During today's contentious press briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney categorically denied that anyone inside the White House knew about the IRS' policy of applying heightened scrutiny to conservative organizations prior to late April of this year. Minutes later, he was forced to walk back his own assertion, instead claiming that he personally was "not aware" of anyone at the White House having knowledge of that IRS practice:
This was a significant and telling mistake. The only straight answer of the afternoon was hastily revised under antagonistic questioning from a skeptical press corps. This looks sloppy and slippery at best, suspicious at worst. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer explains how and why Carney made a serious misstep:
How can Jay say w certainty no one at WH, or on political staff, spoke w IRS?Has he interviewed everyone? Who did he ask?
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) May 14, 2013
I tried to warn Jay (in an earlier tweet). " Did anyone know" is an impossible question. Jay fell into the trap.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) May 14, 2013
Some things still don't add up here. The "inappropriate" IRS policy was in place for years (and was coincidentally instituted just as the national debate over Obamacare reached a fever's pitch), prompting gales of protest from the targeted groups. Carney says the White House never asked if the complaints were well-founded, even as they were being reported in the press. If that's true, why not? Carney also claims the White House was finally briefed about the brewing scandal in April, but no one bothered to tell the president, who supposedly first saw the story in the media on Friday. This strains credulity. A hyperpolitical abuse-of-power bombshell was about to fall out of the sky onto the president's domestic agenda, and the White House was given a three weeks of advanced notice -- but nobody informed the boss? Finally, if the president's team didn't have any inkling of impropriety regarding the IRS, tax records and political opponents, how did a senior Obama administration official come to know confidential details about the tax status of political lightning rod Koch Industries in late 2010, after the IRS began targeting conservatives?
Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that he recused himself months, maybe years ago, from the Associated Press [AP] phone line investigation. It was revealed yesterday that the Department of Justice had tapped 20 work and personal phone lines of AP reporters and editors due to a suspected national security leak.
"I recused myself from this matter...it was early on," Holder said, unable to give an exact date.
By law, Holder is responsible for signing off on subpoenas that would allow such an intrusive invasion of privacy and on free speech. However, because he recused himself from the case, his Deputy Attorney General James Cole signed off on the case and the subpoenas. As a reminder, Cole was also embroiled in the Fast and Furious scandal with Holder.
"I don't know what the circumstances were here....I frankly don't have the knowledge of those facts," Holder said when asked about the AP phone tapping, adding that he believes DOJ officials followed all proper subpoena procedures. "This administration has put a real value on the rule of law."
The law requires Justice Department probes into reporter communications be very limited and precise. In the AP case, 20 phone lines, both personal and private, were monitored.
"I would refer you to the Deputy Attorney General," Holder said when asked if the scope of the probe was too big.
When asked about the IRS targeting conservative groups, Holder said he has opened a criminal investigation into the case to see if any laws were broken.
As details about the Department of Justice secretly monitoring phones lines of Associated Press reporters and the IRS inappropriately targeting tea party groups continue to emerge, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to reassure reporters Tuesday afternoon that President Obama is committed to protecting the First Amendment while refusing to comment about details of both cases.
"I cannot comment on the specifics of that [AP phone tapping]," Carney said. "He [Obama] cannot appropriately comment on the specifics of an ongoing criminal investigation."
Throughout his remarks, Carney stressed the importance of First Amendment and national security balance. It should be noted the Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many 'leakers' than all other administrations combined. Carney repeatedly referred questions to the Department of Justice for information about the phone tapping.
"It would be wholly inappropriate for President to involve himself in a criminal investigation," Carney said in response to a question about whether President Obama has called Attorney General Eric Holder about the AP scandal. "The President is committed to the press' ability to pursue information and protecting the First Amendment.....he is also mindful of secret and classified information needing to stay secret and classified for national security reasons "
Carney also said the only information the White House receives about ongoing investigations within the Department of Justice, including the AP phone tapping, "comes only from press reports."
On the IRS inappropriately targeting conservative and tea party groups, Carney had little comment and repeatedly referred to a coming inspector general report on the matter. Carney also said he's confident nobody in the Obama administration or on the Obama campaign team was involved in any of these scandals, yet went out of his way to state the White House still doesn't have 'all of the facts.' Carney refused to say whether the President believes IRS officials should be fired over inappropriate targeting.
