A pair of Cincinnati Democrats, including the Ohio city’s former mayor, wrote an op-ed on Wednesday saying they believe that the ongoing IRS scandal was the product of orders from agency officials in Washington.
"We are fed up with this constant refrain, which has been picked up by the media blaming the scandal on local IRS workers," wrote former Cincinnati mayor Tom Luken and Hamilton County auditor Dusty Rhodes, both Democrats.
They are referring to the insistence by top agency officials that the illicit targeting of conservative groups by employees of the IRS’s tax-exempt division was limited to the agency’s office in Cincinnati.
The op-ed is headlined, "Clear city's name in IRS scandal." Luken and Rhodes wrote that they "believe the problem originated in Washington."
When specific groups are targeted by a powerful government agency, it is more than just a "controversy." When the former IRS head visits the White House 167 times and fails to explain why, it is more than just a "controversy." When the IRS tax-exempt section director testifies before a congressional committee that she did nothing wrong but then takes the Fifth Amendment, it is more than just a "controversy."
This is an outright assault on our free speech and religious freedoms, perhaps the most egregious ever. Attempting to dismiss it as random acts of low-level employees here is offensive and beyond reason. […]
This is not a partisan issue. We encourage Congress to press on with a full and complete investigation of the IRS. We expect the result put the blame squarely where it belongs, and in so doing clear Cincinnati’s good name and reputation.