Cummings: IRS Scandal ‘Solved,’ Time to ‘Move On’

The scandal surrounding the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups is “solved,” according to the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings.

 

“Based upon everything I’ve seen, the case is solved,” Cummings told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “If it were me, I would wrap this case up and move on, to be frank with you. The IG made some recommendations, those recommendations are being adopted by the IRS, we’ve got a new commissioner in, acting commissioner in, Danny Werfel is doing a great job, I think we’re in great shape.”

 

Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa slammed Cummings for his claims, calling them “extreme and reckless” and arguing they are “a signal that his true motivation is stopping needed congressional oversight.” Issa added that “fortunately” Cummings cannot stop the ongoing the investigation.

 

The Oversight Committee, which, along with the House Ways and Means Committee, is investigating the IRS’s systematic targeting of tea-party groups, is currently interviewing several agency officials involved in the scandal. Though they have linked the initial orders to identify tea-party applications to officials in Washington, D.C., they have yet to identify the official who asked for those applications, or to determine whether the White House was involved in the targeting of conservative groups.

 

Since the scandal broke, however, four officials in the IRS’s Washington, D.C. office have either been placed on administrative leave, resigned, or retired, which suggests the heart of the effort to target conservative groups lay in Washington rather than in Cincinnati, as IRS officials, the inspector general, and the Obama administration initially told the country.

 

Given the number of questions that remain unanswered, Issa accused Cummings of lacking a “genuine interest” in working “to expose the full truth.”