Remember a few weeks back when Lois Lerner was "testifying" yet again before the House Government Reform & Oversight Committee and was practically taunting Chairman Darrell Issa by trying to break the Guinness Book of World Records mark for number of times pleading the Fifth in a single session, and Issa had enough and abruptly adjourned the hearing, and ranking Donk Elijah Cummings asked Issa for permission to speak, and after Issa granted it Cummings started ripping Issa to his face, prompting Issa to cut his mic off? Remember how Democrats called Issa a racist for cutting off the uppity Cummings' mic and tried to trump that into bulldozing Speaker John Boehner into stripping Issa of his gavel on the House floor?
Well, the plot, as they say, thickens:
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee accused the panel's senior Democrat on Wednesday of spurring the IRS investigation of True the Vote after the group filed its application for tax-exempt status in 2010.In the words of the noted political philosopher Artie Johnson....
Representative Darrell Issa, the panel's chairman, released emails showing that staff working for the ranking member, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, had communicated multiple times with the Houston-based group between August 2012 and last year.
Issa also charged that information obtained by Cummings' staff was shared with the IRS and its embattled former supervisor, Lois Lerner, and that the Democrat did not disclose any of those dealings with committee Republicans.
"Although you have previously denied that your staff made inquiries to the IRS about conservative organization True the Vote that may have led to additional agency scrutiny, communication records between your staff and IRS officials — which you did not disclose to majority members or staff — indicates otherwise," Issa said in a letter sent to Cummings.
The letter, also signed by the five Republicans who chair oversight subcommittees, referenced the committee's planned vote on Thursday to hold Lerner in contempt for her twice refusing to testify before the panel in its investigation.
"You have an obligation to fully explain your staff’s undisclosed contacts with the IRS," the letter says.
Just so. Kinda adds a wee bit 'o context to Cummings' stentorian defense of Lois Lerner's imaginary "honor," doesn't it? He wasn't taking a bold and noble stand for civility and decorum in the halls of American government; he wasn't gallantly befriending a lady being rudely assailed by a callous brute; no, Cummings, in his capacity as the ranking minority member of the House Government Reform & Oversight Committee, was desperately attempting to throw up a crass, hand-waving distraction to cover his accomplice's escape, apparently unaware that his own complicity had already "cum" to light, or falsely secure in the belief that his outburst would intimidate Chairman Issa from dropping an evidentiary daisy-cutter on him.
Elijah Cummings, meet Darrell Issa.
I'm taking it that Cummings was caught flat-footed by Issa's boom-lowering, judging from this:
Cummings, who has been in the House since 1996, has contended that he was conducting appropriate oversight of True the Vote. A staffer told Newsmax on Wednesday that a statement from the congressman was forthcoming.
That, in case you were wondering, is the D.C. version of "humina-humina-humina".
I'll let Catherine Engelbrecht sum things up:
Catherine Engelbrecht, True the Vote's president, said Wednesday that the organization filed an ethics complaint against Cummings in February. She criticized the Democrat for his information requests at a committee hearing that month.
"Today's committee action reveals what we knew all along: partisan politics and the weaponization of government against opponents of this administration is real and continues," Englebrecht said. "Elijah Cummings has blocked the IRS abuse investigation all along. We now see clearly that two branches of government have colluded to target and silence private citizens."
She said the organization was amending its complaint against Cummings to include the latest information.
"America has come to a tipping point," Engelbrecht said. "No more lies. No more cover-ups. No more collusion. Enough is enough."
If only that were true. Tragically, the reality is, too much....is just the beginning.
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