Issa’s IRS Investigation: No Evidence of White House Involvement or Targetting of Tea Party Groups
Yet another Republican-led House investigation has turned up no evidence for daily wingnut talking points, and certainly won’t stop them from believing the continued kvetching about Lois Lerner and the IRS “scandal.”
Issa’s big dud: No White House connection to IRS ‘scandal”
by Michael Hiltzik
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) wasted enormous congressional resources over the last 18 months trying to inflate the IRS “scandal” into a mountain. The release Tuesday of his final, petulant report on the affair marks what may be its final decline into a mouse.
The bottom line: Contrary to his assertions in countless appearances on Fox News, there’s no evidence that the Obama White House directed — or indeed was involved in any way — in the supposed targeting of conservative nonprofit groups for special scrutiny by the IRS. There’s no evidence that “tea party” groups were exclusively targeted, as opposed to tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations from across the political spectrum.
The evidence set forth in the report, which was issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s GOP majority without sharing it first with the Democratic minority, instead depicts an IRS struggling to apply complicated rules for nonprofits engaging in political activity, all without guidance from Congress.
More at L.A. Times