Washington Post, "Report: Top IRS officials knew in 2011 that conservative groups were targeted": Yes, There Have Been Violations of Federal Criminal Statutes

A Washington Post article entitled "Report: Top IRS officials knew in 2011 that conservative groups were targeted" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-top-irs-officials-knew-in-2011-that-conservative-groups-were-targeted/2013/05/11/2619face-ba7b-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html?hpid=z2),by Josh Hicks and Ed O’Keefe, today informs us:

"An inspector general’s report due for release this week says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew that agents were targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny as early as 2011, nine months before the IRS commissioner assured Congress the targeting was not happening.

The report is certain to raise questions about the timing of the IRS’s disclosure of the targeting on Friday, how high up were the officials who knew about the practice, and whether anyone outside the agency was aware of it.

Details of the inspector general’s audit, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, revealed that Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS and made the disclosure Friday, knew about the targeting of tea party and other groups in June 2011. In March 2012, IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman told Congress that the agency was not targeting conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status as 'social welfare' groups."

Unlike the Benghazi cover-up, which reflects unconscionable but not criminal behavior on the part of Obama and Hillary (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/maureen-dowd-when-myths-collide-in.html), this "targeting" of conservative groups was both unconscionable and criminal.

Note that these revelations have Commentary Magazine wondering if it also fell victim to a tainted IRS investigation (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/05/10/the-irs-targets-conservative-groups-as-it-once-targeted-commentary/).

Although this horror has been largely ignored by The New York Times (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/a-tale-of-two-cities-sanitizing-new.html), Maureen Dowd does make passing reference to it in her op-ed entitled "When Myths Collide in the Capital" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/dowd-when-myths-collide-in-the-capital.html):

"The conservatives appearing on Benghazi-obsessed Fox News are a damage patrol with an approach that goes like this: “Lies, paranoia, subpoena, impeach, Watergate, Iran-contra.”

(Though now that the I.R.S. has confessed to targeting Tea Party groups, maybe some of the paranoia is justified.)"

Maureen and her friends at The Times are soon to learn that this matter will demand more than a parenthetical reference, much to their chagrin.

Worst of all, an impotent Obama administration is now enmeshed in two different scandals, which threaten to paralyze the executive branch of the US government for months to come, at a time when America is still enmeshed in a devastating economic downturn and faces critical decisions overseas involving Afghanistan, Syria and Iran

"Hope," "Change" and "Forward"? Forget it. Never were, never will be.