White House, Dept. of Justice Obstruct Investigations By 47 IGs

Department of Justice inspector general Michael Horowitz


[From article]
Earlier this year, 47 inspectors general — the officials charged with fighting corruption, waste, and wrongdoing in federal agencies — sent a letter to Issa’s committee complaining that organizations ranging from the EPA to the Justice Department were impeding their investigations by withholding information — despite the fact that federal law specifically forbids withholding that information. These are not a bunch of Republican operatives trying to score a few political points: Those 47 inspectors general comprise more than half of all such officials, and many who signed the letter were appointed by President Barack Obama. Their complaint is that the federal agencies treat them more or less like they do . . . members of Congress: thwarting them, withholding documents, obstruction investigations.
Michael Horowitz, the inspector general for the Justice Department, came to the Oversight Committee practically begging them for a means by which the DOJ – the federal law-enforcement department — might be forced to follow the laws that it is supposed to be enforcing. “It is very clear to me,” he testified, “just as it is to the Inspectors General community, that the Inspector General Act of 1978 entitles inspectors general to access all documents and records within the agency’s possession. Each of us firmly believes that Congress meant what it said in Section 6(a) of the IG Act: that Inspectors General must be given complete, timely, and unfiltered access to agency records.” But under the leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, the DOJ did no such thing. Horowitz notes that the DOJ specifically tried to withhold information related to the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.
[. . .]
The IRS is institutionally corrupt in its dealings with everyone from Congress to the national archivist. Nobody can keep track of how many different versions of the “lost” e-mail stories the IRS’s operatives have told, though Issa has tried. Republicans tried to get a special prosecutor for the investigation, but were thwarted by the Democrats. There would be no need for a special prosecutor if the regular prosecutors — at the DOJ – were doing their jobs, but the Obama administration has no interest in pulling on any of these threads: Not when it knows that IRS agents were misusing public resources to campaign for Barack Obama.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395337/irs-just-one-dozens-uncooperative-agencies-kevin-d-williamson

DECEMBER 23, 2014 4:00 AM
The IRS: Just One of Dozens of Uncooperative Agencies
Lots of other federal agencies are evading investigation, too, and IGs are livid.
By Kevin D. Williamson