IRS Harassment Scandal Could Impeach Obama For Targeting Political Enemies

The IRS harassment scandal could impeach Obama if any of the allegations being claimed are true. Never mind if the Benghazi scandal involves Obama.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the IRS harassment was linked to the White House by lawyer Cleta Mithcell who represents six of the hundreds of Tea Party and conservative groups targeted by the IRS. All in all, 471 groups were targeted by the IRS even though the former IRS commissioner originally told Congress last year that none of these allegations were true.

After the IRS apology Obama blamed Bush through Jay Carney, claiming that the White House did not have anything to do with the IRS harassment because the previous IRS leader was hired by the Bush administration. The White House claims that low level IRS agents in Cincinnati were primarily involved in persecuting the IRS harassment of conservative groups. So far, the IRS document trail proves this to be false, with documents proving the IRS harassment scandal goes at least to the IRS Washington headquarters.

Cleta Mitchell claims she has more evidence linking Washington to the IRS harassment scandal:

“They may try to say it was low-level people. It was not low-level people. They weren’t in Cincinnati. It was being directed out of Washington, and I have them on record saying that. … We know the White House used the Department of Health and Human Services to try to silence critics about Obamacare. So if we know they used HHS, why wouldn’t they also use the IRS or other federal agencies to try to silence political critics?”

The targets of the IRS harassment are very diverse, but all tend to be political critics of President Obama or his policies. Besides political groups, Christian conservatives like Billy Graham are claiming IRS harassment along with other Christian ministries audited by the IRS who say their stance on gay marriage was put to the question. A Catholic professor claims IRS harassment after speaking out against Obama, with IRS auditors wanting to know what her politics were. Progressive Catholics were allegedly ignored by the IRS. It also came out that Jewish groups were targeted by IRS, with one group alleging they were investigated to make sure their organization’s activities did not “contradict the [Obama] Administration’s public policies.”

Even reporter Larry Conners feels the IRS harassed him after President Obama was asked difficult questions. Conners says, “I don’t accept ‘conspiracy theories,’ but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me. At the time, I dismissed the ‘co-incidence,’ but now, I have concerns … after revelations about the IRS targeting various groups and their members …”

Of course, other reporters rushed to find any Democrat-leaning groups which received similar IRS inquiries. Only three were found compared to the supposed hundreds of conservative and Republican-leaning groups, never mind the individuals claiming persecution by the IRS.

Conservative groups are reporting the IRS harassment allegedly included audit-like demands, surprise visits from multiple agencies including the FBI, and “voluminous requests for information” among other forms of harassment. Multi-agency visits are fairly unusual for an IRS matter.

Federal agencies are directed by the executive branch, which is led by Obama as President. Whether or not Obama himself was directly involved, it seems apparent that at least someone in Obama’s administration was involved. So we have three scenarios: either Obama knew nothing about what is own people were doing, which makes him a poor President, or President Obama did know about it and did nothing, or was involved directly somehow.

Besides the IRS harassment of conservatives, President Obama allegedly may have misused the IRS in other ways. President Obama’s half-brother allegedly received preferential treatment from the IRS, receiving tax exempt status retroactively within one month while Tea Party groups waited years. The IRS even leaked documents on conservative groups to progressive groups.

Before the 2012 election, the Obama campaign attacked Mitt Romney with IRS documents that “came directly from the Internal Revenue Service and was provided to NOM’s political opponents, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).” The document showed Romney donated $10,000 to NOM, which opposes gay marriage.

NOM president Brian Brown believes this other IRS scandal benefited President Obama politically:

“The American people are entitled to know how a confidential tax return containing private donor information filed exclusively with the Internal Revenue Service has been given to our political opponents whose leader also happens to be co-chairing President Obama’s reelection committee. It is shocking that a political ally of President Obama’s would come to possess and then publicly release a confidential tax return that came directly from the Internal Revenue Service. We demand to know who is responsible for this criminal act and what the [Obama] Administration is going to do to get to the bottom of it.”

How could the IRS harassment scandal impeach Obama? Based upon Federal law, it’s a criminal offense to misuse for political gain any information submitted by a taxpayer, an entity, or anybody who submits any information to the IRS. IRS agents are supposed to be limited in what they say, ask, or do with the information.

By definition, an impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as criminal or civil punishment. Reasons for Presidential impeachments are treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors. The House of Representatives, currently controlled by Republicans, can define what “high crimes or misdemeanors” means so it’s possible the IRS harassment scandal could qualify if President Obama is involved. But since the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, has to prosecute the impeachment articles there doesn’t seem a chance they’d actually impeach Obama.

40 years ago this week on May 18, President Richard Nixon was served articles of impeachment for the misuse of the IRS to go after political enemies. Like the IRS scandal, the Watergate scandal was initially blamed on underlings by President Nixon. With House Speaker John Boehner already asking who should go to jail for the present IRS harassment scandal, impeaching Obama might become a high priority depending on what is discovered.

Based upon a poll released today, 57 percent of Americans believe the offenders behind the IRS harassment scandal should be jailed. An amazing 55 percent “think it is at least somewhat likely that President Obama or his top aides were aware that Tea Party and other conservative groups were targeted by the IRS.”

Do you think the IRS harassment scandal could impeach Obama?