The unhinged political left is so divorced from reality they still believe in Russian collusion, but think Obama spying on the Trump campaign is a conspiracy theory. They think people can change genders, that man-made climate change will destroy the earth in twelve years, and that Obama was scandal-free.
The “Obama was scandal-free” delusion has manifested itself in many ways, but typically we see people on the left deny that a scandal was, in fact, a scandal. Earlier today, the left-wing media “watchdog” Media Matters criticized Fox and Friends for citing the “debunked myth that IRS nefariously targeted tea party groups to push the lie that social media companies censor conservatives.” Here is the broadcast they took issue with:
Now, first of all, we know social media sites censor conservatives… it’s not even up for debate. But, what really got me was the claim by Media Matters that Obama’s IRS didn’t target tea party groups. The evidence of this is overwhelming and has been known for years, yet Media Matters relies on the gullibility of its target audience to believe things that are just not true.
For starters, Lois Lerner, former Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations division under Obama, admitted on May 10, 2013, that Tea Party groups had been improperly targeted by the IRS. In fact, Lerner revealed this because a Treasury Department Inspector General Report detailing the IRS abuses was about to break and Lerner was trying to get on top of the story in order to control the narrative—she even had a question planted in the audience in order to ensure she would get to address the issue—and claim that the improper targeting was not done for partisan reasons.
Not only were Tea Party groups improperly targeted, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch the whole scheme was orchestrated out of Washington DC. There was also evidence of White House involvement. IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman was at the White House at least 157 times while the IRS was targeting tea party groups. Obama’s Cabinet members didn’t even visit the White House that often. Some IRS employees even claimed that Obama himself requested the crackdown of tea party groups. There was certainly ample reason to suspect coordination with the White House. The IRS was also exchanging confidential taxpayer information with the White House the year Obama was reelected. That is probably why Obama rejected the idea of a special prosecutor investigation.
Media Matters may want everyone think that the IRS Targeting scandal is a debunked myth, but no one, not Lois Lerner, or even Obama, denies it happened. Of course, there was a cover-up, and Lerner refused to testify before Congress (and was held in contempt) and obstructed the investigation by “losing” two years worth of emails. But, aside from all that, Media Matters seems to have forgotten that the IRS itself admitted in federal court in 2017 “that it wrongfully targeted Tea Party and conservative groups during the Obama administration because of their political viewpoints’” and, the IRS issue an apology. In 2018, a lawsuit against the IRS for their improper targeting of tea party and conservative groups resulted in a $3.5 million settlement.
So, Media Matters, is the IRS scandal a debunked myth? Not even close. This is what the left does, they pretend Obama was scandal-free by convincing themselves that the scandals that defined his administration weren’t scandals at all, but myths that are perpetuated by conservative sites and Fox News, even when all the key players in the scandal admit that the improper targeting occurred.
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Matt Margolis is the author of The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama and the bestselling The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. His new book, Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy, will be published in 2019. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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