http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-19/white-house-damage-control-script-jeopardized-new-disclosures
White House Damage Control Script Jeopardized By New Disclosures
It has been a tough weekend for the President. First, the CEO of the Associated Press states the government's seizure of AP phone records was "so broad and so secret," among other factors, "that it was an unconstitutional act,"adding that it had already had a chilling effect on news gathering and press freedom...
Add to that James Goodale's comments (the leading force behind the release of the Pentagon Papers and first amendment lawyer), that President Obama is "worse for press freedom than Nixon" and things are not going well...
But, the problems did not stop there as the Wall Street Journal reports that while President Obama claims not to have been made aware of the IRS indiscretions until May 10th it seems the White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the IRS likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups.
...In the week of April 22, the Office of the White House Counsel and its head, Kathryn Ruemmler, were told by Treasury Department attorneys that an inspector general's report was nearing completion, the White House official said. In that conversation, Ms. Ruemmler learned that "a small number of line IRS employees had improperly scrutinized certain…organizations by using words like 'tea party' and 'patriot,' " the official said....The White House, which declined to make Ms. Ruemmler available for comment Sunday, wouldn't say whether she shared the information with anyone else in the senior administration staff....When findings are so potentially damaging, the president should immediately be informed, said Lanny Davis, who served as a special counsel to President Bill Clinton.Of the controversies dogging Mr. Obama, including the terrorist assault in Benghazi, Libya, and the Justice Department's seizure of phone records of Associated Press journalists, the IRS case "is the most nuclear issue of all," Mr. Davis said. It involves the "misuse of the IRS" and "anyone who knew about this a few weeks ago and didn't tell the president shouldn't be in the White House,"...Republican lawmakers on House oversight committees are pressing the investigation, with more hearings set for this week."Exactly who in the administration knew what about the IRS targeting is one of the key outstanding questions," said Rep. Darrell Issa..."... President Obama and his administration seem more preoccupied with having deniability than quickly addressing serious wrongdoing..."
The President's response so far is that "we’re not going to participate in is a partisan fishing expedition."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/anonymous-cincinnati-irs-official-everything-comes-from-the-top./article/2530001
A story in the Washington Post yesterday about the Internal Revenue Service’s Cincinnati office, which does most of the agency’s nonprofit auditing, clearly contradicted earlier reports that the agency’s targeting of Tea Party groups was the result of rogue agents.
The Post story anonymously quoted a staffer in Cincinnati as saying they only operate on directives from headquarters:
As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don’t necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they’re engaged in partisan villainy.
“We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. “We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That’s why there are so many people here who are flustered. Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”The staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that the determinations unit is competent and without bias, that it grouped together conservative applications “for consistency’s sake” — so one application did not sail through while a similar one was held up in review. This consistency is paramount in the review of all applications, according to Ronald Ran, an estate-tax lawyer who worked for 37 years in the IRS’s Cincinnati office.
This pretty plainly contradicts the story coming out of the IRS that rogue agents in Cincinnati were responsible:
News of (acting IRS commissioner Steve) Miller’s resignation followed revelations that the IRS has identified two “rogue” employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office as being principally responsible for the “overly aggressive” handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, a congressional source told CNN.Miller said the staffers have already been disciplined, according to another source familiar with Miller’s discussions with congressional investigators. The second source said Miller emphasized that the problem with IRS handling of tax-exempt status for tea party groups was not limited to these two employees.
In related news, I also noted how the Post’s story on the Cincinnati office also appears to contradict what Miller told Congress this week about how many auditors the IRS has covering nonprofit groups. Miller said the figure was between 140-200, but the Post story puts the figure at 900. The Post doesn’t source the figure, but presumably that also came from people the reporters talked with in Cincinnati.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/17/obama-administration-sources-explain-benghazi-its-actually-closer-to-us-being-idiots/
Obama administration sources explain Benghazi: “It’s actually closer to us being idiots”
POSTED AT 12:01 PM ON MAY 17, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY
Sharyl Attkisson hinted last night on Twitter that she would have something “interesting” on Benghazi today. The CBS reporter didn’t disappoint. Although it’s not exactly a blockbuster revelation, the change in tone in White House trial balloons in its defense of the Benghazi debacle is stunning:
Obama administration officials who were in key positions on Sept. 11, 2012 acknowledge that a range of mistakes were made the night of the attacks on the U.S. missions in Benghazi, and in messaging to Congress and the public in the aftermath.The officials spoke to CBS News in a series of interviews and communications under the condition of anonymity so that they could be more frank in their assessments. They do not all agree on the list of mistakes and it’s important to note that they universally claim that any errors or missteps did not cost lives and reflect “incompetence rather than malice or cover up.” Nonetheless, in the eight months since the attacks, this is the most sweeping and detailed discussion by key players of what might have been done differently.“We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots,” said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. “It’s actually closer to us being idiots.”
