Somehow, with the White House in a full projectile sweat about the political ramifications of the IRS abuses at least a month earlier, no one at the IRS got the word to cease and desist from the activity?
This leads a reasonable person to conclude that either the orders from the White House demanding that the targeting be discontinued were never issued, or the orders were ignored by those in charge of the IRS operation in spite of the extensive public scrutiny.
Neither conclusion is good.
One indicates that the White House’s concern was merely about political backlash and not about the activity itself. This wink-and-nod approach to the IRS abuse scandal gives them ownership of it, something that would not be surprising given the public calls for this exact political targeting in 2010 by Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.) and other Democrats.
If no one at the White House demanded that the action stop, in spite of admitted knowledge about the scandal by the White House chief of staff, it shows either a stunning complicity or an equally stunning incompetence.
The other possible, but much less likely scenario, paints a picture of an out-of-control bureaucracy immune from a White House demand that it stop illegal activity and unwilling to bend to public outrage over its actions.
I don’t believe that the president didn’t know about this.
Of course the President knew about it. He was “joking” about subjecting his political enemies to IRS audits years ago.
The IG report was finished but the IRS waited to publish it until after the election so it is hard to believe that no one in the administration knew about it after it had been finished but before it was released, much less even earlier during the investigation. Add to that that the behavior continued until recently, at least a year after it was supposedly stopped, or according to some accounts is still ongoing, points to benevolence at the highest levels of government.
As the story says, not doing anything about the targeting and promoting the people involved shows the administration approved of the acts even if the Order to start them didn’t come from Obama himself.