Cleta Mitchell muses on the potential for “getting to the bottom” of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party-oriented groups for special scrutiny:
p>Bringing the IRS to heel can start with re-energizing and expanding congressional investigations and holding accountable those responsible for the targeting and other abuses. To serve notice that the IRS’s thumbing of its nose at Congress by ignoring multiple congressional subpoenas will no longer be tolerated, the House GOP Steering Committee should elect Rep. Jim Jordan as the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (where current chairman Darrell Issa is term-limited).
That may be the case. We might learn something new or not.
One thing I do suspect that the new Congress will bring will be a chance to try out the legal theory that the Congress can bring suit to compel a president to enforce the law. An earlier suit on behalf of the House is still working its way through the courts. If the theory has any merit, a suit brought on behalf of both houses of Congress should carry more weight.
To preempt the inevitable complaints the IRS has already acknowledged wrongdoing in this matter. They deliberately targeted Tea Party groups. It’s not a bogus claim.
The remaining question is how far up the chain of command the wrongdoing went. I don’t think it went as far as the White House and probably stopped at Lois Lerner’s level.
You’re answering your own question with the word ‘targeted’. The IRS did not have a proper procedure in place to handle the influx of applications so they flagged the term ‘Tea Party’ under the impression that this was related to politics when they should have set-up a completely neutral way of looking at 501(c)(4). There’s your targeting. Meanwhile, the GOP body politic believes in something entirely different. That’s the reason that Lerner has not been granted immunity, which would be the only way to go forward on the matter.
I don’t see any of this changing. It’s easier to be shocked at the email back-ups of the IRS than to with a straight face find it shocking that the word ‘Tea Party’ contained some sort of political significance to the people at the IRS.
Have any specific left-leaning organizations been identified as having been singled out for scrutiny? I’ve seen lots of generalities along those lines but no specific citing of organizations.
From Salon:
In fact, the only known 501(c)(4) applicant to have its status denied happens to be a progressive group: the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. Although the group did no electoral work, and didn’t participate in independent expenditure campaign activity either, its partisan status apparently disqualified it from being categorized as working for the “common good.â€
Thanks. Good evidence.
You could look at this, Dave:
New Records: IRS Targeted Progressive Groups More Extensively Than Tea Party
I did look at that. As far as I can tell it’s generalities only. Lists of key words don’t matter. It’s what people do with the key words that matter.
Personally, I don’t think Congress should be able to sue the Executive – I think that leads down a dangerous road.
I have mixed feelings. On the one hand in principle I agree with you. However, it implies that the only recourse the Congress has in dealing with an executive branch that will not enforce the law is impeachment which in turn implies that impeachment should become much more commonplace.
That’s a pretty dangerous path, too.
Congress has other means at its disposal before impeachment, but those would admittedly be difficult in the current environment where partisan affiliation is more important than defending institutional prerogatives.