Heaven forfend that the IG should actually do his job! Can’t have that, so let’s try to chill anyone from doing it in the future…
Why might some Democrats have been kept out of meetings? Because Congressional Democrats were being looked at during the investigation for their role in the IRS targeting.
Via The Hill:
Congressional Democrats have revived their interest in Russell George, the Treasury inspector general that outlined the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups, with a pair of lawmakers filing a formal ethics complaint.
Democrats have for months said that George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, crafted a flawed, misleading report that helped fan the flames of the IRS targeting controversy.
Now Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) are sharply criticizing George for agreeing to brief GOP staff at a late January meeting on the Affordable Care Act without Democrats in attendance.
Aides say they now know of multiple meetings of George with the staff of Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) from which Democrats were excluded.Two Democratic members of that panel – Reps. Matt Cartwright (Pa.) and Connolly – lodged a complaint on Wednesday about George’s original report on the IRS targeting last year, questioning his “independence, ethics, competence, and quality control” with an oversight board for inspectors general.