On Friday, the IRS Dropped the Pretense: It’s Not Sorry

By 

David French

|
June 23, 2014

2 min read

Free Speech

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On Friday, the IRS commissioner showed the agency’s true colors. Forget the apologies. Forget humility. Forget about the targeting of conservative groups with unconstitutional questionsthe selective audits, the unlawful disclosures of confidential information, the collusion with the FBI and FEC to manufacture criminal cases out of whole cloth, the lost emails, or the multiple additional computer crashes. The real outrage was that conservatives are actually upset about all this. Watch the exchange between Congressman Ryan and Commissioner Koskinen again:

Note well the commissioner’s anger. Note well his defiance. This is the true face of the IRS as applied to this nation’s conservative and pro-life citizens. To the IRS and millions of American progressives — including key nembers of Congress — when the IRS targeted the Tea Party and then covered up the evidence it was, quite simply, doing its job. Wonder why there’s no mainstream media outrage? Because social justice demands that the Tea Party be destroyed, and whatever sins committed in that effort can be excused by the good intentions of the destroyers.

The IRS knows — and conservatives now know — that it is now wholly and completely an arm of the political Left, and it now depends on the political Left for its continued viability. A future conservative administration and a future conservative attorney general will not be appointing significant progressive donors to “investigate” the agency. With the agency’s autonomy and perhaps even existence at stake in the coming elections, the only things standing between conservatives and redoubled targeting — particularly in the 2016 election cycle — are constant vigilance, mass public awareness, and a further barrage of litigation when the IRS lashes out once again.

The IRS is not — and has never been — sorry for its actions. It’s just sorry it got caught.

This article is crossposted on National Review.