Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the Ranking Member on the House Oversight Committee, took direct aim at Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) during a hearing Thursday on reviews conducted by the Internal Revenue Service in the run up to the 2012 election, blasting Issa for insinuating that the singling out of political non-profits was ordered by the White House.
“This is unsubstantiated nonsense,” Cummings said in his opening statement. “It undermines the Committee’s integrity, and it destroys the Committee’s credibility. The Chairman certainly did not withhold judgment—he rushed to it with no evidence whatsoever. The responsible answer is that we have no evidence at all to back up that claim.”
Cummings pointed to this Issa op-ed in USA Today, in which the chairman wrote:
“Was the targeting of Tea Party applicants directed from the White House or somewhere else outside the IRS? As our investigation is ongoing, the responsible answer is that judgment should be withheld.”
