Rep. Elijah Cummings Wants the IRS Scandal to Go Away: It's "Solved", Even Though We Don't Know Who Instigated It

The IRS scandal must be very, very bad for the Obama administration. For those of you who stepped away for the last several weeks, it was handily summarized for us by Jim Hoft:

The IRS targeted hundreds of conservative groups since 2010. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS starting in 2010. For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications within weeks.

The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee -- Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) -- must know something that we don't. And he wants us to remain in the dark regarding what really happened between the White House and he IRS. Mind you, this is the same administration that targeted not only conservative, Christian and Jewish groups using the IRS, but also attacked the Associated Press and Fox News through its highly politicized Justice Department.

“Based upon everything I’ve seen, the case is solved,” Cummings told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “If it were me, I would wrap this case up and move on, to be frank with you. The IG made some recommendations, those recommendations are being adopted by the IRS, we’ve got a new commissioner in, acting commissioner in, Danny Werfel is doing a great job, I think we’re in great shape.”


Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa slammed Cummings for his claims, calling them “extreme and reckless” and arguing they are “a signal that his true motivation is stopping needed Congressional oversight.” Issa added that “fortunately” Cummings cannot stop the ongoing the investigation.

The Oversight Committee, which, along with the House Ways and Means Committee, is investigating the IRS’s systematic targeting of tea-party groups, is currently interviewing several agency officials involved in the scandal. Though they have linked the initial orders to identify tea-party applications to officials in Washington, D.C., they have yet to identify the official who asked for those applications, or to determine whether the White House was involved in the targeting of conservative groups.

Elijah Cummings, who heretofore struck me as a thoughtful and deliberative man, should be ashamed of himself.

@darrellissa Knowing the WH was forewarned of #IRS abuse is reason to open a Select Committee for the subversion of Americans' Civil Rights.

— Sen. Frank Niceley (@SenFrankNiceley) June 9, 2013

Politicizing the instrumentalities of the federal government has reached a record and intolerable level under this administration. And Cummings appears more invested in advancing his party's interest than pursuing his constitutionally mandated role of oversight.


Related: BUSTED: The Complete IRS Scandal Timeline in Spreadsheet Format.

The Tea Party Conservatives Came to Washington to Chew Bubblegum and Kick Ass. And They're All Out of Bubble Gum.

I really like the sound of our guys on the Sunday talk shows.

Let's start with Rep. Allen West (R-FL) on Fox News Sunday.

Q: Then, in November, you said -- and here's the quote -- "that this liberal, progressive, socialist agenda... this left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine that’s out there is soundly brought to its knees..." Tyrannical? Socialist? Despicable? Is it really as bad as that?

A: "I think it is... when you look at the nationalization of so much of our production: the automobile industry, the health care industry, the fact that we had an amendment in the health care law that allowed the federal government to take over education, when you look at the fact that we are creating more victims and making more people dependent upon the government... when you look at the incredible debt and deficits that has occurred over the last two fiscal years, we're going in the wrong direction...

...This liberal-progressive agenda is the antithesis of who we are as a Constitutional republic."

I really, really, really like Allen West.

As for some of the other highlights, Darrell Issa probably kerploded a few progressives' heads today by calling the Obama administration corrupt.

Issa ... clarified that when he previously said during a radio interview that Obama "has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times," he was referring to the Obama administration and not the president himself.

"In saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations, which is what I meant to say there," Issa said, "when you hand out $1 trillion in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in healthcare and government, it has a corrupting effect..."

...He also took aim at the national health care overhaul, which he said is "expanding Medicaid mandates that have been at least tentatively ruled unconstitutional," and at the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which he called "$800-billion worth of walking-around money."

Oh, and Michelle Bachmann laid a rhetorical beatdown on the loathsome White House adviser Austan Goolsbee who had earlier warned Republicans against 'playing chicken' with the national debt ceiling as it could raise questions about America's ability to repay its debts. Uh, schmuck: S&P and other rating agencies have already raised questions, thanks to your insane spending policies.

In an entertaining but ultimately not very informative roundtable, guest host Harry Smith brought Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-Fla.) and Rep.-elect Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) together for a chat that frequently degenerated into the guests talking over each other. Bachmann said the Republicans would introduce a "clean" bill to repeal the new health-care law. Kelly said he hopes that incoming GOP freshmen, many of whom are backed by the tea party, can force the government to live within its means like people in the "real world..."

Both Bachmann and Kelly said they opposed raising the debt ceiling.

Anthony Weiner went on to shriek like a little girl -- or maybe that's his real voice, I wouldn't know -- that failing to raise the debt ceiling would "shut the government down."

Say, Anthony, let's try it for a month and see if anyone notices. We've got a Department of Education that doesn't educate anyone; a Department of Energy that tries to restrict our access to energy; a Department of Labor that helps promote unemployment; etc.

So let's give it a shot for a month or two. I think we'll all be amazed how little we miss the enormous federal bureaucracies that seem to exist only to torment us.


Hat tip: Rowdy Roddy Piper in 'They Live'.