White House denounces IRS 'conspiracy theories'

[rangerrebew]

 
White House denounces IRS 'conspiracy theories'

By Justin Sink - 06/20/14 02:15 PM EDT

The White House on Friday accused Republican lawmakers of propagating unfounded claims over the loss of former IRS official Lois Lerner's emails regarding the IRS targeting of conservative political groups.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House opposed appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the missing email controversy.

"I think that many Republicans in Congress, at least, particularly in the House, have demonstrated a pretty aggressive appetite for investigating this issue," Earnest said.

"There have been a large number of claims and conspiracy theories that have been floated about this process by Republicans that just have not panned out, frankly."

Earlier Friday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen denied that his agency was covering up or had deliberately lost Lerner's correspondence. The IRS has said a hard drive containing Lerner's emails from 2009-2011 crashed, and the equipment was subsequently recycled and destroyed.


That evoked a stinging rebuke from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who said the "American people have no reason to trust the IRS or, frankly, the administration on this issue."
"You say that you have ‘lost’ the emails, but what you have lost is all credibility,” Camp said.

But Earnest said that "13 months of multiple congressional investigations" have not "turned up any facts that support the conspiracy theories that they've propounded."

"These are investigations that have a pretty transparent political motive," Earnest said. "So I'm not sure that there's a whole lot more to be discovered here."

The White House spokesman also noted House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (D-Calif.) said in a 2008 committee hearing that "archiving in the digital age is not as easy as it might seem."

And, Earnest said, the agency's inspector general did not find evidence of inappropriate targeting.

"Frankly, we'd prefer it if Republicans would devote this kind of attention and energy to policies that are actually going to create jobs, as opposed to partisan fishing expeditions," Earnest said.

Earlier this week, the White House said it found no relevant emails between the White House and Lerner during the relevant time period. Some have suggested the White House might have ordered Lerner to target the conservative political group.
.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/210092-white-house-denounces-irs-conspiracy-theories#ixzz35DN2eSaa
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

[katzenjammer]

This lying sack of crap is making Carney look good before he even cleans out his office.

[Chieftain]

This lying sack of crap is making Carney look good before he even cleans out his office.

He's been taught by the best.

[Luis Gonzalez]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTbgsoHDc24

[andy58-in-nh]

I never cease to be amazed at the utter gall and audacity of these people.
 
They brazenly lie, cheat and steal. But they never apologize and never admit error... instead, they simply double-down and accuse their accusers of bad faith and evil intentions.
 
And it works.

[olde north church]

I never cease to be amazed at the utter gall and audacity of these people.
 
They brazenly lie, cheat and steal. But they never apologize and never admit error... instead, they simply double-down and accuse their accusers of bad faith and evil intentions.
 
And it works.

More than that?  His tone of moral indignation about how long he's been wherever the Hell he was and he's never been anything but a perfect bureaucrat.

[Chieftain]

I never cease to be amazed at the utter gall and audacity of these people.
 
They brazenly lie, cheat and steal. But they never apologize and never admit error... instead, they simply double-down and accuse their accusers of bad faith and evil intentions.
 
And it works.

It works short term, not all the time.  The reason we see the hard pushback on this is because the Administration really thinks they can tough this out if they stick to that line.  The problem is they keep saying the same thing every time there is a new allegation.

The other thing is that no person who ever filed a tax return buys into the fable of the IRS simply disposing of a hard drive, much less six or seven of them.  Anyone with a business knows they had better hang on to every single piece of paper for a given tax year for a MINIMUM of 7 years.  Many businesses never throw away anything, and actually spend quite a bit of money just archiving old tax data on the chance they will need it at some future date.

Too easy to understand, and nobody buys the line of BS.

[Oceander]

"I think that many Republicans in Congress, at least, particularly in the House, have demonstrated a pretty aggressive appetite for investigating this issue," Earnest said.

I would certainly hope so.  It's too bad the democrats in Congress are too beholden to Obama and their party leaders to pursue the truth as well.

[Dexter]

I hope nobody was expecting them to confirm the conspiracy theories.

[evadR]

Deny, Divert and Deceive ....
It's their ONLY card.