The House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), continues to leak false information about the administration to the media and the general public. He has done it twice since June with his latest egregious lie centered around the implementation of the ACA.
On June 2nd, Darrell Issa started a rumor that, (IRS) agents in Cincinnati to target conservative groups applying for 501 (c)(4) status, but his charge fell apart when probed by CNN host Candy Crowley. Issa strongly insinuated that the Obama administration directed the Internal Revenue Service to find a way to stop these right-wing super-pacs.
Issa said that Oversight Committee staff members had interviewed IRS officers who applied the additional scrutiny to Tea Party and patriot groups, Issa claimed “the indication is they were directly being ordered from Washington.” The leak was set in motion when Issa sent CNN host Candy Crowley some hand-picked excerpts from the his staff’s interviews with the officers. Crowley was quick to point out that the sections that Issa gave her didn’t prove anything.
Further proving Issa was completely off-base with his accusations, the Inspector General, after his extensive investigation of the IRS, concluded that, “All of these officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS.” Shortly thereafter, Issa dropped his case against the White House.
Now, Issa is on another rumor rampage accusing the White House of spreading lies about the implementation of HealthCare.gov. Democrats on the same Oversight Committee Issa is chairing have had enough of Issa’s accusations.
Issa told Fox News that the White House had told the public that upon implementation of HealthCare.gov, the site would be able to handle some 60,000 concurrent users. Issa exclaimed the U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had intentionally made these false accusations.
The ranking member of the Committee, Rep. Ellijah Cummings (D-MD), was so outraged by Issa’s lies that he wrote the Chairman a heated complaint. Rep. Cummings wrote, “The estimates for the full [Obamacare] website environment were considerably higher.” Cummings added to his outrage explaining, “[I]t is reckless and highly irresponsible to make unsubstantiated public allegations by taking information out of context, especially when the Committee has information in its possession that directly contradicts these unfounded allegations.”
What Rep. Cummings and the entire Democratic Committee caucus told Rep. Issa last Thursday, historically would have stopped him in his tracks. This probably will not be the case with Issa and the rest of his nut-cases comrades. We can rest assured that the Republicans are already working on their next outrageous lie that will be paraded as absolute truth past the unsuspecting public. And Issa will be the one to introduce that “truth.”
Richard Andrew is a guest blogger for Ring of Fire.