"We cannot and should not prejudge the outcome of a situation before we know what the facts are," Carney said. "We don't want to appropriate consequences [before we know all of the facts]."
Carney continued to say "if" the IRS in fact targeting conservative groups, it would be inappropriate. IRS official Lois Lerner admitted last week that inappropriate targeting in fact took place.
When asked about the recent comparisons of President Obama to Richard Nixon, Carney said, "People who make those comparisons need to check their history."
Has the Obama administration managed to get on the wrong side of both iconic Washington Post reporters who brought down the Nixon White House in the 1970's? It seems so. Bob Woodward: Check. Reliable liberal Carl Bernstein? Check:
"It's outrageous. It's totally inexcusable...the object of it is to intimidate people who talk to reporters. There's no excuse for it whatsoever."
Host Joe Scarborough notes that this administration -- the most transparent of all time, in their own mythology -- has prosecuted double the number of leaks as all previous White Houses combined. Bernstein calls this a coordinated attempt to cow people into silence and freeze out a robust free press, using national security concerns as a catch-all justification. Again, Jay Carney insists the president didn't know about the DOJ/AP story until last night, and Obama himself told the American people that he only learned of the IRS abuses through news reports on Friday -- even though those practices were in place for years and the White House was notified weeks ago. Are these remotely credible claims? This rapidly-deteriorating season of scandal has also alienated a typically loyal Obama media ally in Andrea Mitchell, who says the IRS and DOJ revelations are some of "the most outrageous excesses" she's seen over her decades-long career:
Mitchell and Scarborough both marvel at how that the White House doesn't seem to grasp how damaging these metastasizing scandals really are just yet. National Journal's Ron Fournier, who's been a beacon of clarity on these stories from the get-go, intones that unless things turn around quickly, the IRS revelation in particular threatens to consume the remainder of Obama's presidency. I'll leave you with a quote from an anonymous Democrat strategist, who is severely alarmed by the swirling mess the administration has created for itself:
They have a small window- I'd say 2-5 days- to try and turn this around and hold on to a plausible veneer of not being a group of shadowy thugs. But given how tone def they've been in the past, my money is on this being the lens through which their next 3.5 years are viewed.
"Shadowy thugs"? That's the Chicago Way.
Attorney General Eric Holder has recused himself from the Associated Press leak investigation. He will officially announce his recusal at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Fox News is reporting his recusal comes partially because Holder has testified about potential national security leaks surrounding a May 7, 2012 Associated Press story.
Yesterday, the Associated Press revealed the Department of Justice had been secretly monitoring both the personal and work phones of numerous AP editors and reporters. DOJ responded to these revelations by releasing the following statement.
We take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations. Those regulations require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media. We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation. Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws.
UPDATE: During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Holder said he recused himself from the case "early on."
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is calling on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to resign in light of the Department of Justice secretly monitoring Associated Press reporters' and editors' phone conversations. Priebus is calling the move by the DOJ a direct violation of the First Amendment.
“Freedom of the press is an essential right in a free society. The First Amendment doesn’t request the federal government to respect it; it demands it. Attorney General Eric Holder, in permitting the Justice Department to issue secret subpoenas to spy on Associated Press reporters, has trampled on the First Amendment and failed in his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution," Priebus said in a statement. "Because Attorney General Holder has so egregiously violated the public trust, the president should ask for his immediate resignation. If President Obama does not, the message will be unmistakable: The President of the United States believes his administration is above the Constitution and does not respect the role of a free press.”
Attorney General Eric Holder will testify tomorrow in front of the House Judiciary Committee.
EDITORS NOTE: A previous version of this post mentioned the Second Amendment, it should have been the First Amendment.
Townhall went out to the streets of liberal New York City to find out how politically engaged the average liberal is. It appears that those who lazily equate MSNBC and Fox News probably don't watch either network, especially the latter, as Guy pointed out in March.
“I really only watch E! news,” one New Yorker told Townhall.
Nearly all of the interviewees strongly contended that Fox News was the most biased news network, but when asked why they believed it to be the most biased it became apparent that they had never watched the network, or news at all for that matter.
