McConnell: IRS Actions Part Of Administration Acting As‘Speech Police; Boehner: Who's going to jail over this scandal?

by AF "Tony" Branco

Today in Washington, D.C. - May 15, 2013.
The House is in session but most bills to be considered are administrative in nature. Any bills completed will be noted  in tomorrow's report.

Speaker John Boehner today addressed the growing IRS scandal whereby administration officials admitted to wrongfully targeting conservatives and political opponents of President Obama, and reportedly gave preferential treatment to liberal groups and allies of the White House. Boehner said: “The IRS admitted to targeting conservatives, even if the White House continues to be stuck on the word ‘if.’ My question isn't about who is going to resign. My question is who's going to jail over this scandal?”

The House Ways & Means Committee will hold a hearing to investigate the IRS this Friday at 9:00 AM ET, and the Oversight & Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing next Wednesday.

The people appear to agree with the Speaker's position. Rasmussen Reports that "57% Want IRS Offenders Jailed or Fired.Most voters believe the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups was politically motivated and think most of those involved should be severely punished

Yesterday, the Senate rejected two amendments to S. 601. The Senate resumed consideration of S. 601, the Water Resources Development Act of 2013.  Today they  voted 83-14 to pass S. 601, as amended.  The Senate began consideration of the nominations of Marilyn Tavenner to be Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and William H. Orrick, III to be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California.  They will  vote on confirmation of the Orrick and Tavenner nominations later today.

In committee, Senate democrats are ramming through an Amnesty bill to bring to the floor for a vote.

On the Senate floor this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell discussed the latest news on the IRS scandal, saying, “It seems like, with each passing hour, the facts get more and more inconvenient for senior folks over at the IRS. Yesterday, it was reported that the agency may have gone after a ministry founded by Billy Graham. We also learned that the very same IRS office that admitted to harassing conservative groups also released nine pending applications for tax-exempt status to the liberal investigative group ProPublica. How did we find out? ProPublica revealed it.”

USA Today reports, “In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months. In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows. As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like ‘Progress’ or ‘Progressive,’ the 'liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.”

According to ABC News, “Cincinnati was far from the only IRS office where agents put conservative groups seeking tax exempt status under heightened scrutiny, according to documents obtained by ABC News. David French, an attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice representing 27 groups that say they were unfairly scrutinized by the IRS, provided letters from two different agents in Washington, D.C., to tea party groups seeking tax exempt status. Other groups received demands for information from agents in two separate IRS offices in California.”

And The Wall Street Journal adds, “Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday the Justice Department has opened a criminal probe of the Internal Revenue Service's treatment of tea-party groups, while an investigative report blamed the agency's managers for allowing the practices to continue for more than 18 months. . . . The inspector general's report left unanswered a key question—how exactly IRS workers came to focus excessively on conservative groups. ‘We could not specifically determine who had been involved in creating the criteria’ that led to selection of so many applications from conservative groups for extra review, the report said in a footnote. The report called on the IRS to better document the reasons for choosing groups for extra review, request better guidance on rules by the Treasury Department, and quickly resolve cases—some of which ‘have been in process for three years.’”

Frustrated with the new reports but no answers yet from the IRS, Leader McConnell said, “Basically all we’ve gotten from the IRS, on the other hand, is an attempt to scapegoat some folks out in Cincinnati and a laughable attempt to move past this whole issue with a ridiculous op-ed claiming ‘mistakes were made.’ Well, most folks don’t think that ignoring the Constitution is simply a ‘mistake.’ I like the fact that one group the IRS targeted, when asked by the agency to provide reading materials related to their mission, mailed them a copy of the Constitution. And today, I’d like to encourage every group that feels like it’s been unjustly targeted to do the same. Maybe just underline the First Amendment before you put it in the envelope. Because that’s what this is all about.”

He pointed out, “[L]et’s not forget that we wouldn’t know any of this if congressional Republicans hadn’t demanded better answers than the ones we were getting from the Administration. When I and several of my colleagues wrote to the IRS last year seeking clarification on allegations that they were harassing conservative groups, the response we got was essentially ‘nothing to see here, move along.’ When I pressed the issue in a speech last June, the Left either ridiculed the suggestion or ignored it. When IRS officials were asked point blank in congressional hearings whether this was happening, they said point blank that it wasn’t. Well, turns out it was.”

But that’s not the whole story. The Daily Caller writes, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the Internal Revenue Service’s extra scrutiny of conservative groups is not an isolated incident, but rather part of a ‘pattern’ of this administration acting as the ‘speech police.’ In a phone interview with The Daily Caller, McConnell pointed to past actions by various agencies . . . and said that the IRS’s actions simply fell into that same mold. ‘This IRS investigation is certainly about the IRS, but it’s about the broader issue of the administration’s abuse of power and efforts to silence the critics of the administration,’ McConnell said.”

Writing about an interview Leader McConnell had with Larry Kudlow yesterday, CNBC notes, “McConnell said the limitations on free speech extended beyond the IRS, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. ‘The Department of Health and Human Services, during the Obamacare debate, issued a directive to the health insurance companies telling them they could not say to their policy holders what their objections were to Obamacare,’ . . .

On the Senate floor today, Sen. McConnell said, “If the President is truly concerned about this issue, as he claims, he’ll work openly and transparently with us to get to the bottom of this. And people will be held accountable. These allegations are serious — that there was an effort to bring the power of the federal government to bear on those the Administration disagreed with, in the middle of a heated national election. It could be criminal. And we’re determined to get answers.”

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