1000 days...and counting

Beautiful Dana Loesch interviews Instapundit Glenn Reynolds about the IRS scandal.

No charges against Lois Lerner

Evan Perez reports at CNN,

Washington (CNN)The Justice Department notified members of Congress on Friday that it is closing its two-year investigation into whether the IRS improperly targeted the tea party and other conservative groups.

There will be no charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner or anyone else at the agency, the Justice Department said in a letter.

The probe found "substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints. But poor management is not a crime," Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik said in the letter.

...The IRS mishandled the processing of tax-exempt applications in a manner that disproportionately impacted applicants affiliated with the tea party and similar groups, leaving the appearance that the IRS's conduct was motivated by political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives.

...But former House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, said the DOJ's decision gives the impression that "government officials are above the law."

"The Justice Department's decision to close the IRS targeting investigation without a single charge or prosecution is a low point of accountability in an administration that is better known for punishing whistleblowers than the abuse and misconduct they expose," Issa said in a statement. "After stating that their investigation confirms that tea party and conservative groups were improperly targeted, they dismiss it merely as a byproduct of gross mismanagement and incompetence -- ignoring volumes of evidence in the public record and efforts to obstruct legitimate inquires."

And Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means committee and the likely successor to outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, called the DOJ's announcement "predictable" and said his committee will continue its investigation into the IRS's actions.

"Through these investigations we have uncovered serious and unprecedented actions taken by the most senior IRS official in charge of the non-profit unit, Lois Lerner, to deprive conservative organizations of their constitutional rights," Ryan said in a statement. "Despite the DOJ closing its investigation, the Ways and Means Committee will continue to find answers and hold the IRS accountable for its actions."

Read more here.

Judicial Watch getting closer to the truth on IRS and Benghazi scandals

Is any organization in America doing more to protect our freedom than Judicial Watch? Writing about their latest Freedom of Information Act lawsuit,

We now have information about an email that directly ties Hillary Clinton, for the first time, to the now-debunked Benghazi talking points used by then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to claim that the attack was the result of a “spontaneous protest” gone awry. The Obama State Department fessed up to the existence of this email in a federal court filing. Showing contempt for transparency, the Obama State Department is refusing to divulge the contents of the email, citing a discretionary “deliberative process” privilege.

The “transparent” Obama administration tells the court that the release of Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi email chain “could reasonably be expected to chill the frank deliberations that occur when senior staff are preparing points or other draft remarks for use by senior Department officials in addressing a matter of public controversy.” As I just told one media interviewer, I interpret this to mean “we can’t give out info about the Obama/Clinton Benghazi cover-up because doing so might scare future corrupt politicians from engaging in cover-ups.” (Recall that those now-debunked Benghazi talking points were used by Rice to claim that the attack was the result of a “spontaneous protest.” The Obama administration also sent false talking points about the attack to Congress.)

Read more at Judicial Watch here.

Ed Morrisey adds at Hot Air,

If the e-mails put Hillary Clinton in the chain of authority for the false talking points, it will make life a little tougher on the campaign trail … assuming the media bothers to ask about it. Hillary herself used the “YouTube video” hoax, most notoriously with the families of the deceased. If the e-mail chain discussed the problems in the talking points and the decision to use knowingly false or unlikely claims, that might be a little more of a game changer — but then we’d have to see the e-mails to know whether that’s the case.

The bigger point here is that we still have not seen a complete record of the events surrounding the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, let alone the failures and lack of preparation that led to it. The State Department is still stonewalling on information that falls clearly within the purview of Congress, if not the FOIA process. That should make it clear that the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton want everything but transparency on its failed Libya policies and handling.

Read more here.

The "process"

Andrew McCarthy warns us not to hand over the IRS investigation to a special prosecutor:

As it actually exists, however, an “independent counsel” would be tailor-made for letting the administration and the IRS dodge accountability.

Let’s talk reality. As a matter of constitutional law, there is no such thing as an independent counsel. In our system, prosecution is a plenary executive power. All federal investigations and prosecutions proceed under the authority of the president; neither the Congress nor the courts have police powers. Any prosecutor, regardless of how “independent” we’d like him to be, would have to serve at the pleasure of the president, and would report to Eric Holder.

Ah yes, the process. You’ll have to trust them that it works . . . on those rare occasions when you pause to think about it. But how much thinking about the IRS do you suppose you’ll be doing once Congress stands down and news about it dries up?

When was the last time you thought about Fast and Furious? About the debt ceiling (or is it the retractable debt dome)? Or how about the just-announced EPA regs? It’s only been a few weeks since they were announced, and they could crush the most vibrant sector of our otherwise rigor mortis economy. Yet news coverage barely got to them, buried as they were between the VA scandal and the commander-in-chief’s replenishing of the Taliban. You can be excused for not remembering. Sure, it’s just the blink of an eye ago, but in Obama’s America Transformed, that’s the time it takes to roll out the welcome-mat for 300,000 illegal aliens.

You can have political accountability for abuses of power or you can have an “independent” counsel and “the process.” Political accountability is driven by congressional investigations and court cases brought by citizens whose rights have been trampled. It is messy, combative, and political, but the malfeasance it uncovers can result in the removal of corrupt officials from power.

By contrast, “the process,” under the steady hand of “independent” counsels, is neat, silent, and somnolent. In fact, once it starts, that may be the last you hear about it until President Obama pardons everyone on his way out the door.