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If weren�t for Ted Cruz and Darrell Issa, Barack Obama and Eric Holder would have buried the IRS scandal


Sun, 06/29/2014 - 11:11am | posted by Jason Pye




Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) ruffled some feathers this week when he suggested that Attorney General Eric Holder should be impeached if the Justice Department didn�t appoint a special prosecutor to lead the IRS scandal investigation.

During a panel discussion on Friday�s edition of CNN Newsroom, John Avlon, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, took a shot at Cruz and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) by saying that the two are turning the IRS investigation into a �partisan hackathon.�

�I�m not sure Ted Cruz is often accused of having good ideas when it comes to impartial inquiries. I think probably special prosecutor is at this moment, not necessary as is calling for the impeachment of the Attorney General of the U.S.,� said Avlon. �What is necessary, though, is for the White House and Democrats to start taking this scandal seriously, and for us to try to depoliticize it.�

�Whenever Ted Cruz or Darrell Issa walks into these matters,� he continued, �it immediately turns it into a �Partisan Hackathon� as opposed to a search for the truth.�



Cruz spoke on the Senate floor on Thursday about the IRS scandal, urging the upper chamber to pass a resolution calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to launch an impartial investigation.

�Americans need a guarantee that the IRS will never be used again to target an Administration�s political enemies. It saddens me that there is not one Democrat in this body who has had the courage to stand up to his or her own party and say that using the IRS to target citizens for their political beliefs is wrong,� said Cruz in a 41-minute speech. �We need a special prosecutor with meaningful independence to make sure justice is served and our constitutional rights to free speech, assembly, and privacy are protected.�

Cruz explained that the Obama administration�s investigation into the improper targeting of conservative groups is politicized, pointing out that the person the Justice Department appointed to lead the inquiry has donated to President Obama and the Democratic National Committee.

�If Attorney General Eric Holder does not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS, the House should use its power to impeach him. Impeding justice is intolerable and he should not be permitted to refuse the American people a true investigation into the actions of those who used the machinery of government to target, intimate, and silence them for politically driven reasons,� he added.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) objected to the resolution, killing it. The Senate Finance Committee chairman claimed that �[t]here is nothing of value that a special prosecutor would bring to the table,� suggesting that there is no evidence of wrongdoing inside the IRS.

Will Cain of TheBlaze defended Cruz and Issa, explaining that �the only thing pushing us towards the truth in the story is partisanship,� adding that �[t]he only thing revealing the evidence is the fact there are Republicans pushing for this information.� He explained that the IRS has been less than forthcoming about the scandal, going back on its promise to cooperate with congressional investigations.

Avlon, however, suggested that the IRS, arguably the most power agency in the federal government, doesn�t have enough regulatory power. �[P]art of the problem,� he said, �is that the IRS hasn�t had the regulatory authority to deal with people who are trying to hijack non-profit status to pursue for-profit partisan aims with organizations that are supposed to be dedicated towards social welfare.�

Though Avlon said that Democrats should take the IRS scandal seriously, the notion he put forward � that the tax agency needs more power to regulate nonprofit groups � is absurd. These groups have a stated goal of educating Americans on public policy issues, running issue-based ads to accomplish that end, and hold elected officials accountable. Keeping the public informed is social welfare.

If weren�t for Republicans, including Cruz and Issa, keeping this egregious abuse of power in the spotlight, the Obama administration would have happily buried it � after all, President Obama himself has called it a �phony scandal� � and moved on.