Rand Paul On IRS Scandal: “Someone Needs To Go To Jail”

“Outraged” Obama has “transferred people around in the State Department… nobody lost their job”

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
May 22, 2013

Senator Rand Paul says that appropriate punishments need to be handed out to officials involved in the IRS’ unfair treatment of Tea Party groups and conservative “patriot” groups applying for tax exemption.

“Someone needs to be fired,” Paul said on Fox News’s Neil Cavuto Tuesday. “And it seems to be impossible to fire a government employee. Still no one has been fired over Benghazi. They were transferred. We called them up today. They still all have phone numbers and offices. That’s the problem.”

“People want government to be responsive. And if someone uses and abuses the power of government, they want that person kicked out of office.” Paul asserted.

Paul also stated that should a proper investigation find criminal activity at the heart of the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, then “someone needs to go to jail.”

The Senator repeated his call for an independent investigation into the scandal,

Taking aim at the president’s attempted detachment from the issue, Paul said that if Obama truly is “outraged”, as he has claimed, then “…we want to see him do something. He needs to say, in a short period of time, that someone is going to be leaving.”

“He sort of says he is outraged, but like with Benghazi, his response was to transfer people around in the State Department and nobody lost their job.” Paul added.

“So, really, someone has to be fired. Someone should be prosecuted if this is a criminal occurrence. But I don’t think the president — he has been kind of passive in all of this. He seems to be detached and he kind of wants to show outrage, but say, hey, I had nothing to do with it, I’m just the president.” The Senator urged.

“I’m not sure that’s going to fly with the public.” Paul added.

Watch the interview:

Paul’s demands come in the wake of IRS official Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth Amendment and refusing to testify at today’s congressional hearing.

Before invoking that right, Lerner claimed she had done nothing wrong, adding “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

Commentators have reveled in the irony of an IRS official invoking constitutional protections after specifically targeting non-profits that were teaching the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

As we noted yesterday, most Americans believe that the White House is engaging in a cover up over the IRS tactics. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 45 percent suggested that the White House has not disclosed all the facts, compared to 42 percent who say they trust the government on the matter.

In addition, a majority of Americans said they believe increased IRS scrutiny on conservative groups was deliberate, with only 31 percent saying they believed it was an “administrative mistake.” A whopping 74 percent, described the tactics as inappropriate, with 51 percent saying they feel the actions are criminal.

A CNN poll reveals that the Tea Party has received a favorability bump in response to the scandal.

“Politically, the group that may have benefitted the most from last week’s news is the tea party movement, which may be getting something akin to a ‘sympathy vote’ for being targeted by the highly unpopular IRS,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said on Monday.

READ MORE