Be sure to read it all, but this effort to push a new storyline for Benghazi is both broad and striking. It was easy to see how problematic the release of the e-mails was this week when the White House sent them out — and then had Barack Obama deliver a live speech on the IRS scandal less than an hour later. The distraction didn’t help, and the media seemed a lot less interested in Obama-administration apologetics after the raid on the AP’s phone records.
Now, more than eight months later and nine days after State Department whistleblowers embarrassed the White House, administration officials are beginning to admit that they botched Benghazi before, during, and afterward:
Thursday, an administration official who was part of the Benghazi response told CBS News: “I wish we’d sent it [FEST].”
Mark Thompson, who ran the counterterrorism unit at State, testified last week that after he insisted on dispatching FEST, he got excluded from any further meetings on the immediate response. Who shut him out? Wouldn’t that have to have come from the highest levels of the department? Well, that depends on who you ask:
The official said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy, Patrick Kennedy, quickly dispensed with the idea. A senior State Department official Thursday told CBS News, “Under Secretary Kennedy is not in the decision chain on FEST deployment” but would not directly confirm whether Kennedy or somebody else dismissed the FEST.
But:
As soon as word of the Benghazi attack reached Washington, FEST members “instinctively started packing,” said an official involved in the response. “They were told they were not deploying by Patrick Kennedy’s front office… In hindsight… I probably would’ve pushed the button.”
Don’t forget that another whistleblower, Eric Nordstrom, claimed that the ARB board deliberately protected Patrick Kennedy. Looks like those days may be over.
One reason for this incompetence was that the people making the decisions were, er, idiots when it came to understanding FEST capabilities. Why? State never convened the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG) — even though the Benghazi situation is exactly why CSG exists. Tommy Vietor, who was in the e-mail chain on the talking points, told CBS in October that “I don’t know what [FEST] is… it sounds antiquated.”
But once again, the question is why Thompson got shut out of the meetings. Had he been included, he could have explained FEST to Vietor and everyone else.
The issues aren’t just confined to the White House, either. Who made this brilliant decision?
In an unfortunate turn of events, on Sept. 11, a special U.S. military force based in Europe, designed specifically for quick reaction to unforeseen emergencies, was off on a training mission in Croatia. By the time the so-called Commander’s In-extremis Force was diverted to an airfield at Sigonella, Italy, an hour’s flight from Benghazi, the attacks were over.
Let’s just ponder that a moment. We took our quick-response team offline on the anniversary of 9/11? Who made that call?
Oh, and as for being idiots instead of liars, consider this from Attkisson:
Even today, nobody will say on the record, or even off the record to CBS News, who was at the Deputies meeting on the morning of Sept. 15, where the talking points were drastically pared down for Rice’s use. The approved version called the attacks “demonstrations” that “evolved” after being “spontaneously inspired” by protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. All mentions of terrorism, al Qaeda and previous warnings given by the CIA had been excised.
Bob Woodward was right. This story is far from over. A few more whistleblowers in the same vein we saw last week and we might finally get around to the truth, which is that the question isn’t a choice between idiots and liars, but whether we have both.
Update: I buried one lede here that Mediaite catches, emphasis mine:
According to Attkisson’s report, a FEST team was ready to intervene in the Benghazi attack and was preparing to respond but were never given the approval to engage.“With U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens reported missing shortly after the Benghazi attacks began, Washington officials were operating under a possible hostage scenario at the outset,” Attkisson’s report reads. “Yet deployment of the counterterrorism experts on the FEST was ruled out from the start.”
Probably at the same time Thompson found himself locked out of the confabs.
Update: This seems to indicate that Patrick Kennedy might go under the bus on FEST. What will that do to the credibility of the ARB report? I wonder if Thomas Pickering will be as anxious to testify about that to Congress, especially given Nordstrom’s earlier criticism.
How long before we see the Idiot Defense regarding IRS - Gate....
Miller was full of it and there was clearly targeting going on says…Chris Matthews?
