posted December 25, 2014 01:02 PM            

So this is Christmas. House Republicans published an official admission that there was no scandal and no coverup in the IRS’s approach to Tea Party political organizations seeking tax exemption status on Tuesday. The House’s Grand Witch Hunter, Darrell Issa dumped the document two days before Christmas, either as a present to the White House or to cover up the fact that he has wasted years and countless tax dollars tilting at windmills. This is the second such admission in little over a month, as the House High Inquisition reported there was nothing to see in Benghazi. The New York Times reports,

posted December 29, 2014 12:38 PM            

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said Issa did not share the report with Democrats before releasing it, "bypassing the normal congressional vetting process designed to distinguish fact from fiction."

"It is revealing that the Republicans, yet again, are leaking cherry-picked excerpts of documents to support their preconceived political narrative without allowing committee members to even see their conclusions or vote on them first," Cummings said in a statement. http://news.yahoo.com/issa-probe-fails-white-house-irs-scandal-160604665--finance.html

This is the same Darrell Issa that was implicated in burning down his own business in order to commit insurance fraud (according to Wikipedia).

Adkins said Issa appeared to prepare for a fire by increasing the fire insurance policy by 462% three weeks previously, and by removing computer equipment holding accounting and customer information. St. Paul Insurance, suspicious of arson and insurance fraud, initially paid only $25,000, according to Issa.[9]

posted December 29, 2014 05:40 PM            

I read the conspiracy articles, and it's like they're trying to make communication between the IRS and the DOJ out to be indicative of something sinister when logic dictates that the IRS is charged with ensuring that tax exempt organizations do play by the rules without abuse. It was widely reported when this story broke that this "targeting" was not limited to conservative groups, but any organization of an obvious political nature. Conservatives just have more keywords, and sub-groups than liberals, so it appeared to be skewed towards conservatives.

The FBI also investigated, and has found nothing worthy of criminal charges thus far.

I've decided to edit to clarify what the FBI found: The FBI stated it found no evidence of "enemy hunting" of the kind that had been suspected, but that the investigation did reveal the IRS to be a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules that IRS personnel did not fully understand.