House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa said that “politically motivated” leaks discredit the FBI investigation into the IRS targeting scandal, which is not expected to result in any criminal charges.
“There is little reason for the American people to have confidence in this investigation,” Rep. Issa and oversight subcommittee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder provided to The Daily Caller. Issa and Jordan wrote the letter in response to a report that the FBI does not plan to file criminal charges related to the IRS’ harassment of tea party and conservative groups between 2010 and 2012.
“Anonymous — and apparently politically motivated — leaks from unnamed law enforcement officials further undermine the public assurances by the current and former FBI directors that this is a legitimate investigation. These leaks come after the Justice Department, citing the confidential nature of the investigation, refused to brief Congress on its progress and congressional investigators independently discovered that a high dollar contributor to the Obama Administration failed to recuse herself,” Issa and Jordan wrote in the letter.
“These revelations further undermine the credibility of the Attorney General Holder and the Justice Department under his leadership. Given the circumstances, there is little reason for the American people to have confidence in this investigation,” Issa and Jordan wrote.
The federal government’s criminal investigation of the IRS targeting scandal, spearheaded by the FBI and Holder’s Department of Justice, has long been considered a joke by insiders. DOJ civil rights lawyer Barbara Bosserman, who contributed $6,100 to Obama’s political campaigns between 2008 and 2012, was secretly chosen to lead the DOJ’s investigation, Issa’s oversight committee recently discovered.
FBI investigators went more than half a year without contacting any of the 41 victimized conservative groups represented in an American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) lawsuit against the IRS, even though White House press secretary Jay Carney was able to conclude that the IRS matter was just one of a number of “phony scandals” surrounding the Obama administration.
“After seven months of no contact from federal investigators, a small number of our clients recently received a request for an interview from the FBI,” ACLJ senior counsel Jay Sekulow said late last week. Sekulow’s organization confirmed that fewer than 10 of its clients have been contacted.
As TheDC reported, deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew, the most powerful official on Obamacare implementation within the White House, exchanged confidential taxpayer information with the IRS during the 2012 election. Lambrew hosted 155 White House meetings with IRS official Sarah Hall Ingram, with whom Lambrew exchanged the confidential information.
