philippines insurrection. we prosecuted japanese soldiers for waterboarding in world war ii. we can t be a leader having a double standard for ourselves. it s just wrong. a lot was broken and bent out of shape trying to protect this torture program and we need to set all of that right as well. who is at the root of it, in your opinion senator? is this just some rogue agents that went off on their own because she wethey were upset te country got hit or do you think they took orders from the white house and it got out of hand. how would you describe what unfolded. i think there was a white house connection here. whether y when you look at the way in which the rules over at the justice were written up in a way that allowed torture program to
ultimately find them. but when you bring in the geeks and the nerds, then you ll find out. so what happens next? guide us through the next couple weeks here. well, you have parallel investigations. both the ways and means committee, the oversight committee. we have issued another subpoena for additional information. we re trying to track down the actual computer itself, try to find those that hardware that s out there. but also continue to talk to those people within the bowels of the department of the irs, and try to get that information. ways and means is doing something similar there, and there are other people that need to be interviewed. remember, the white house is the one that told us it was just two rogue agents in cincinnati. that was not true. so we are pursuing a whole host of leads. congressman, thanks very much. we ll see you soon. thanks very much congressman chaffetz. how low can we go? the economy shrinking by 2.9% in the first quarter. are white house policies
is that from the very beginning, the testimony repeatedly to congress by the ways and means committee who two years ago asked whether targeting was occurring and the assurances it wasn t all the way up to the point where it was rogue agents in cincinnati and it wasn t, the point which we were told nobody in d.c. knew anything about it and we now have copies of lerner s e-mails in black and white, the ones we do have that show she gave direction in violation of what the white house and president said they thought was the case. she gave direction to people in cincinnati to forward that information to her in washington, d.c. because that s where the deliberations and the decisions would be made. so the question is. let me interrupt for a moment about the lois lerner, the woman the head of that audit division that looked as tax exempt status for these applicants, if you will. she s now pleaded the fifth. she s refusing to cooperate which, of course is her constitutional right. but do you
cheek but the resalt a crime has been committed here and the commissioner of internal revenue service needs to be advised when he s testifying under oath to tell the truth. it s interesting, as i go to you here, first we were told it was rogue agents in cincinnati until the rogue agent told congress, no, it wasn t us. we were taking orders from washington. the president says not a smidgeon of evidence, that s not true. what do you make of this new development as it relates to senator grassley tonight that in fact they were targeting him? well, you know, that doesn t surprise me. nothing surprises me anymore. the irs scandal reminds me of those infomercials where they say wait, wait, there s more because every time you think you ve heard it all, you hear something new, something outrageous that they have done. how about when we learned barely six weeks ago that the irs, lois lerner, had sent a database of 12,000 citizen groups to the fbi to go through and see about possible criminal
how would you know what elements of the crime existed? you don t even know what statutes are at play. i m going ask you again. what statutes have you evaluated? i think you can rely on common sense that nothing i have seen. common sense, instead of the criminal code. you want to rely on common sense. can you shake your head all you want to, commissioner. you have said today that there s no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, and i m asking you what criminal statutes you have reviewed to reach that conclusion? you re repeating a talking point from our colleagues on the otherside that we re obsessed with the white house. it was jay carney who perpetuated the myth that it was two rogue agents in ohio. it wasn t any of us. was that accurate? was that first initial line of defense that this is just two rogue agents in ohio. was that accurate, commissioner? not that i know of. so that wasn t accurate and that came from the white house. who said there s not a smidgeon of corruption? wh