The New IRS Scandal

This is hilarious:

House Republicans on Wednesday pushed back on an inspector general’s suggestion that the GOP asked for a limited inquiry into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, a statement Democrats have jumped on in recent days.

GOP lawmakers and staffers acknowledge that they reached out to Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) after hearing that Tea Party organizations seeking tax-exempt status felt they were being mistreated by the tax agency.

But Republicans also say that it made no sense for them to try to limit the inquiry to the Tea Party, because a broader inquiry would be needed to determine whether the IRS was treating conservative groups more harshly than other groups.

A spokesman for TIGTA J. Russell George said this week that the House Oversight Committee and Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked for a narrow inquiry just into Tea Party groups. Democrats allege this gave the public the false impression of a large IRS bias against conservatives. ***

You know, it's one thing for a GOP-fueled "scandal" to just fizzle out, like so many of them have in the last four years. But you just gotta love it when an attempt by Republicans to manufacture a "scandal" backfires so badly that the efforts to manufacture it become a scandal in and of itself.

I've asked this question before and I'll ask it again:  What did Darrell Issa know, and when did he know it?