http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/21/1315590/-Ronald-Reagan-foils-Darrell-Issa?detail=email
Poor Darrell Issa. He was having such a good day. He was having a hearing, and the topic was the IRS and how the Obama administration was covering up a Huge Enormous Scandal there by refusing to prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner who everybody (in Fox Nation) knows stole the election from Mitt Romney's hands.
Even better, he had the Obama administration on the spot, because Deputy Attorney General James Cole was a witness for the hearing, and one of Issa's Republican colleagues was grilling Cole on the Department of Justice's failure to convene a federal grand jury to indict Lerner in the wake of the House's vote to hold her in contempt.
"This Congress held Lois Lerner in contempt, geez, almost nine weeks ago," Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said, citing the procedure that's spelled out in law that says the prosecutor's duty "shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury."
"My understanding of the law is that it does not strip the U.S. attorney of the normal discretion that the U.S. attorney has," Cole said. "He proceeds with the case if he believes it is appropriate to do so."
Your understanding, Mr. Cole? From whence do you get such "understanding"? Or, in Darrell Issa's words:
"If you think that's discretionary, would you please give that back to us in a legal opinion so that we can change the law to make it clear you're wrong," Issa said.
Yeah! And when we make it clear you're wrong, we're going to open up a Reagan-sized can of whoop ass on your sorry claim. Except, just when big old Darrell was King of the World and Slayer of All Things Obama, this happened:
Yeah! And when we make it clear you're wrong, we're going to open up a Reagan-sized can of whoop ass on your sorry claim. Except, just when big old Darrell was King of the World and Slayer of All Things Obama, this happened:
Issa's Democratic counterpart on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) was happy to find that opinion himself, written by conservative lawyer Theodore Olson when he worked for President Ronald Reagan's Office of Legal Counsel in 1984.
"What it says is, 'We believe Congress may not direct the executive to prosecute a particular individual without leaving any discretion to the executive to determine whether a violation of the law has occurred.' That's what the opinion says -- a 1984 opinion dated May 30," Cummings said. "This was a contempt citation coming from Congress that he was talking about."
wow the old Reagan carcass has bit them in the butt again Mr. Cummings I'm sure was just giddy with pleasure with the opportunity to put Issa where he belongs in front of the class wearing the dunce hat facing the corner. it may have helped if they had gotten a chairman that had a clue on how to conduct an investigations, you do it with facts not half baked assertions of your own.
they have been too desperate to find any little grain of salt they could spin to be Pres.'s collusion with IRS's erroneous assumption of guilt by looking closely at those pacts that are notorious for deception on the republican side and totally leaving out the fact that some Dem pacts were looked at as well, leaving the country with the misinformation that republicans were the only ones who IMO were rightfully investigated.
