Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio blasted the media’s continued disregard of the IRS tea party targeting scandal Wednesday, bitterly noting it “would be the lead story in virtually every newspaper in America if this was occurring under George W. Bush.”
Rubio spoke to Fox New’s Bill Hemmer on Wednesday about the new developments in the IRS investigation. With the Department of Treasury now mounting an internal investigation into how former IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails were destroyed, some conservatives believe the scandal may soon dwarf Nixon’s Watergate.
“The Richard Nixon situation was terrible, and he should’ve been removed and impeached, but it was involving a political operation,” Rubio explained. The IRS “is one of the powerful and devastating agencies in the American government — an agency that can ruin your life and put you out of business.
“And if they have deliberately destroyed evidence to cover up political activity, people need to know about it,” he continued. “That is quite dramatic.”
But rather than highlighting the possible lawbreaking, the senator accused the media of doing all it can to sweep the controversy under the rug.
“It would be the lead story in virtually every newspaper in America if this was occurring under George W. Bush,” Rubio charged. “But because it’s occurring under Barack Obama, it is either covered as a nuisance or covered as some sort of conspiracy theory on the part of Republicans — not as the legitimate issue that it deserves to be covered as.”