The IRS scandal is now perilously close to the President because of the O’Reilly interview. Up until now, President Obama successfully distanced himself from the scandal. Regardless of who was involved there was no evidence that he was in the loop. But in his angry response to Bill O’Reilly, President Obama just may have provided direct evidence of his personal involvement.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/02/transcript-bill-oreilly-interviews-president-obama/
President Obama confirmed that Douglas Shulman, former head of the IRS, visited the White House 157 times.
Obama went into detail explaining why Shulman was visiting the White House using the word “we” frequently. Then O’Reilly asked if Obama specifically talked to Shulman: Following is the response by Obama:
I do not recall meeting with him in any of these meetings that are pretty routine meetings that we had.
That is a classic non-denial denial. Any trained reporter or prosecutor will recognize that. Obama did not say that there was no meeting between him and Shulman. He also didn’t say the IRS targeting of conservatives was never mentioned. Instead he said he did not recall meeting with Schulman and then admitted such meeting were routine. Wow!
Obama tried to blame the whole IRS scandal on Fox News. Then he incredibly claimed that there wasn’t even a smidgen of corruption. For one thing that is ridiculous because Lois Lerner pled the 5th Amendment to avoid testifying. But a more important question is how could Obama know there was no corruption if he was not personally familiar with the internal IRS investigation? If the IRS investigation is a sham, as was alleged in testimony today, then Obama may have admitted having knowledge of a cover-up.
I do not know if Republicans have the stomach to pursue this. If a select committee and/or a special prosecutor is appointed than this could become very serious. Obama should have been prepared for this interview. He should have said that he would await the results of the internal investigation along with everyone else. But his anger and arrogance over powered his judgment.
It is impossible to predict growth of a spine by a congress that has yet to show evidence of such. But in testimony today it became clear that the IRS continues to target conservative opponents and plans to continue doing that in the future. At some point even the cowardly lions in the Republican establishment may be shamed into taking action. If they do, at a minimum, Obama has come perilously close to bringing this scandal into the oval office.
TDM
This “BS” should come as no surprise. We are dealing with a pathological / professional liar if we accept the evidence so far. He also has nothing but contempt for the public or the congress or the constitution. Sadly we do not require any member of congress to prove ownership of a spine before becoming a part of one of the government check and balance divisions!