As the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal continues heating up, more fingers are pointing to the White House. And some political watchdogs are using the \u201cI\u201d word: impeachment.<\/p>\n
At the first congressional hearing into the IRS scandal, J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that he informed the Treasury\u2019s general counsel of his investigation on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin \u201cshortly thereafter,\u201d according to the New York Times.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, CNN reports Steven Miller, who had no choice but to resign as acting IRS commissioner this week, offered testimony that put President Barack Obama’s administration on the defense.<\/p>\n
“I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people who were trying to be more efficient in their workload selection,” CNN reported Miller saying. Miller called the practices described in the inspector general’s report as “intolerable” and a “mistake,” but “not an act of partisanship.”<\/p>\n
Is there a cover-up in the making? Did Obama know about what evangelist Franklin Graham called the \u201cun-American\u201d moves in the IRS?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second article of impeachment for President Nixon was misuse and abuse of the IRS. We don\u2019t have the information yet showing that this has gone to the White House, but I will tell you this: The answer President Obama gave at the Thursday press conference certainly didn\u2019t give anybody any assurance,\u201d Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, told Charisma News.<\/p>\n
When asked if he could assure the American people that no one inside the White House knew about this IRS scandal until his White House counsel was notified in the middle of April, Obama said:<\/p>\n
“I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the I.G. report before the I.G. report had been leaked … through the press. Typically, the I.G. reports are not supposed to be widely distributed or shared. They tend to be, you know, a process that everybody’s trying to protect the integrity of. But what I’m absolutely certain of is that the actions that were described in that I.G. report are unacceptable.”<\/p>\n
Sekulow charges that Obama did not answer the question\u2014and that has raised very serious concerns. Beyond the House Ways and Means Committee, Sekulow expects to see other committees get involved, as well as a strong push for independent special counsel.<\/p>\n
And at the end of the day, Sekulow says, the more we learn, the worse it gets for the White House. Now there is talk of impeachment.<\/p>\n
\u201cImpeachment requires a very high standard. You\u2019d have to show direct knowledge by the White House. But whenever there\u2019s been a problem, it\u2019s been the cover-up. And that\u2019s true in the Nixon matter and the Clinton matter\u2014it was the cover-up,\u201d Sekulow said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s too early to say impeachment, but I would say this has been an awful week for the White House, for the Justice Department, for the Internal Revenue Service and for the State Department, all of which are executive agencies, all of which report to the president,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal continues heating up, more fingers are pointing to the White House. And some political watchdogs are using the \u201cI\u201d word: impeachment. At the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n