Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS
scandal?
* WE SHALL SEE...
The NTEU is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS
employees along with 30 other separate government agencies.
The union’s PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and
2012 and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2010 and 2012 election
cycles to anti-Tea Party candidates, putting IRS employees in the position of
actively financing anti-Tea Party candidates themselves, while in their
official positions in the IRS blocking, auditing, or intimidating Tea Party and
conservative groups around the country.
The IG report [on the politicization of the IRS]
contained a timeline prepared by examining internal IRS e-mails. [Interestingly
enough,] the IG report did not examine White House Visitor Logs, e-mails, or
phone records relating to the relationship between the IRS union, the IRS, and
the White House.
* BUT NOW...
SOMEONE HAS! HIS NAME IS JEFFREY LORD AND HE'S PENNED A THOUGHT-PROVOKING
ARTICLE WHICH WAS PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAGAZINE THIS MORNING.
* WHAT YOU MAKE OF THE FOLLOWING IS UP TO YOU... BUT I'M
"BARKERIZING" THE ARTICLE HERE IN STAND-ALONE NEWSBITE FASHION!
Is the White House Visitors Log the trail to the smoking
gun? [Q]uestions are raised by the following set of new facts:
1) March 31, 2010.
According to the White House Visitors Log the president
of the...National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White
House at 12:30 p.m. (The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this
way: Kelley, Colleen - Potus - 03/31/2010 12:30)
In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of
the United States.”
The very next day after her...meeting with the President,
according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS
employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest
targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report
wrote it up this way: April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit,
suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The
Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.
In short... the very day after the president of the quite
publicly [politically partisan] labor union — the union for IRS employees — met
with President Obama, the manager of the IRS Determinations Unit Program agreed
to open a Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.
* FURTHERMORE...
[T]his record in the White House Visitors Log of a 12:30
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 meeting between President Obama and the IRS union’s
Kelley was not unusual. On yet another occasion, Kelley’s presence at the White
House was followed shortly afterwards by the President issuing Executive Order
13522 - a presidential directive that gave the NTEU a greater role in the
day-to-day operation of the IRS than it had already — which was considerable.
Kelley is recorded as visiting the White House over a
year earlier, listed in this fashion: Kelley, Colleen Potus/Flotus 12/03/2009
18:30
The inclusion of “FLOTUS” — First Lady Michelle Obama —
and the 6:30 pm time of the December event on this entry in the Visitors Log indicates
this was the White House Christmas Party held that evening and written up here
in the Chicago Sun-Times. The Sun-Times focused on party guests from the
President’s home state of Illinois and did not mention Kelley. Notably, the
Illinois guests, who are reported to have attended the same party as Kelley,
included what the paper described as four labor “activists”: Dennis Gannon of
the Chicago Federation of Labor, Tom Balanoff of the Service Employees
International Union, Henry Tamarin of UNITE, and Ron Powell of the United Food
and Commercial Workers. Six days following Kelley’s attendance at the White
House Christmas party with labor activists like herself, the President issued
Executive Order 13522. titled: “Creating Labor-Management Forums To Improve
Delivery of Government Services,” [which] applied across the federal government
and included the IRS. The directive was designed to "Allow employees and
unions to have pre-decisional involvement in all workplace matters….
However else this December 2009 Executive Order can be
described, the directive was a serious grant of authority within the IRS to [a]
powerful [politically partisan] union. A union that by this time already had
the clout to determine the rules for IRS employees, right down to who would be
allowed a Blackberry or what size office the employee was entitled to. The same
union that would shortly be doling out serious 2010 (and later 2012) campaign
contributions to anti-Tea Party candidates with money supplied from IRS
employees.
NTEU is the same union whose IRS employee-members were
being urged in 2012 by Senate Democrats (Chuck Schumer, Al Franken, Max Baucus,
and others) to target Tea Party and other conservative groups. Which... as the
IG records... they did.
Last Thursday at the President’s press conference with
the Turkish prime minister, Julianna Goldman of Bloomberg News asked the
following question:
“Mr. President, I want to ask you about the IRS. Can you
assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the
agency’s actions before your Counsel’s Office found out on April 22nd? And when
they did find out, do you think that you should have learned about it before
you learned about it from news reports as you said last Friday? And also, are
you opposed to there being a special counsel appointed to lead the Justice
Department investigation?”
The President’s response?
“[L]et me make sure that I answer your specific question.
I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report
before the IG report had been leaked through the press.”
Take note: Goldman’s question was: “Can you assure the
American people that nobody in the White House knew about the agency’s actions
before your Counsel’s Office found out on April 22nd?” The President evaded by
answering: “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the
IG report….”
The question was not whether he knew about the IG report
ahead of time. The question was whether he could “assure the American people
that nobody in the White House knew about the agency’s actions.” In response,
the President ducked.
In other words, the IRS union chief went to the White
House to meet personally with the president on March 31.
