House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa appeared to be getting under the
skin of Democrats as they hit back hard -- bringing up the congressman's past
from more than four decades ago.
Issa's allegations about what the White House knew about the IRS targeting
conservatives rattled Democrats into sending out a barrage of counter-claims.
Former senior Obama aide David Plouffe ripped Issa in a Twitter message,
referring to allegations from as far back as 1972, when Issa was still a
teenager.
"Strong words from Mr Grand Theft Auto and suspected arsonist/insurance
swindler. And loose ethically today," Plouffe tweeted.
Plouffe's "grand theft" crack referred to charges of larceny that Issa faced in
1972 after he allegedly stole a Maserati sports car. Issa claims the incident
was a case of mistaken identity and the charges were later dropped.
The "arsonist/insurance swindler" insult referred to a 1982 fire at a Cleveland
warehouse belonging to Issa's companies Quantum Enterprises and Steal Shopper.
The fire was ruled suspicious and Issa collected an insurance payout, but he was
not charged with any crime.
Issa called White House press spokesman Jay Carney a "paid liar" over the
weekend. He also said low-level IRS employees in the Cincinnati office at the
center of the scandal had been directed by Washington.
His Democratic counterpart on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland,
came out swinging about the latter claim.
"Chairman Issa’s reckless statements today are inconsistent with the findings of
the inspector general, who spent more than a year conducting his investigation,"
Cummings said in a statement.
"Rather than lobbing unsubstantiated conclusions on national television for
political reasons, we need to work in a bipartisan way to follow the facts where
they lead and ensure that the IG’s recommendations are fully implemented."
Former Obama White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also came to Carney's defense.
He claimed Issa was just politicizing the scandal.
"Republicans are on the verge of overplaying their hand publicly, and the
American people will quickly lose interest on their side on this," Gibbs said on
MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Gibbs said voters want to see the IRS cleaned up, "but they understand that
Darrell Issa is doing nothing more than politicizing this event."
"To throw around the words 'liar' and 'perjury' as easily as he did is
shameful."
Gibbs, now a senior campaign adviser for Obama, insisted that Issa should put up
or shut up. "If he's got information that these people lied, he should put it
out there today," he said.
"If he doesn't have information that they lied, then he should call each of them
up personally and apologize, because this kind of discourse is why people lose
faith in their institutions.
"This is why people tune out from the back and forth in Washington because
people throw around terms like this, and then in the next sentence, they can't
even say with 100 percent authority that what they said the minute before or 10
seconds before is actually true," he added.
"It's a stunning thing. It's why five people in this town take Darrell Issa
seriously," Gibbs said.
Issa called Carney a liar during an appearance on
CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday for insisting the targeting of
conservative groups by the IRS was the work of "rogue" employees at an agency
office in Cincinnati.
"Their paid liar, their spokesperson ... he's still making up things about what
happens in calling this local rogue," Issa said.
"The reason [IRS official] Lois Lerner tried to take the Fifth [Amendment] is
not because there is a rogue in Cincinnati, it's because this is a problem that
was coordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters and we're
getting to prove it," he added.
Lerner, who led the IRS division handling groups seeking tax-exempt status,
declined to answer questions before the House Oversight Committee, citing her
right against self-incrimination. But not before she insisted she was innocent
of any wrongdoing.
CNN quoted a "source close to Issa" as saying the Republican thought Plouffe's
comments were "below the belt."
Issa's spokesman, in a statement, said: "Looks like the chairman hit a nerve
today. Hopefully President Obama follows Plouffe on Twitter and may finally see
some information from a senior adviser about what's going on at the IRS."
