IRS commissioner Schulman.”
I didn’t know that and I think it’s potentially significant. Since she’s admitted it, Issa’s committee can legitimately subpoena her. That gives her three choices; testify honestly, perjure herself or take the fifth. Her taking the fifth is especially problematic for Obama. Every time somebody takes the fifth it looks really bad for Obama.
Unlike with Shulman, if she takes the fifth, they should make her take the fifth repeatedly, asking pertinent questions while briefly explaining the relevance of the question.
What possible reason was there for a campaign adviser doing at a meeting with an IRS commissioner?
Honest testimony is unlikely as it would obviously be harmful and perjury becomes problematic as more people testifying increases the probability of contradictory testimony exposing the perjury.
Any leader that blames underlings is a coward.
As the owner of my company, I am responsible for everything that happens. Even the actions of a rogue employee. I am responsible because I either authorized the rogue actions or I set up a culture that indirectly promoted it. At the very least, I would be responsible due to poor supervision and lack of oversight of the rogue employee.
Obama didn’t need a telephone to convey his wishes, he had a microphone (will no one…).
I’m not sure I agree that there will be no fingerprints. I think you have it backwards. It’s not the higher ups that will have the incriminating emails/memos. It is everyone below them. They know what they were being asked to do was irregular, so they will have kept records to show they had acted under orders.
“… it’s an extremely dangerous and ominous thing.”
It’s Washington DC that is the dangerous and ominous thing because it is the largest criminal enterprise in human history…. 3.8 trillion per year and counting. It is a blood sucking vampire cabal. That is the bottom line. DC is the number one national security threat. We put them back into the box of the Constitution or we finally have the real civil war. The devil will take the hind most.
They are all responsible. This is what mass firing squads were for.
“And that sequence can always be reversed.”
The problem with most revolutionary corps is that they thought too small. Their military knowledge and training were insufficient to take out the ruling regime in one attack, so they had to whittle them down with attacks on civilians and logistics.
The US is full of people with sufficient knowledge and training that bombs that kill a few dozen is merely child’s play. In the modern world, it doesn’t matter how many people you can kill personally that is important. It’s how many people you can train to do what you do.
When it comes time for the fire, the ruling elect’s bodyguards will be no protection whatsoever. The collateral damage might be high, but DC got their vote in 2008 and 2012. The tallies were already printed on realclearpolitics. Collateral casualties are acceptable at that rate for that gain.
Who got promotions?
What were promotions based upon?
I don’t think we’ll see a smoking gun either, but there’s evidence in where the “goodies” were given out…!
And yet, at 12PM EDT, June 4, it’s still “IRA”, not “IRS”. Sleeping in?
Sam L.:
Simple explanation—when this post was first published, I had made the careless (or perhaps Freudian?) error of putting “IRA” instead of “IRS” in the title. When I fixed that yesterday, I did a search and thought that was the only time I had made the error. You caught the other time, which I’ve now fixed.
> I’m not top 1%, but I am top 3%.Yes, and I’m president of not just one bank, but thre////fou//// *five* banks.Talk is cheap on a blog. And you didn’t drpoisve the notion that you are a pinko, you just handwaved it off. Doesn’t work here, we recognize handwaves.Your arguments suggest pinko, so, for the time being, that’s what we’ll stick with. You’re a pinko, subject to some astounding surprise, like a rational argument or something in support of a proposition.Oh, and frankly, if you were able to actually have an income in the top 3%, then any or all of several things are possible:1) You’ve never actually *worked* in finance or economics, and you’re probably a Keynesian.2) One would expect that you’d have enough imagination to come up with a name, just because you’d want to differentiate your posts from any others.3) You inherited it all, in which case you DO deserve to have your money taken away by your own argument. But that doesn’t justify the theft of it from people who actually DO earn it for themselves.lebowski:From PEW ResearchDude, go read the link connected in my 12:38 post, and you might get why it is that that PEW research is, if not directly false, based on substantially misleading concepts, tailored to make an argument which doesn’t hold water under close examination. Actual Income, and, more critically, income-vs-household-size-vs-cost-of-living has been anything but stagnant for anytime in the last 25 years, and this is true of the whole of the bush admin, too. Up until the last couple months, we are all doing better now than we were 8 years ago.”The middle class is disappearing” — yeah, they’re disappearing into the upper class.