Fox News is more biased because “it talks more about politics” while CNN “talks about more international stuff,” another person responded.
In fact most of the people we spoke to, while strongly asserting that FOX was the most biased, could not identify the current or former Vice Presidents of the United States.
Take a look:
Enjoy.
(1) The Internal Revenue Service Deliberately Targeted Conservative Groups Through Two Election Cycles - The IRS' story is falling to pieces. When Lois Lerner revealed on Friday that the agency had engaged in "inappropriate" investigative tactics against conservative organizations, she claimed the practice was (a) the doing of "low-level" operators in Cincinnati, and (b) not politically motivated. Neither assurance was true. As Katie noted this morning, the Washington Post has learned that IRS officials in three other locations were also in on the scheme, including Washington, DC -- from which the entire enterprise may have emanated. "IRS employees in Cincinnati told conservatives seeking the status of 'social welfare' groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications," the Post reported last night. Emphasis mine.
ProPublica -- a non-profit hub of investigative journalism -- has announced that the very same IRS division responsible for wrongly scrutinizing right-of-center organizations also leaked them confidential documents from nine different conservative groups. Mary Katharine Ham compiles a round-up of at least four other recent instances when sensitive and private tax documents from conservative-aligned organizations were mysteriously leaked to the press and hostile liberal groups. The suggestion that none of this was motivated by political bias is risible and insulting.
As for the "who knew what, and when?" time line, the original story has completely disintegrated: The politicized monitoring commenced in March 2010 (just as the national debate over Obamacare came to a head, coincidentally) and the aforementioned Lois Lerner, who runs the IRS division in charge of tax exempt groups, discovered what was happening in 2011. As did the IRS' chief counsel. The practice continued deep into 2012 (a presidential election year), when IRS acting Commissioner Steven Miller became aware of the practice. Miller's predecessor, Douglas Shulman, had testified under oath several months earlier that no such targeting was taking place (video HERE). Miller then "repeatedly failed to tell Congress" about what he knew, according to the Associated Press. It also appears as though the IRS was looking into certain pro-Israel organizations as well. This is an actual quote from Politico's story on the matter:
Z Street filed a lawsuit against the IRS in 2010 alleging that one of its attorneys were told its application for tax exemption was delayed and sent to a “special unit…to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”
President Obama claimed yesterday that he first found out about the IRS' malfeasance along with the rest of the country, via media reports. But administration spokesman Jay Carney told reporters the White House counsel was brought into the loop more than three weeks ago. Did no one tell the president? Are we expected to believe that? This saga is far, far from over, and may have real political legs and is drawing umbrage from commentators who are typically very protective of the administration.
(2) The Obama Administration Overhauled the Benghazi Talking Points to Mask Failures and Misdirect the Public on the Terrorist Attacks - It's beyond dispute that (a) the White House's false talking points were revised 12 times, (b) that high-ranking State Department officials were concerned that the accurate original talking points might make them look bad, and (c) final edits were made at a White House meeting on September 15. The "useless" finished product was rejected by the then-CIA director and slammed as "jaw-dropping" and "embarrassing" by the Amb. Stevens' second-in-command in Libya. In spite of black-and-white evidence to the contrary, both the president and spokesman Jay Carney continue to assert that the White House wasn't involved in any substantive changes to the "official" story, which they still claim was based on the "best assessment" of the intelligence community at the time. Both of these statements are demonstrably false. Last November, this is what Carney told reporters:
The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”
On Friday, he hedged a bit, leaving open the possibility that State -- but certainly not the White House -- had dirtier hands than he'd previously let on. Yesterday, a State Department spokesperson (who might seem familiar) frantically passed the buck again, repeatedly placed all responsibility for the talking points on the CIA:
"These Were CIA Points. They Were CIA Edited. They Were CIA Finalized."
This is profound dishonesty. The CIA presented finalized talking points to the administration, which proceeded to revise and scrub them a dozen different times, with many of the most politically-calculated edits triggered by State Department bigwigs. The original assessment represented the best intel. The finished product was unrecognizable. Pinning that on the CIA is a shameless and risky proposition. And the president is playing with fire with false claims about his own forthrightness; he was just awarded Four Pinocchios by the Washington Post for Benghazi-related statement he made at yesterday's press conference.
