Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made a somewhat startling claim about the burgeoning IRS scandal, as Eliana Johnson noted on Sunday.
“Based upon everything I’ve seen, the case is solved and if it were me, I’d wrap this case up and move on, to be frank with you,” Cummings said.
The comment was an abrupt departure from what Democrats, including President Obama, have been saying about the issue, which is that they are committed to a thorough investigation to make sure something like this never happens again.
Democrats had some success last week hitting the oversight committee chairman, Representative Darrell Issa, over his comments that White House spokesman Jay Carney is a “paid liar.” Now Republicans are having a field day with Cummings’ trial balloon that the IRS scandal is over with.
“How can the White House and House Democrats act so quickly to dismiss an investigation that hasn’t even been completed yet?” asked Representative Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.) in a press release yesterday. “One week ago, the White House Press Secretary spoke about ‘the need to find out all the inappropriate activity that occurred’ and to make sure that ‘those who are responsible for inappropriate, outrageous activity be held accountable’ — does the president, Leader Pelosi and Whip Hoyer really believe that seven days later, they have all the facts they need to ‘wrap this case up and move on’ as Ranking Member Cummings suggested?”
It will be interesting to see how Democrats respond this week to questions about whether they think the IRS scandal is all wrapped up.