Fed Attorney: “I can't for the life of me come up with any kind of innocent explanation for why Obama would have met with the Chief Counsel of the IRS.”

The timing of Obama’s meeting with IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins – just two days before Wilkins issued Tea Party targeting guidance – is not the only thing, uh, strange about said meeting.  The Tax Prof has received an e-mail from an attorney in the general counsel’s office in a federal agency.  The attorney states that this kind of meeting with a President is out of the ordinary, improper, and, well, hard to explain away.

I’ll restrain myself, dispense with further commentary, and simply let the attorney speak:

As someone who works as an attorney at an agency general counsel's office, I think people are missing the significance of Obama meeting with the IRS chief counsel in the White House. Understand, agency general counsels are not authorized to give legal advice to the President. They advise their agency heads. Only the AG and by delegation the Office of Legal Counsel to the President is authorized to give legal advice to the President. In my seven years of working at a General Counsel's office, I have never once heard of our general counsel meeting with the President. OLC would go crazy if he did. I have worked on a couple of legal opinions that did go to the White House. And each time they were staffed through OLC. Nothing went to the President that wasn't signed off on by OLC and delivered to him by OLC.

So I can't for the life of me come up with any kind of innocent explanation for why Obama would have met with the Chief Counsel of the IRS. That meeting shouldn't ever happen, and especially not without the Commissioner of the IRS being there. Presidents just don't go to agency chief counsels with legal questions. Presidents don't go to anyone with legal questions. Their staff does. The idea that the President would sit down with some random agency chief counsel and discuss some pressing legal issue is just bizarre to anyone who has worked in the legal field at that level. I am not sure the reporters covering this story understand how legal advice is actually delivered to the President and just how out of the ordinary that meeting was.

Downfall X: IRS Chief Counsel Met With Obama 2 Days Before Issuing Tea Party Targeting Instructions

Last month, I explained why, although he’s guilty as Hell, I do not expect a smoking gun directly linking Obama to the IRS scandals or other Obamagate scandals for that matter.

But after this revelation yesterday, I am beginning to wonder.  On April 23^rd, 2012, IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins, one of only two Obama political appointees to the IRS, spent seven hours at the White House and met with Obama during that time.  And guess what happened two days later . . .

On April 25, 2012, Wilkins sent Hull and fellow Washington-based IRS official Lois Lerner [Her, yet again – Ed.] “additional comments on the draft guidance” for approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to the IRS’ inspector general’s report.

Now can this be just a coincidence?  Sure, but likely not.

I think Obama gave his approval in some form to tea party targeting during that meeting with Wilkins. (And that approval may have been in the form of “Carry on” as targeting was already occurring.) A month ago, I would have found such direct approval unlikely due to Obama’s disconnected leadership style.  But the timing of the meeting and of the guidance just two days later is close to damning.  The main question in my mind now is will someone confess that Obama gave approval of IRS targeting.  And I do not yet have an opinion on that question.

If someone does confess to Obama’s approval of IRS targeting, it will be the Downfall of the Obama regime.

MORE:

Another interesting coincidence.  Jeffrey Zients, who met during IRS officials during the targeting, and who resigned from the Obama Administration two weeks before the scandal broke, disappeared since then and is now out of the country.  Hmmmm.

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Downfall is an ongoing series anticipating and tracking what I expect will be the self-destruction of Obama.

The first post may be found here.  The series may be found here.