Bombshell Drops in IRS Scandal: Obama’s IRS Chief Counsel Directly Involved (+video)

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesBy Peggy Noonan. The IRS scandal was connected this week not just to the Washington office—that had been established—but to the office of the chief counsel.

That is a bombshell—such a big one that it managed to emerge in spite of an unfocused, frequently off-point congressional hearing in which some members seemed to have accidentally woken up in the middle of a committee room, some seemed unaware of the implications of what their investigators had uncovered, one pretended that the investigation should end if IRS workers couldn’t say the president had personally called and told them to harass his foes, and one seemed to be holding a filibuster on Pakistan.

Still, what landed was a bombshell. And Democrats know it. Which is why they are so desperate to make the investigation go away. They know, as Republicans do, that the chief counsel of the IRS is one of only two Obama political appointees in the entire agency…

Mr. Hull [a retired, 48-year veteran of the IRS] told House investigators that at some point in the winter of 2010-11, Ms. Lerner’s senior adviser, whose name is withheld in the publicly released partial interview transcript, told him the applications would require further review [by the IRS Chief Counsel]…

The IRS chief counsel is named William Wilkins. And again, he is one of only two Obama political appointees in the IRS. Read more from this story HERE.

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IRS Inspector Attacked by Democrats, Claims Liberals’ Treatment of IG is “Unprecedented”

By Fox News. The government watchdog who issued the report that found the IRS was targeting conservative groups was turned into a punching bag by Democrats in the second half of a tense hearing Thursday, leading Inspector General J. Russell George to chide lawmakers for their attacks on his office.

“This is unprecedented,” he said of his treatment before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the end of the hearing.

The first half of the hearing was devoted to testimony from IRS officials who claimed higher-ups in Washington, D.C., were involved in applying additional scrutiny to Tea Party and other groups. Read more from this story HERE.

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Rep. Chaffetz Lets Administration Have It Over Misleading Nation on IRS Scandal

“When you have the spokesman for the president of the United States make a definitive statement that it was two rogue agents, and start poking at these people who have no power to do anything about it, that is wrong,” Rep. Chaffetz stated during congressional hearings on the IRS scandal today.