Phony Scandals

President Obama promised that the IRS would fully cooperate with Congress in its investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives.

Now, in a bipartisan letter the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee are complaining that the IRS is dragging it heels with Congress.

From Reuters:

Two lawmakers probing the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for its scrutiny of Tea Party and other conservative groups complained on Wednesday the IRS had handed over just a fraction of documents needed for their investigation.

Republican Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Sander Levin, the senior Democrat on the committee, said they had received just 13,000 pages of the 65 million pages of information the IRS had identified as possibly relevant.

"We are concerned that, at this rate, the full production will take months," the lawmakers said in a letter to acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel. They asked Werfel to explain how the IRS was sorting through the documents.

The IRS’s response?  The report continues, “The IRS said on Wednesday it had received the letter and planned to have more information available soon.”

Just like their response the first time.  Don’t worry, it’s coming.  Just like don’t worry, the targeting ended years ago or don’t worry it was just some rogue agents in Cincinnati or don’t worry senior IRS officials in let’s say the Chief Counsel’s office had nothing to do with this.

President Obama says the IRS targeting is just another one of those “phony scandals” that we should ignore.

Mr. President, if it’s a phony scandal, prove it.  Produce the documents. Lay out once and for all how the targeting began, continued for years, and forced conservative groups to turn over their donor lists.

The fact is the longer this drags out, the more evidence emerges that this scandal goes up, up, up the chain of command.

It’s time for the truth.