Senior Advisor to Obama: "The Law Is Irrelevant."

The White House has decided not to take seriously either the accelerating Benghazi scandal (more on that here) or the IRS scandal. Obama flatterist Dan Pfeiffer decided that "irrelevant" is the word of the day.

When asked on ABC’s This Week whether President Obama believes the IRS broke laws when it harassed conservative groups and released confidential donor information to Pro Publica, Pfeiffer dismissed the idea:

"I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again."

There is a fundamental disconnect between the White House's actions and the White House's words on the IRS scandal. The White House has repeatedly claimed that the President is "outraged" over the targeting -- but there are surprisingly few actual consequences for outraging the leader of the free world. One of the folks involved in harassing conservatives got a promotion. Another got several thousands of dollars in bonuses. Even the thought of legal consequences is tossed aside as "irrelevant."

There seems to be a concerted effort to suggest that nothing illegal occurred at the IRS. For example, the Washington Post's Aaron Blake suggests that nobody is going to jail over the IRS thing because he cannot put their finger on just what crime occurred. Astonishingly, he misses the most obvious of crimes related to the IRS scandal -- the public release of confidential information, something punishable by up to a year's jail time.

Far from being irrelevant, the legality of IRS behavior is a key issue. We know that neither the IRS, nor the Obama Administration, is going to hold anyone seriously accountable for IRS malfeasance. The so-called resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, who was set to resign anyway, demonstrated that clearly. This gives us little choice but to turn to the law in the hopes that IRS officials can be scared into proper behavior and other federal bureaucrats can be deterred from similar misadventures in anti-conservative discrimination.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 01:51 PM

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