Posted: 02/14/2014 at 5:52pm | IP Logged

Sekulow: IRS Won't Come Clean on Scandal

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Claims that the Internal Revenue Service has continued to target conservative and Tea Party groups aren't dying down.

Nine months after the IRS admitted the charges were true, the investigation into the matter is at a stand-still, with the White House claiming there's no corruption to be found.

But last year, when the scandal first broke, President Barack Obama vowed to get to the bottom of the matter.

"I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all our lives," the president said in a May 2013 news conference.

Rather than find the source of the wrongdoing, however, critics said the IRS is trying to legally silence the very groups who were targeted by subjecting them to extreme scrutiny.

"Now the IRS in plain sight is trying to make permanent all the awful things they were doing to Tea Party groups and now extend that to every 501(c)(4) organization in America and to make it permanent. It's really quite dreadful," Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer representing several Tea Party groups, said.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, suggested Obama was behaving more like a king than president.

"I think they're confusing a monarchy with a constitutional republic," Sekulow said.

Sekulow, who testified about the IRS abuses on Capitol Hill last week, told CBN News that Congress may not be able to force the agency to come clean.

"It's probably time for a special counsel to look into this because I just don't think the IRS is able to self-correct," he said. "And, frankly, I don't think right now the FBI is able to do a thorough investigation of what's happened."

The Justice Department appointed Barbara Bosserman, a major Obama campaign donor, to investigate the IRS activities -- a move Sekulow said reeks of impropriety.

"She had the obligation to say, 'You know what? I'm probably not the best one to do this. I'm a maximum donor to the Obama campaign," Sekulow said.

While the lawsuits against the IRS go forward, Sekulow said he believes some senators may be hindering or even contributing to pressure on the IRS to target conservatives.

"People are going to have to really get to the ballot box come this coming midterm elections and take a stand," he said. "And if the Senate goes in a different direction, things change drastically."