Rep. Issa: FBI Stonewalling Investigation Into IRS Targeting Scandal, IRS Chief Counsel Has CRS Syndrome

From the Washington Times.

The House’s chief investigator says the FBI is stonewalling his inquiry into whether the agency and the Internal; Revenue Service targeted conservative group True the Vote for special scrutiny, and Rep. Darrell E. Issa is now threatening subpoenas to pry loose the information from FBI Director James B. Comey Jr.

Mr. Issa, California Republican, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, are leading the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s IRS inquiry. They also said the FBI is refusing to turn over any documents related to its own investigation into the IRS, which began in the days after an auditor’s report revealed the tax agency had improperly targeted tea party groups for special scrutiny.

Six months after it began, the FBI’s investigation has resulted in no release of information. The congressmen said the FBI even rescinded an offer for an in-person briefing with the assistant director in charge of the investigation. The reversal, after the FBI consulted with the Justice Department, suggests political meddling, the two investigators said.

“The department’s tactics have impeded a congressional investigation and interfered with the committee’s access to documents and information. Obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime,” Mr. Issa and Mr. Jordan said in their letter to Mr. Comey, warning that if they don’t get the information they will use “compulsory” means.

They set a Dec. 16 deadline.

William Wilkins, the Chief Counsel of the IRS, testified before the House Oversight Committee, and came down with a case of CRS (Can’t Remember Shit):

The quiet but continuing House Republican-led probe of the Internal Revenue Service’s treatment of tea party groups produced a new wrinkle in late November with an invitation to William Wilkins, the agency’s chief counsel and President Obama’s appointee, to “amend” testimony he gave the panel on Nov. 6 that the lawmakers suggest was deceptive.

Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which with the Ways and Means panel has been investigating the IRS since May, sent a letter to Wilkins dated Nov. 26 saying that despite “the fact that you had over five months to prepare yourself, your cooperation with the committee’s investigation was lacking.”

Wilkins, whom the IRS volunteered for testimony back on Aug. 2 and who spoke to Issa staffers in private early last month, used the phrase “I don’t recall” a “staggering 80 times in full or partial response to the committee’s questions,” said the letter, co-signed by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. “Your memory consistently failed when you were asked about information you shared with the Treasury Department,” it said. The testimony “suggests either a deliberate attempt to obfuscate your involvement in this matter or gross incompetence on your part.”

Issa blasted Wilkins’ statements that he was unaware of the mishandling of nonprofit groups’ applications for tax-exempt status primarily by a unit in Cincinnati until he read the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s audit exposing the problem last May. In Issa’s account, the chief counsel said he was unfamiliar with any of the guidance or politically sensitive terminology that IRS processors were using to determine whether a given applicant was more a political group or a social welfare group.

……“Treatment of tea party groups was a serious matter worthy of the attention of all IRS leadership, including yourself,” Issa wrote in paraphrasing the chief counsel. “Yet, despite the seriousness of the allegations, which cut to the core of the integrity of the IRS as a fair and impartial arbiter of tax law, you consistently testified that you did not recall raising this as a serious matter with the Treasury Department.”

The evidence of malicious targeting and the deliberate subsequent coverup has a lot of IRS officials pleading the Fifth and lying under oath.

More IRS malfeasance:

Holder, former IRS chief taught black churches how to skirt tax code.

According to 2012 emails obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, top Internal Revenue Service Obamacare official Sarah Hall Ingram discussed confidential taxpayer information with senior Obama White House officials. Lois Lerner, then head of the IRS Tax Exempt Organizations division, also received an email alongside White House officials that contained confidential information.

More emails uncover Lerner’s role in the conspiracy, including proof that she gave confidential taxpayer information to the FEC, violating federal law.

IRS employees in Cincinnati were warned not to talk to the press “or risk losing our jobs.”

J. Christian Adams, the former DOJ attorney who blew the whistle on Holder’s refusal to prosecute the Black Panthers for voter intimidation, was himself targeted by the IRS for critical articles he published in Pajamas Media.

Unless Issa and company get serious about prosecution, this is just another dog and pony show.

Related post:

http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/irs-tries-to-double-down-after-targeting-scandal/

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