The union already had Executive Order 13522 behind it,
issued by the President barely three months earlier; an Executive Order
directing that the IRS must “allow employees and unions to have pre-decisional
involvement in all workplace matters….” The very next day after that March 31
meeting at the White House, the IRS, with the union involved in its
decision-making, was setting up its “Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party.” (Which
raises the famous question from Watergate: What did the President know and when
did he know it?)
* A BIT MORE PERSONAL CONTEXT, FOLKS... (READ ON...)
[T]he Obama Administration hadn’t been in office a month
before Kelley was boasting of the IRS union’s influence in the White House. In
a February 15, 2009 interview given to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh
is Kelley’s home town), there was this question from the PPG reporter [posed to
the] now Washington-based Kelley:
Q: Has the Obama staff been receptive?
A: Yes. We have worked with the transition team, given
them suggestions; and throughout the campaign President Obama talked about
working with the federal employees and unions. He’s recognized the
contributions federal employees make. I was just at the White House (Jan. 30)
while he was signing some executive orders to undo some things the prior
administration did.
Catch that? The boast? “I was just at the White House…”
Which is to say the election of 2008 in which the union
had endorsed Obama was no sooner over than [we had] the head of the IRS union “working
with the transition team” and “giving them suggestions.” Literally ten days
after the Obama January 20 inaugural in 2009 — January 30 the article notes —
Kelley was boasting that “I was just at the White House while he (the
President) was signing some executive orders to undo some things the prior
administration did.”
* NO, FOLKS... THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE LINE OF THOUGHT
ISN'T TO CRITICIZE THE PRESIDENT FOR "WORKING WITH" HIS NEW SUBORDINATE
EMPLOYEES! NO... THE POINT BEING RAISED IS WHETHER THIS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
OBAMA AND KELLEY WAS MORE POLITICAL THAN GOVERNMENTAL... MORE PERSONAL AND
PARTISAN AND IDEOLOGICAL THAN BASIC INTEGRITY DEMANDED OF THE RELATIONSHIP. THE
QUESTION IS... DOES IT REALLY SEEM ALL THAT PLAUSIBLE THAT OBAMA HAD "NO
CLUE" AS TO WHAT THE HEAVILY POLITICIZED IRS WAS UP TO?!
And what did Kelley see as the IRS union’s relationship
with the White House she had already visited ten days into the President’s
first term? Kelley responded candidly: “We are looking for a return to what we
used to call partnership. I don’t really care what it’s called. For me, it’s
about collaboration.”
Catch those words? "Collaboration." "Partnership."
* ABOVE BOARD COLLABORATION AND PARTNERSHIP SO AS TO
ENSURE EFFICIENT GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS... OR COLLABORATION AND PARTNERSHIP TO
MEET SHARED POLITICAL OBJECTIVES? THAT’S THE QUESTION.
In addition to Kelley’s three visits to see the President
— in January of 2009, December of 2009, and March of 2010 — she is listed for
three other visits. The contact names those of presidential aides: “Kelley,
Colleen Weiss, Margaret 11/04/2009 10:00” “Kelley, Colleen Weiss, Margaret
12/01/2009 12:00" “Kelley, Colleen Nelson, Greg 01/14/2010 13:40”
* WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE...? WHAT WAS DISCUSSED...? WAS IT
"UNION BUSINESS" OR "GOVERNMENT BUSINESS" OR... (*SHRUG*)
* BUT AGAIN... (READ ON...)
The obvious question instantly arises with the revelation
that Kelley was meeting with the President personally — the day before the IRS
kicked into high gear with its “Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party”. Were
the President of the United States and the President of the NTEU meeting in the
White House at 12:30 on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 — and engaged in
“collaboration” and “partnership?" A “collaboration” and “partnership”
that was all about targeting the Tea Party?
* AND OTHER REPUBLICANS... AND OTHER NON-DEMOCRATS...
And did that collaboration and partnership result in the
IRS letting loose the hounds on the Tea Party and conservative groups — the
very next day after the Obama-Kelley meeting?
* THE TIMING IS... WELL... WHAT IT IS. THESE ARE NOT
CRAZY QUESTIONS!
To add to the administration’s IRS-NTEU woes is the fact
that beyond the Inspector General, there is another IRS-connected agency in the
Treasury Department: the IRS Oversight Board. And on that board sits a
presidential appointee named Robert M. Tobias. Tobias, oddly, was a Clinton
appointee in 2005, confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term. He is still
there. He is the longtime NTEU general counsel and Kelley’s predecessor as the
union president. Here’s the statement, from the IRS Oversight Board, on all of
this. It is headed: "IRS Oversight Board Deeply Troubled by Breakdown in
IRS Process in Reviewing Tax-Exempt Applications."
There was no reference to the influence of...NTEU in the
statement.
* AGAIN... TOBIAS HIMSELF WAS KELLEY'S PREDECESSOR AT
NTEU PRESIDENT! HE'S THE LONGTIME NTEU GENERAL COUNSEL! WHAT INFLUENCE DID
TOBIAS HAVE ON HOW THE "INVESTIGATION" WAS RUN... WHERE AND WHEN THE
LEASH WAS PULLED ON THE INVESTIGATORS...?
