The use of government to silence critics is an extremely dangerous abuse of power. Was the IRS acting as an instrument of the Obama reelection campaign when it targeted conservative organizations? The blatant cover-up apparently underway at the IRS is worthy of a special prosecutor. The statistical likelihood that the computer hard drives of Lois Lerner and six other high-level IRS staffers, all at the nexus of communications about the suspicious activities, all crashed is just about nil. How high might the scandal go? One of those staffers is Nicole Flax, who was a frequent visitor to the White House as the scandal unfolded. Somehow, Jay Carney and Barack Obama are certain the there wasn’t a “smidgeon of corruption” in the targeting incident. First, Obama insisted that the whole thing was caused by “a couple of ‘Dilberts’ at the Cincinnati IRS office.” Ah, the little people. Of course, we learned that was not true even before Lois Lerner took the Fifth to avoid incrimination.

The latest Congressional hearings on the targeting scandal have featured an intransigent IRS Commissioner seemingly intent on reinforcing the impression of an “arrogant and lawless IRS.” His answers to questions about the hard drive crashes and their ultimate disposal, his earlier promises to provide all of Lois Lerner’s emails, the failure to back-up the information on the hard drives, and the delays in informing Congress about the crashes were unsatisfactory. Today, the House Oversight Committee heard testimony from the National Archivist that the IRS has violated the Federal Records Act. There is undoubtedly more to come.