Sen. Ted Cruz has called on the Obama administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the "illegal targeting" by the Internal Revenue Service of the tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax exempt status.
The Texas Republican
has written to Attorney General Eric Holder asking why the FBI had failed to file criminal charges against those responsible for the extra scrutiny of such groups and why a "partisan" Democratic donor had been put in charge of the Department of Justice investigation.
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In the letter, he told Holder, 253 days have passed since "both you and President Obama professed outrage at the IRS’s wrongful conduct.
"To date, no one has been indicted," he added. "And it has been reported that the FBI plans not to file any criminal charges. This is a sad state of affairs.
"I ask you personally to demonstrate the independence that so many of your predecessors have demonstrated, and act to preserve the integrity of the Department of Justice and immediately appoint a special prosecutor, with meaningful independence, to investigate the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative groups."
Cruz pointed out that President Barack Obama had promised to work closely with Congress "to learn the truth" and had ordered the Justice Department to conduct a full inquiry. However, earlier this month, it was reported that the FBI
has no plans to file charges.
"The administration has stonewalled any meaningful investigation," said Cruz. "No one has been indicted. Even a top IRS official implicated in the targeting has been able to avoid testifying before Congress...and eventually quietly retired."
Cruz, a tea party activist, also attacked the administration for implementing new IRS regulations that he said "would stifle free speech among non-profit organizations."
He went on, "The IRS has moved forward with pushing new agency rules governing non-profit organizations that would effectively legalize future scrutiny of conservative groups by forcing them to disclose their donors if they wished to engage in voter education."
Cruz released a copy of the letter at the same time that he put forward
five questions that "Americans deserve to have answered" by Obama during next week's State of the Union address.
The first question, in fact, is, "Will the President allow the Department of Justice to appoint a special prosecutor to fully investigate the IRS's illegal targeting of conservatives?"
The other questions are:
- "Will the President act to ensure that the privacy of law-abiding citizens is protected?
- "Will the President recognize that his economic policies have failed to create the millions of jobs that he promised?
- "Will the President call on Congress to form a Joint Select Committee to finally discover the truth of why four Americans perished in a preventable terrorist attack in Benghazi?
- "Will the President finally recognize that it was a mistake to ram through Obamacare on a party-line vote and that it is, right now, hurting millions of Americans?"
Cruz urges Obama to honestly answer these questions "to restore credibility with the people."
He added, "Americans all over the nation are asking questions about the economy, Obamacare, the IRS, Benghazi, and the NSA that aren’t being answered. However, as the President prepares his State of the Union address, he has signaled he has no intention of clearing the air.
“The lack of accountability in Washington is creating a crisis of confidence in this country, and under President Obama, trust in government is approaching record lows."
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