The Obama Revenue Service: Multiple Investigations Into IRS Workers' Open Cheerleading for Obama

O.R.S.

Even as the IRS faces growing heat over Lois G. Lerner and the tea party targeting scandal, a government watchdog said Wednesday it’s pursuing cases against three other tax agency employees and offices suspected of illegal political activity in support of President Obama and fellow Democrats.

In one case the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates federal employees who conduct politics on government time, said it was “commonplace” in a Dallas IRS office for employees to have pro-Obama screensavers on their computers, and to have campaign-style buttons and stickers at their office.

In another case, a worker at the tax agency’s customer help line urged taxpayers “to re-elect President Obama in 2012 by repeatedly reciting a chant based on the spelling of his last name,” the Office of Special Counsel said in a statement.
OSC said it is seeking “significant disciplinary action” against that employee.
Another IRS employee in Kentucky has agreed to serve a 14-day suspension for blasting Republicans in a conversation with a taxpayer.

“They’re going to take women back 40 years,” the IRS employee said in a conversation that was recorded. The employee also said that “if you vote for a Republican, the rich are going to get richer and the poor are going to get poorer.”
That employee went on to tell the taxpayer she knew she wasn’t supposed to be voicing her political opinions, and asked the taxpayer not to say anything.

Lois Lerner's lawyer commented, for some reason, questioning the timing of these revelations, calling it "odd."

And meanwhile the House Government Oversight Committee voted, on party lines, 23-14, to refer Ms. Lerner for criminal prosecution, for all the good that does.

Now Eric Holder gets to decide if he wants to prosecute one of Obama's minions for harassing Obama's critics. Gee, I wonder what he will decide.

Rich Lowry noted the obvious, that giving Lerner immunity to secure her testimony would be a double-edge sword. On one hand, you get her testimony. On the other hand, you don't get to prosecute her.

This is particularly a problem when you consider that Lerner's move, after securing immunity, might be to (possibly falsely) claim all responsibility and refuse to provide honest testimony about other actors in the 501(c)3 scandal.

Now, I know, hypothetically, that one could then prosecute such a hypothetical witness for perjury and strip him of the prior immunity. But then that all would just wind up referring the matter to... Eric J. Holder.

What we need is a true independent prosecutor, someone who could, if he found sufficient evidence, prosecute Lerner or anyone else who provably harassed citizens for political purposes.

And of course that's what Obama will steadfastly refuse to do.

Historically, these things have been forced on the Executive by a media which kept making the appearance of a cover-up a nagging issue for the Executive, presenting him with two bad options: Continue taking the PR hit of appearing to be protecting a misbehaving partisan employee, or roll the dice on an independent prosecutor, who might find no prosecutable crime.

But of course we're not in that world anymore. The media won't even suggest that perhaps Eric J. Holder and Barack Obama are not the most disinterested persons available to investigate their partisans in the bureaucracy... or themselves.

posted by Ace at 01:32 PM

| Access Comments