(3) The Obama Justice Department Secretly Monitored Dozens of Journalists' Phone Records for Months - With the mainstream media warming to the task of covering the previous two scandals, Monday evening's compounding bombshell couldn't have dropped at a worse time for the White House. Because it's a jarring affront to press freedom, journalists are likely to take it personally. Indeed, many in the Washington press corps are friendly with the reporters and editors whose work and personal phone records were quietly culled by the federal government. Gasoline, meet fire. It appears the DOJ's aim here was to identify and plug an administration leak, which they sought to accomplish by resorting to a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into the business of a very wide swath of journalists -- who by definition aren't the ones doing the leaking. The Associated Press' write-up explains why the Justice Department's heavy-handed and surreptitious action in this case was exceptional:
The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can be considered only after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department might have taken to get information in the case. A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules. The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news." News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and then they enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."
It would appear that Eric Holder made all sorts of exceptions to existing rules and protocols in this case. And yes, per DOJ guidelines, the Attorney General himself must sign off on operations like this. Jay Carney referred reporters' questions to the Justice Department and said the White House didn't know about this situation until the news broke publicly -- a familiar and dubious refrain. The Attorney General's priorities have worked hand-in-glove with the president's agenda for nearly five years. No one at the White House got a heads-up on this story?
(4) HHS' Coercive "Donations" Drive Pressures Healthcare Companies to Finance Obamacare Implementation - Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander has asked the Government Accountability Office to review the legality of Sec. Sebelius' unorthodox and ethically-suspect fundraising efforts. Alexander suspects the scheme "could violate Congress' power to direct policy through appropriations." This isn't the first time Sebelius has been accused of violating the law by testing the boundaries of her official duties. As an aside, don't forget which fine federal agency is slated to enforce Obamacare.
With the gale-force winds of four separate scandals howling in the background, the president had the temerity to offer yet another lecture on "cynicism," this time blaming Rush Limbaugh for all that ails Washington. This analysis came at a posh celebrity-dotted fundraiser in Manhattan. Obama senses heightened distrust and dysfunction, and instinctively fingers his critics -- rather than, say, any of the items detailed above. Parting quotation - a relevant flashback:
"Punish our enemies." How interesting.
When news broke last week just ahead of an IRS inspector general report detailing the specific and inappropriate targeting of conservative tea party groups, IRS officials claimed the targeting was the result of a few low-level IRS agents in Cincinnati. It turns out, that isn't true. Not only did senior IRS officials know about the targeting as early as 2011, but officials in California and more importantly, Washington D.C., helped carry it out.
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show.
The IRS has been caught in three lies up to this point. The first: IRS official Lois Lerner admitted to the inappropriate targeting of tea party groups but said the targeting in no way was politically motivated. That is a lie. The IRS targeted conservative groups and flagged words and phrases like "constitution," "patriot," "government spending," "limiting government," "9/12," "making America a better place to live," etc. The entire thing was political. The second: Initially IRS officials said the targeting was conducted by a few "low-level" agents working in Cincinnati. It turns out, the Cincinnati IRS office is anything but "low-level" and is the place to go when applying for tax-exempt status.
Upon a review of the IRS bureaucracy, though, the Cincinnati office is not a random backwater outpost for "low-level" IRS rogues. In fact, the Cincinnati office is where determinations on tax-exempt organizations' eligibility are made and is the only physical office in the complex IRS bureaucracy dedicated to tax-exempt determinations.
On the IRS's website, in the "How to Contact the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division" section, the Cincinnati office is the only one listed for people to contact if they have questions about "Charities & Non-Profits."
The third: IRS officials claimed nobody in Washington D.C. was a part of ongoing targeting and that senior IRS officials knew nothing about this when in fact, as noted above, senior officials knew as early as 2011.
Senior officials at the Internal Revenue Service were aware that its agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011, according to an Inspector General's draft report obtained by Fox News.
Lois Lerner, who runs the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, knew about the targeting of Tea Party groups since June 29, 2011.
Yesterday President Obama said if conservative groups were being targeted by the IRS, which we know they in fact were being targeted, that he's "got no patience for it."
