Elijah Cummings erupts at Darrell Issa over 'one-sided, un-American' IRS probe

On Wednesday, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) exploded during one of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)'s ongoing hearings about purported anti-conservative malfeasance at the Internal Revenue Service.

According to Talking Points Memo, Issa had summoned former IRS director Lois Lerner before the Congressional committee. Lerner pleaded the Fifth Amendment, declining to comment for the investigation, which has dragged on for months, in spite of a complete lack of evidence to indicate that conservative groups were being targeted by the tax agency.

When Lerner took the Fifth, Issa called an end to the hearing, saying he could see no point in continuing.

Cummings protested, his voice rising to a shout.

"I am a member of the Congress of the United States of America! I am tired of this," he said. "You cannot just have a one-sided investigation. There is absolutely something wrong with that and it is absolutely un-American."

"Hear, hear!" said someone in the chamber.

Cummings went on to say that over the course of the last year, the investigation has squandered more than $14 million and "we have found no evidence to support allegations of a political conspiracy against conservative groups."

The committee has found, he said, "evidence of gross mismanagement" within the bureau, but nothing to support conservative groups' allegations that they were specifically targeted for punitive taxation and auditing.

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