Obama’s problem here is considerable. By not forthrightly
answering Goldman’s question, he seems to be evading the issue in the manner
that brought so much trouble in the form of congressional investigations,
special prosecutors, and impeachment threats to Presidents Nixon and Clinton -
with Nixon being forced to resign the presidency and Clinton brought to a
Senate trial.
The President’s too-clever-by half evasion - added to
Kelley’s silence - leaves open the question of whether the union and the White
House - not to mention the IRS Oversight Board - are collaborating... collaborating
right now... [in] a cover-up.
Nixon looked the American people in the television eye
and flatly lied about his personal involvement in the Watergate scandal, lies
that came from a frantic attempt to conduct a cover-up.
Clinton looked the American people in the eye and
famously wagged his finger as he lied that he “did not have sex with that
woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” In Clinton’s case this extended to lying to a federal
grand jury.
For a good long while, the American people in fact
believed both Nixon and Clinton. The stories are now legion of Nixon cabinet
and staff believing their man, and Clinton’s cabinet and staff believing their
man’s protestations of innocence as well.
[I]n both cases, the truth was out.
As Washington and the country have long since
twice-learned the hard way, the parsing of presidential words in cases like
this, not to mention looking into the cameras and boldly lying on the prayer of
getting away with the lie, always bodes ill for presidents. It leads inevitably
to that simple question famously uttered by then-Tennessee GOP Senator Howard
Baker and posed of Nixon at the Senate Watergate hearings: “What did the
President know and when did he know it?”
Twice in recent American history the answer to this
question, once for Nixon and once for Clinton, has landed popular, powerful
presidents in impeachment hot water. Ending Republican Nixon’s presidency
altogether and coming close to doing the same with Democrat Clinton. Leaving
the legacy of each permanently scarred.
The notion that the players in the IRS scandal did what
they did to get past the 2012 election will only add to an Obama presidential
reputation as borrowing the Nixon playbook on skirting scandal in a
presidential election year - ironically re-casting the image of America’s first
black president as the black Nixon.
* NO... OBAMA IS ACTUALLY MORE LIKE WOODROW WILSON.
With the examples of how Nixon and Clinton dodged,
evaded, and lied, Obama’s non-answer to Juliana Goldman’s question at last
week’s press conference comes in for much more scrutiny. Matched to the silence
of Kelley it begins raising obvious questions such as...
Did the President himself ever discuss the Tea Party with
Kelley?
Did the President ever communicate his thoughts on the
Tea Party to Kelley — in any fashion other than a face-to-face conversation -
such as e-mail, text, or by phone?
What was the subject of the Obama-Kelley March 31, 2010
meeting?
Who was present at the Obama-Kelley March 31 meeting?
Was the Tea Party or any other group opposing the
President’s agenda discussed at the March 31 meeting - or before or after that
meeting?
Is the White House going to release any e-mails, text, or
phone records that detail Kelley’s contacts with not only President Obama but
his staff?
Will the IRS release all e-mail, text, or phone records
between Kelley or any other leader of the NTEU with IRS employees?
* FINALLY...
What role did Executive Order 13522 play in the IRS
investigations of the Tea Party and all these other conservative groups?
Not to be lost sight of here is the role of the NTEU in
raising money for Democrats in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles — the exact
period when the IRS was busy going after the Tea Party and the others to curb
any possible influence the groups could have in the elections of 2010 and 2012.
The NTEU, through its political action committee, raised
$613,633 in the 2010 cycle, giving 98% of its contributions to...Democrats. In
2012 the figure was $729,708, with 94% going to anti-Tea Party candidates. One
NTEU candidate after another, as discussed last week in this space, campaigned
vigorously against the Tea Party.
[T]he motivations here — defeating the Tea Party in 2010,
and failing at that, making sure that the news of the metastasizing cancer in
the IRS was kept quiet until after the 2012 presidential election was over —
are clear. What is particularly interesting here are the automatic assumptions
of the mainstream media in all of this. [Take for example] this “given” from
the Washington Post’s Dan Balz:
"The most corrosive of the controversies is what
happened at the IRS, which singled out tea party and other conservative groups
for special scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status. That Obama
knew nothing about it does little to quell concerns that one of the most-feared
units in government was operating out of control."
* NOTICE... "THAT OBAMA KNEW NOTHING ABOUT."
NOT EVEN THAT THE PRESIDENT "CLAIMED" TO KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!
But [what] if in fact the President did know about it?
Here’s the Washington Post’s “Journolist” Ezra Klein:
"The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the
prospect of high-level White House involvement and wide political
repercussions.… If new information emerges showing a connection between the
Determination Unit’s decisions and the Obama campaign, or the Obama
administration, it would crack this White House wide open. That would be a
genuine scandal. But the IG report says that there’s no evidence of that. And
so it’s hard to see where this one goes from here."
Exactly[!]
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