(Above: Sen. Richard Shelby calls for special prosector to investigate the IRS)
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) during a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday said he believes the American people have lost all faith in the integrity of the IRS. The agency claims that it lost years of ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails during the timeframe in which the IRS was found to have inappropriately targeted conservative groups, including at least one in Alabama. The only way to restore the agency’s integrity, Shelby believes, is to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the scandal.
“(T)he IRS’s integrity has been called into question all over America,” Shelby told Treasury Secretary Jack Lew during the hearing. “People don’t trust the IRS, they don’t believe that those tapes, those hard drives just disappeared.”
A poll released today showed that 76 percent of Americans believe the IRS deliberately destroyed Lerner’s emails. Only 11 percent of independents, 5 percent of Republicans, and 20 percent of Democrats believe the IRS’s story is possible, much less likely to be true.
Lew, who is in his fourth job within the Obama Administration, told Shelby that he believes there has been no evidence of any political interference at the IRS.
“(I)f one looks at the record, the record should actually be reassuring,” Lew said. “Obviously, there’s a desire to keep asking questions. I understand that. But I don’t think it’s because the questions haven’t been thoroughly examined by committee after committee, by Congress independently looking at all of the evidence, interviewing people, going through millions of pages of documents, with no evidence of political interference and at some point the process has to recognize that.”
Unknown to Lew at the time of his testimony, the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday produced emails showing that Lerner suggested the IRS target Republican Sen. Charles Grassley for an audit in 2012. But Shelby also pointed to the overwhelming evidence that IRS employees held up groups seeking non-profit status if they believed them to be conservative-leaning.
“Not just the disappearance of the tapes, but before when they were stonewalling different designations that should have been approved,” Shelby said. “The integrity of the IRS is what’s important. And the American people think that’s in question now. How do you restore it? I believe you get to the bottom of this. I don’t believe Treasury, the Inspector General, and others can do this. We need outside, special prosecutors to do it. Because it’s important, not only to this Administration but to the functioning of government, period.”
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.