https://youtube.com/watch?v=oncxvjjoCUg
Trey Gowdy berated the IRS and its defenders in the ongoing investigation of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at today’s House Oversight Committee hearing. “I have been fascinated by, and not necessarily in a good way, the evolution of the defense in this case,” he said.
In an impassioned speech, the South Carolina Republican addressed and dispelled the different excuses — including attempts to pin the blame on “two rogue agents” in Cincinnati and claim that progressive groups were targeted as well — that have been made since the scandal broke.
“Then the defense morphed into the most novel of all defenses that the IRS is too poorly managed to be capable of concocting a scheme this sophisticated,” he said. “That was the defense, ‘My client’s too dumb to have committed this crime.’”
Gowdy also called Democrats’ treatment of Treasury inspector general J. Russell George “reprehensible” and looked forward to George defending himself at a later hearing. He sharply condemned Lois Lerner, who invoked the Fifth Amendment, because she “didn’t have the courage” to come before the committee like other witnesses.