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Dan Pfeiffer Admits White House Knew About IRS Scandal Before It Was News (Videos)

Dan Pfeiffer, Face The Nation, May 19, 2013
Pfact Pfudging, May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 - Sometimes even a liar tells the truth, albeit accidentally. On CBS's Face The Nation today, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer inadvertently admitted that the Obama Administration knew about the IRS scandal well before it hit the news. Surprisingly, this admission was missed by many.

First, we saw yet another example of the "mainstream media" expressing displeasure (and distrust, even) of the Obama Administration.

Second, host Bob Schieffer, fond of lobbing  softball questions at Democrats with little or no follow up, actually asked tough questions about the ongoing IRS scandal. Pfeiffer lied, lied and lied.

Third, and best of all, we heard an admission by Pfeiffer the Parrot that the Obama Administration really did know about the IRS scandal before the public did, contrary to what the White House has been saying for days.

Schieffer expressed disbelief that the White House knew nothing about IRS harassment of Tea Party and conservative non-profit groups before it became publicly known through news reports recently.

Pfeiffer said that "what happened at the IRS was inexcusable and we have to do something about it....We gotta make sure this never happens again. It was an incredible breach of the public's trust and we have to repair that breach, no question about that."

Bob Schieffer, Face The Nation, CBS
Bob Schieffer: "What the....?"
"Well, if it is so important," said Schieffer, "the President, as I understand it, says he didn't find out about it til a couple of weeks ago. It is very difficult for me, Washington being Washington, to understand how the White House wouldn't have known something was up. The Treasury Department was informed there was an investigation. Capital Hill committees were informed there was an investigation."

"Are you trying to tell me that a wisp of this didn't get over to the White House during an election year, that there may be something going on over there at the IRS that we ought to find out about?" Schieffer asked.

"Yes, I'm telling you that," Pfeiffer said. "The first that the White House was made aware of it was from the Treasury Department a few weeks ago. And not the details of what happened, not the the results of the investigation, but that an independent investigation was about to conclude. And here's how we handled this, and this is how, I think, every administration tries to handle this. You have a cardinal rule, which is you do nothing to interfere with an independent investigation and you do nothing to offer the appearance of interfering in an investigation. So I feel like we handled this in the appropriate way."

"Well," said a visibly exasperated Schieffer, "if the President was so upset about this when he found out about it, why did he wait three days to say anything?"

"What we waited for were the facts," said Pfeiffer. Trouble is, the facts were already available to the White House.

What Pfeiffer said on Face The Nation today does not fit the timeline of events. Indeed, it contained the gem of unintended admission. He said the White House first learned that there was trouble at the IRS "a few weeks ago." He said the White House did not know about it until it was reported in the news. However, the scandal did not become news until May 11, 2013 with the first leaks of the report from the U.S. Treasury inspector general (IG). That report was the result of a March 8, 2012 meeting with the House Committee On Oversight & Government Reform, which started a review by the IG. 

THE ACCIDENTAL ADMISSION: May 11 was only eight days ago, not "a few weeks ago" as Pfeiffer said. In other word, Pfeiffer admitted that the White House knew about the IRS scandal weeks before it became public news.

On February 14, 2012 The Blaze reported that they "received emails from various Tea Party groups around the country alerting us to the oppressive demands being sent to them from the IRS." But the story did not become public news, really, as a full-blown mainstream media topic until May 11 of this year.

The Committe on Oversight's members has 17 Democrats, including Obama apologist Elijah Cummings (MD-7), the committee's ranking member. It is hard to believe that Cummings -- or any of his fellow Democrats -- would not have made a call to someone in the White House about the potential scandal.

Far worse than Pfeiffer's clumsy tripping over himself was this inconvient fact: On March 30, 2012, confidential IRS documents were leaked to an Obama campaign co-chairman’s group. Those documents were used to attack Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Is it believable that the White House was (a) not aware of those campaign attacks or that (b) they had no idea that they were based on Romney's tax documents? And is it (c) believable that Pfeiffer was not also aware of this?

Not even the liberal New York Times believes it. In a report last Friday, the Times noted that "The inspector general gave Republicans some fodder [today] when he divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin 'shortly after,' he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year."

That means that Dan Pfeiffer lied, and he lied on orders from the White House.

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