In IRS scandal, new GOP tactic is ignorance

The newest attack in the IRS flap is that Obama should have intervened in the I.G.'s independent review. Huh?

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

Because it’s not a real scandal unless the White House is involved, those with an interest in tarnishing the president have made the new front line in the IRS controversy a question over whether the administration should have taken earlier action to stop the agency’s targeting of conservative groups, even before the completion of the Treasury Department inspector general’s report on the matter. Here’s Eric Cantor this morning on CNBC:

CANTOR: Well I can speak to my frustrations about the administration’s action or lack of action. If you’ve got an ongoing IG investigation or audit and there comes to you information about this type of behavior where you are discriminating against political opponents. I do not accept the fact that the White House says well we couldn’t interfere with that audit or that investigation. That’s not true. They know that kind of activity was going on. That is clearly a point at which they should have gone in and said don’t do that anymore.

To the Wall Street Journal, that hands-off approach suggests a lack of political accountability, as they editorialized today: “The White House continues to peddle the story of a driverless train wreck.” The American Spectator, meanwhile, saw a “smoking gun.” Other Republican members of Congress cried foul and claimed the administration was trying to cover up the report by not going public with it the moment they heard about it.

White House officials say they first learned of the IRS report in April. But the inspector general did tell the Treasury Department’s general counsel in June of last year, prompting Republicans to ask why he didn’t share the news with the White House or the public. It wasn’t kicked up the chain of command, administration officials say, because that would have been inappropriate. “Here’s the cardinal rule: You do not interfere in an independent investigation,” White House senior adviser Dan Pfieffer said on CNN this weekend.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/23/in_irs_scandal_new_gop_tactic_is_ignorance/