Pelosi Blames Bush For IRS Scandal
.House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blamed former President George W. Bush for the IRS' targeting of tea party groups in the lead-up to the 2012 election.
According to NowThisNews' Julie Eckert, Pelosi claimed Bush is responsible for the scandal because he appointed Douglas Shulman, former commissioner of the IRS. Shulman, who was appointed in 2008, left his post in November 2012, when his term expired.
While facing questions from lawmakers on Tuesday, Shulman said he doesn't know why his agency targeted conservative groups seeking tax exempt status.
"I very much regret that it happened and that it happened on my watch," Shulman said.
While blaming Bush, Pelosi defended President Barack Obama, who has called the scandal "outrageous."
“Well the President doesn’t know about everything that is going on in every agency of government,” Pelosi said. “Should Mr. Boehner have known that this is his neighboring district and in Cincinnati where the IRS office is? I don’t think you can hold him accountable for what happened in that IRS office.”
Pelosi wasn't the only one to focus on Bush's role in Shulman's appointment. During an interview on Fox's Kilmeade and Friends, Karl Rove -- who called Shulman "an arrogant little weasel" -- blamed Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for the former commissioner's appointment.
"My colleagues tell me they had a terrible time trying to convince Senator Max Baucus to let Bush name another person. And in essence he objected to anybody who did not have Democratic credentials," Rove said. "Like many things in the waning days in the administration, you have to make concessions to Congress, and Max Baucus played a particularly large role in his selection."
Karl Rove called someone a weasel. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I wouldent believe this crook if he swore on a stack of Constitutions.
@RABEL222,
RABEL222 wrote:
Karl Rove called someone a weasel. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I wouldent believe this crook if he swore on a stack of Constitutions.
Rove is the ultimate sleazeball. It is joke for him to call anyone a weasel.
@contrex,
Are you married to Roger? How did you decide to answer a post aimed at Roger?
@RABEL222,
You can be sure he didn't reply as he did because of any agreement on politics, economics, or social policy. Further explanation would clearly be wasted.
There seems to be bigger issues coming out of this IRS scandal than the scandal. There seems to be confusion on how to determine if social groups main objective is political or not.
Quote:The IG document released Tuesday made repeated mention of IRS officials in the Cincinnati office -- which had been set up as a centralized clearinghouse for secondary inspection of flagged nonprofit applications -- who did not know how to do their jobs. “There appeared to be some confusion by Determinations Unit specialists and applicants on what activities are allowed” by 501(c)(4) groups, the report stated on page 14.
The report was more emphatic on page 18, stating, “Specialists lacked knowledge of what activities are allowed” by tax-exempt, nonprofit 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) groups.
Part of this, the report said, was due to unclear guidance in the law. “Regulations do not define how to measure whether social welfare is an organization’s ‘primary activity,’” the IG said.
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