You can always count on Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) to keep it real. And today he did just that in a statement designed to bring Republicans back to reality, if they dare.
Levin issued the following statement regarding the computer failures and lost emails at the Internal Revenue Service:
“It is unfortunate that the IRS experienced equipment failure that resulted in several computers crashing and some email data being lost from Lois Lerner’s hard drive between 2009 and 2011. But every equipment failure is not a conspiracy.”
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Oh, God. He’s going with logic. This won’t end well. Then Levin delved into details that destroy this alleged conspiracy (emphasis mine):
“The IRS has taken every step to restore the data, and has already retrieved the emails sent internally during that time period from non-impacted computers. It is important to keep in mind that the period of computer technology failure occurred before Lois Lerner was even made aware of the inappropriate criteria screeners were using to select 501(c)(4) applications, according to the Inspector General’s report. In the last year, 700,000 pages of documents have been produced to accommodate congressional investigations without one shred of evidence that the gross mismanagement within the Exempt Organization division was politically motivated or involved anyone outside of the IRS.”
But.. But… IRS hates conservatives! Translation: The IRS was considering not not letting Karl Rove’s PAC operate in the pitch dark and conservatives haven’t stopped whining about the possibility that they would have to play by the rules ever since. Never mind that liberal groups were “targeted” too by an IRS overwhelmed with new laws in 2010 post Citizens United, and an IRS that is underfunded by the very folks who claim not to believe in government whilst telling you that only they can run what they don’t believe in. One day Americans will ask why Republicans want to be paid tax dollars for a government job if they don’t believe in government. But until then…
We are stuck chasing after them with a reality wand, begging them to be sane for just a moment — just long enough to do their jobs by passing what used to be bipartisan legislation, like infrastructure spending. But no. This modern day GOP circus is too busy chasing the far right off the crazy cliff with yet another conspiracy.
There is no reason to think that Lois Lerner is hiding things for Democrats. After all, she is the person who inexplicably burst out with what turns out to be GOP partisan information, claiming that conservatives were being targeted by the IRS with inappropriate criteria when that statement was not an accurate depiction of what was going on, in that it left out that liberals were also being “targeted”. If it’s happening to both sides of the aisle it’s not a political scandal but an issue of clarity of laws and implementation of said laws. She was the first domino in yet another right wing conspiracy and now she’s paying for it.
The logical question, if one were to pursue the GOP accusation of lost emails, is who would benefit from lost Lerner emails? The people she was mistaken about or the people who were trying to sell that lie?
Lois Lerner’s “information” turned out to be very partisan and benefited a narrative the Republican Party worked behind the scenes to foster and develop further, supplying the press with cherry picked quotes and using a conservative group that had already been found guilty of illegally assisting the Republican Party as their prime “example” of unfair flagging for political activity (insert eye roll here).
Republicans are doing what they do best — planting seeds of distraction with half truths dressed up as full blown conspiracies, designed to hide something. Sandy Levin isn’t having it.
It has to suck being a right winger these days — mired in conspiracy theories and desperately trying to get traction for one of many fabricated “scandals” that have ended with a right wing activist dressed like a Lifetime TV version of a pimp or even worse, egg-on-Benghazi-email face for esteemed media organizations.
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