still employed. nobody seems to lose their jobs except the irs commissioner did in that case. megyn: who was leaving two weeks later anyway. exactly. exactly. and allowed to retire with benefits and all the rest of it. john boehner said there ought to be a criminal investigation not a firing. the administration makes a lot of noises about investigation and doing the right thing. as we know from the whistle blowers, the arb was wholly inadequate. haven t suffered any serious consequences. megyn: they are on paid leave according to rand paul s office told the the washington post that paid leave, paid vacation basically still. now we have lois lerner on paid vacation over at the irs. so is there a reason, i know it s hard to civil servant. in those reviews they try to argue i should not be fired and here is why this
off-the-record basis. megyn: there is no question this is the charm offensive. yes. megyn: let s say eric holder comes back later today and says we ll do it on the record. i can t imagine going to meet with three organizations that have said yes, right? like politico, abc news and one other. is he going to go forward with just that meeting or will he be forced to say okay we will do something on the record and then does that change things? well, it changes things. if he does it on the record, then reporters will come and they will ask tough questions. going back to your question about the polls and people see the irs scandal and appreciate it because they understand what it can be like, the powerlessness of being attacked by the irs. the benghazi scandal, they understand the national security concerns. they don t necessarily aren t going to jump to the side of reporters. but this is a case where reporters and the press aren t always held in the highest standards. actually are
and the appearance of independence. your thoughts on that? yeah. i mean, you said his access. but there is also the willingness and that s a question here. and that s the issue that s been raised. the irs commissioner is, remember what the irs is, is a law enforcement agency. it is like the fbi. it is semi autonomous. it has a head, who is picked by the president but confirmed for a term longer than the president. the idea is that this person will have some flexibility to do as they think best. sense the terrible scandals had previously occurred with the irs 40 years ago and beyond with the irs being political enemy. this has become even more necessary as people said no. this is an autonomous office. much like the fbi director let s say who is also the head of the law enforcement agency that they say we re doing our job and we re not going to be in the political game.
going to the white house thatch is weird. megyn: people don t have to take your word for it or my word for it. forminger irs petitioner who preceded doug shulman emerson. he appeared before in 2012 to talk about how the irs might be enforcing new tax regulations we are going to face under obama care the new taxes we are going to pay. many of us under obama care? he was talking about the need for the irs to be and to appear independent of the white house. here is how he put it. great deal of independence from other agencies. i worry direct participation of the service in a major nontax administration initiative has the potential to erode the historic independence of the service. and let me be clear here, i have nothing but the highest regard for commissioner shulman and his team. i m not suggesting i have
now what they want to know of the secretary of state is what is the status of the state department employees who were faulted by that now infamous arb report that took a look at everybody except for hillary clinton and so on? who is to blame, what happened, why we didn t have the security we should have and so on. we did have four names of state department employees who had messed up, including the one who comes to mind charlene lamb kept saying the security was adequate on the ground even though four people died. so they are demanding to know what is the status of their employment and the way it looks right now, marc, no one has been fired. yeah. my understanding four people placed on administrative leave including charlene lamb. nobody has been fired. that s exactly right. i mean, look, there is no consequences for any of these things. the woman at the irs who was targeting. megyn: lois lerner. targeting people she is