POSTED AT 8:01 PM ON MAY 17, 2013 BY MARY KATHARINE HAM
“[I]t’s like he didn’t see what he knew people certainly right, left and center could see, that when you target particular groups, you’re targeting particular groups. I mean, if this were on the other foot, and this was a George W. administration, they were targeting groups that were calling themselves progressives, I would say it’s prima facie evidence of targeting. I don’t think it’s complicated.”It was apparently too complicated for the story to get from Treasury officials over to the White House, as Allahpundit noted earlier today:
The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was investigating allegations that the Internal Revenue Service had targeted conservative groups, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.At the first Congressional hearing into the I.R.S. scandal, J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel of his investigation on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly thereafter.” The new information came as part of a routine briefing of the investigations that the inspector general would be conducting in the coming year, and he did not tell the officials of his conclusions that the targeting had been improper, he said.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew learned in March that an inspector general was investigating the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, but he did not know the details until last Friday.Lew said in an interview with Bloomberg TV today that he met with the inspector general closely after assuming his post, but he was presented only with a list of ongoing investigations, not specific details of the audit on conservative groups.“I didn’t know any of the details of it until last Friday,” Lew said.
The fact that there was an investigation going on was on the IG website as of fall, 2012, according to the same Lew interview with Bloomberg today. “The heads-up that I got was something that was a matter of public knowledge. It was posted on the IG’s website in the fall of 2012,” Lew said. “I was not aware of any details. My deputy was not aware of any details until it became a matter of public knowledge.”
While the inspector general’s report was still ongoing, anyone at the highest level of the Treasury Department could see that the IG had been investigating the topic for several months. And yet no one in the entire Treasury Department felt the president should be notified?
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/14/True-the-Vote-Founder-DOJ-Also-Investigated-Us-After-IRS-Filing
TRUE THE VOTE FOUNDER: DOJ SCRUTINIZED US AFTER IRS FILING
As IRS talking points disintegrate, Americans from across the political spectrum are expressing outrage about the recent revelations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intentionally singled out conservatives and Tea party groups for increased governmental scrutiny and audits prior to the 2012 presidential election.
However, the experiences of one prominent Tea party-derived group indicate the scrutiny did not stop with the IRS, but involved agencies from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) as well.
The Houston-based group, True the Vote, was founded by Catherine Engelbrecht and members of her King Street Patriots Tea Party effort. True the Vote’s experiences are set apart from many of the other organizations that were discriminated against by the IRS due to their having applied for 501(c3) status and not just 501(c4) status.
The group received an unprecedented level of scrutiny from the IRS since its original application for 501(c3) status was filed in 2010. The IRS sent rounds of questions over several years that went as far as demanding to see each and every tweet Engelbrecht had ever sent out and each and every speech she had ever given.
The IRS did not stop there. They demanded to know who had spoken at the group and to see each and every speech the speakers had given. They demanded to know the identities of all members of the group and who had attended their meetings. The list of probing and outlandish questions was exhaustive.
Soon, the IRS began to audit Engelbrecht’s family business and her personally. And the scrutiny from the federal government did not stop with the IRS.
Two DOJ agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) began to make their presence felt in Engelbrecht’s life as well.
“They [FBI] contacted us, asked questions about one of the people who attended a program," Engelbrecht told Breitbart News. "They asked for us to call if he ever showed back up. They repeated [their calls] over time, but no longer about that individual. They said they were just calling to check up with us. They called to check up with us a great deal and said it was ‘routine."
Engelbrecht added: "We support law enforcement and the FBI beginning to call wasn’t such a big deal in itself, but it came as the IRS was probing us and auditing everything. It came as the ATF began surprise visits and audits of our business."
She added: "Not only were the IRS, ATF, and FBI now in our lives, but OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] and a governmental environmental entity started auditing us in surprise visits as well.”
Engelbrecht said the sheer number of agencies auditing her in such rapid succession of each other led her to feel she had been targeted for her political activities.
Engelbrecht’s records indicate the ATF did two surprise audits on her family business in two consecutive years. She and her husband own a machine shop and have a license to manufacture firearms, though her records show they have never conducted any substantial business in the firearms industry.
We’ve had this license for years and the ATF never showed up," she said. "All of the sudden they arrived and conducted a surprise search through our records, our safe, and inspected our firearms. It was legal for them to do so, but the timing of all of it together was concerning. They came back the following year and did the same thing.”
Breitbart News first learned of Engelbrecht’s and True the Vote’s experiences in 2011 and began documenting the details. But Engelbrecht was concerned that speaking out would cause even more federal agencies to enter her life. She said: "When this happens to you, there’s a sense of embarrassment or shame you go through and a concern that so many entities examining you will somehow make you look guilty of something in the public’s eyes.”
“All I have is the truth, and it’s important that Americans know about this and that our government look into any possible connections between the multiple federal agencies who all showed interest in us in such rapid succession of each other and the issues with IRS abusing power,” said Engelbrecht. She added: "I’m concerned about the possibility of reprisals from these agencies or others, and what going public may mean to my businesses, but more importantly what it may mean to the well-being of my family.”
"This all began shortly after we applied for our nonprofit status with the IRS," said Engelbrecht.
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