The weekly column from Clark Judge:

The AP, the IRS and President Obama’s Leadership
By Clark S. Judge: managing director, White House Writers Group, Inc.; chairman, Pacific Research Institute

It will come as no surprise to anyone when I say that Washington is in full scandal mode these days.

I attended a Washington dinner this past week — one of those fancy affairs in a fancy room with fancy speakers, fancy food, and funds raised.  There may be a dozen such events a night in this city.

On one side of me sat a former aide to senior officials.  His first question after we shared our backgrounds was, so what do you think about AP, the IRS and Benghazi?  The query might as well have been, what did the president know and when did he know it?  That was Senator Howard Baker’s question during the Watergate hearings and the essential Washington-in-scandal-mode inquiry every since. Continue Reading

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will join me today to discuss his new book, Rumsfeld’s Rules.  He will be appearing at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California tonight.

Read this. FNC’s James Rosen was targeted.

We know about this one.  How many others?  And who did Rosen email during those days whose information is now in the hands of the DOJ? More from WaPo story:

Court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist — and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010. The case also raises new concerns among critics of government secrecy about the possible stifling effect of these investigations on a critical element of press freedom: the exchange of information between reporters and their sources.

Rosen wrote an excellent bio of John Mitchell, so he knows what it means for the DOJ to be politicized.

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The House working group made progress last week, a development missed by many focused on the IRS hearings. Congressman Raul Labrador is among the leaders of the effort, and his stamp of approval is vital to the success of the effort. No details yet, but Homeland Security Chair Mike McCaul led his committee to release details of border security metrics that will be crucial to evaluating border security legislation.

The situation in the Senate is confused, with the Judiciary Committee’s hearings not really the key except in a negative way.  If the same sex provisions proposed by Vermont’s Patrick Leahy become part of the bill, the bill will die.  Beyond that, everyone is waiting for amendments supported by Senator Rubio to strengthen southern border security and entry/exit screening.

The scandals will continue to absorb most of the attention of the MSM and of conservative forums and talk radio, but immigration reform remains certain to dominate the summer months.

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