A House chairman probing the IRS scandal is charging that President Obama has reneged on promises to have his aides cooperate with the investigation, forcing the Ways and Means Committee to conduct a dragnet for emails and documents needed to smoke out the truth.
Rep. Dave Camp, whose committee is one of several looking into the 2010-2013 scandal, put the blame for the drawn out investigations at the president’s feet.
“I don’t fully understand why it’s taken them so long given that the president promised,” Camp told Secrets. “He promised that he would have quick action and we still don’t have the documents from an agency that is in this administration.”
His committee has been frustrated with the administration’s failure to provide emails from Lois Lerner, who ran the IRS department that blocked Tea Party groups from winning the typically quick approval of tax exempt status.
“I still don’t have all of her emails. I still don’t have all of the documents that I’ve requested. The administration promised a quick action, and I’m still waiting for her emails,” said Camp, a Michigan Republican. “I need all of those before I can conclude.”
HUCKABEE’S ‘GOD GUNS, GRITS AND GRAVY’
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has cemented his place as a likely 2016 presidential candidate by signing a deal for a campaign-style book that will assail “government intrusion” under President Obama and spell out his agenda to make America great again.
The southerner’s book will be titled “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy,” publisher St Martin’s Press told Secrets. It will be released in the winter of 2015, timed for a Republican primary run in 2016.
Huckabee ran for the presidency in 2008 and toyed with a run in 2012. He is considering another bid and is traveling the country, meeting with conservatives and evangelicals to size up his chances. He ranks high in most 2016 presidential polls.
St. Martins said that Huckabee’s book will be “about America as it used to be, as it is today, and as it might become again.”
ISRAEL LOBBY’S PUNCH QUESTIONED
A survey of Washington political insiders reveals that the once-invincible Israel lobby is losing steam, possibly opening the doors for other Middle East voices to get a chance at influencing American policy.
The survey provided to Secrets found that of those expressing an opinion, three times as many believe that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has more influence than it should, a possible indicator that Washington may be tiring of decades of hardline U.S. negotiating tactics on behalf of Israel.
The poll conducted by Zogby Analytics for the worldwide policy group Avaaz comes at an interesting time for AIPAC. It just wrapped up another successful Washington summit, but the group’s influence has been questioned in the media, especially after it got in a tussle with Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic Party.
Among the results of the poll of 165 insiders: 31 percent said AIPAC has more influence than it should; more insiders thought AIPAC’s influence is falling than rising; and only 18 percent felt that AIPAC’s influence increased the chance of peace in the Middle East.
AIPAC wouldn’t comment on the survey.
NRA CLAIMS WIN IN FACEBOOK GUN FIGHT
The NRA has does it again.
In its latest battle with gun-control advocates like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the National Rifle Association is claiming a win in Facebook’s decision to allow gun-themed pages, though restricted to those 18 and older.
Pushed to the sidelines as Facebook talked with anti-gun groups, the Fairfax, Va.-based gun lobby rallied its 3 million Facebook fans to lobby online for a compromise. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence called Facebook’s new policy a sell-out.
Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said, “The NRA enjoys 150 times more support on Facebook than Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. That’s why Bloomberg and the gun control groups he funds tried to pressure Facebook into shutting down discussion of Second Amendment issues on its social media platforms. Bloomberg failed.”
As a result, he added in a statement to Secrets, “NRA members and our supporters will continue to have a platform to exercise their First Amendment rights in support of their Second Amendment freedoms.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
