Can it be broken with a lawsuit?
NOM doesn’t know who committed this crime. But it has discovered that some IRS officials who’d have access to the returns — like a senior manager for tax-exempt organizations — were photographed at an HRC Christmas party just a few months before the returns showed up on HRC’s Web site.
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) head of the House Ways and Means Committee has been quietly conducting an investigation of the illegal disclosure of NOM’s private donor information, with a final report due early next year. And Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) just announced the House Government Oversight Committee will investigate as well.
But there’s no guarantee either probe will get to the bottom of the affair, and NOM — and the American people — deserve answers.
“The fact the IRS is stonewalling so hard suggest the wrongdoing goes high up,” says Eastman. “All we want to know is who committed this crime and see justice done for all federal taxpayers. For the IRS to use disclosure to shield people it wants to shield, instead of protecting taxpayers, is an outrageous and unbelievably dangerous thing; the government can use the IRS to punish any speech it doesn’t like.”
Some things go deeper than right or left; the use of the IRS to punish political enemies ought to be one of them.
As I said, it’s almost like they have a will to power. If this were happening under a Republican president, all of the alphabetic news organizations would be asking every night what it takes to get a president impeached.
[Update a few minutes later]
How federal workers became Barack Obama’s private army:
Seventy-four years later, the civil-service system has been exposed as a failure – at least in this administration. Instead of an independent workforce of professionals who implement federal regulation in an even-handed and competent manner, we have returned to the era of partisan retribution and politically-motivated malevolence.
Time to reform it again.
Everyone remains silent until they start getting charged with crimes. Then they ask about plea deals.
These things take time. Sometimes, the evidence isn’t there or the underlying crime isn’t as bad as initially believed, so the matter just fades away. Other times, like, for instance, with Watergate, it takes time. Watergate was investigated and reported on for two years before Nixon was forced to resign.
It’s sad that partisans on the left want to spin this into a non-event. If this administration gets away with it, just what do you think will happen when a ruthless Republican is president? It’s likely that one will take office in 2016–sure you want a totally politicized IRS working for him?
Partisanship as a team sport has really corrupted our political process. We should all, regardless of politics, protest whenever anyone of either party abuses power, lies, acts corruptly, or otherwise behaves unethically. Our failure to hold these people accountable plays a large role in them being so untrustworthy.
The problem is that who in Holder’s Justice Department is going to prosecute anyone at the IRS?
Meh.
I want to know about the Wall of Silence at the National Park Service.
No parking. It’s closed. It’s shutdown. You can’t recreate there. There are no working water spigots. That is all you need to know about the Wall of Silence.
It’d be different if you wanted to hold a rally for illegal immigration.