THE TIP OF OBAMA’S IRS SCANDAL ICEBERG - UPDATED 5/29/2013

Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economics professor, served as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from September, 2010  and was the youngest member of the cabinet of President Barack Obama until his resignation in June, 2011.  He advised Obama during his 2004 Senate race and was senior economic policy adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign and served on the three-member economic council since the start of Obama’s first administration.

Goolsbee is also omniscient.  During an August 27, 2010, press briefing, he let slip that he knew that Koch Industries, a multibillion-dollar energy business run by the libertarian Koch brothers, had paid no income taxes.  “[W]e have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax, some of which are really giant firms. You know, Koch Industries is a multibillion-dollar business,” Mr. Goolsbee told reporters during an on-the- record background briefing on corporate taxes.

Could it be Mr. Goolsbee got the inside scoop from someone at the IRS?

[UPDATE 5/29/2013:  http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/former-white-house-official-deletes-embarrassing-tweet-about-koch-brothers-taxes_731862.html ]

This is not a new scandal – just one the left has run through the Scandal Condom the MSM uses to keep anything from touching Obama. 

In October, 2010, the liberal website ‘MotherJones’ published a story entitled: 

GoolsbeeGate: The GOP's Latest Obama "Scandal".  The article is sub-titled:  Republicans are trying to manufacture a scandal over an Obama aide's slip-up.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/goolsbee-koch-industries-irs-scandal

A SLIP-UP???  Exactly where did Goolsbee get his information about the Koch brother’s finances?  Reading from MotherJones: 

The issue: Did White House economic aide Austan Goolsbee nefariously gain access to the confidential tax records of Koch Industries, a megafirm privately owned by the billionaire Koch brothers, who have funded much anti-Obama political activity? The short answer: Probably not. But that hasn't stopped the scandalmakers, while the White House response has provided them running room.

Seems to me it’s time to drag this THREE-YEAR-OLD pearl out of the dusty drawer it’s been neatly tucked away in and revisit it.  Specifically, what was Goolsbee’s source?  Some low-level IRS flunky in Cleveland?  I think not.

The IRS ‘apology’ three days ago – for inappropriately flagging conservative political groups for additional reviews and ‘special handling’ is an attempt to 1) do a bad news ‘dump’ on a Friday, in hopes the story wouldn’t gain legs over the Mother’s Day weekend, and 2) an attempt to take the wind out of a report by the Inspector General’s office into these charges that’s due to be released within days.

On Friday, the IRS apologized for scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of groups with conservative titles such as "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their applications. Republicans have challenged the tax agency's claim that the practice was initiated by low-level workers.

But according to a draft of a watchdog's report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner, senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011.

A partial draft report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -- obtained by NBC News -- shows that top officials knew about the targeting nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, testified to Congress in March 2012 that no singling out of conservative groups ever occurred.

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/05/obama_slams_irs_targeting.html

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/13/18230271-obama-irs-targeting-of-conservative-groups-outrageous?lite

AND WHAT MAKES HARRY REID SO CONFIDENT THAT HE WOULD MAKE THESE STATEMENTS ON THE FLOOR OF THE SENATE???  Could it be that HE got Romney's taxes from the IRS?

From our president today, in the White House East Room:  "This is pretty straightforward," Mr. Obama told reporters. "If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it."  (and declaring that the IRS is an independent agency ain't gonna cut it!)

'IF'????

YO!  

BARACK!  

Your IRS admitted to this AND APOLOGIZED on Friday [May 10, 2013]!  

Keep up, man!  

Add to this IRS story (which most Americans can surely identify with) the percolating Benghazi mess AND NOW the unfolding information that the Department of Justice has been collecting/monitoring phones at the Associated Press – phone lines possibly used by hundreds of AP reporters – and Obama may have constructed at 3-legged scandal stool that has real legs.  (Does anyone besides me question the advisability of wiretapping YOUR STRONGEST FRONT ORGANIZATION – the AP?)

As an aside, for you history buffs…. This summer is the 40^th anniversary of the eruption of the Watergate Scandal that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

BUCKLE UP!