More on The Overblown IRS "scandal"--Cummings (D-vice chair) vs Issa (R-Chair)

As the House hearings have continued into the “much ado about nothing” “scandal” of the IRS Cincinnati office using terms like Tea Party and Patriot to filter 501(c)(4) status appications for groups that were likely to be politicking and thus merit extra scrutiny before granting the status, there continue to be statements that lambast the government generally and the Obama White House in particular, accusing it of intervening in IRS affairs and implying that the Obama White House is using the agency to get at its political enemies.

Darryl Issa, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, one of the various politicians avidly pursuing the issue, spoke with CNN’s Candy Crowley and claimed that IRS agents were being “directly ordered from Washington”.  See Joan Walsh, Elijah Cummings Outplays Darryl Issa, Salon.com (June 9, 2013).  Issa hinted that interviews with IRS staff had turned up plenty of proof of such shenanigans, but Cummings, the Democratic vice-chair of the Committee, called his bluff, saying that a senior Republican staffer who described himself as a “conservative Republican” had made quite clear that wasn’t so and challenging Issa to release the transcripts of interviews.  (Cummings ultimately released the transcripts himself.)  Cummings suggested that it was time to close the book on this case. id.  If only.