Secret e-mail accounts belie transparency

Richard Windsor over at the Environmental Protection Agency received the agency’s recognition as a “scholar of ethical behavior.”  How ironic to learn that Richard Windsor never existed.  He was the e-mail alias for Lisa Jackson, the former EPA administrator.  A recognition for scholar of ethical behavior?  How ethical is that?

Mr. Windsor seems to be the norm within the Obama administration.  Some of the president’s political appointees, including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, have been using alias e-mail addresses.  The Associated Press asked for a list of political appointees’ e-mail addresses under the Freedom of Information Act.  The Labor Department wanted to charge them $1 million.  Apparently with this administration freedom of information is not free.

And this was supposed to be the most transparent administration in history?

It’s obvious from the recent scandals exactly what’s going on.  If you can use your alias for your more, how should we say, ‘clandestine’ activities you can shield those activities from the press, even if you turn over all your e-mails under your real name.

The fact that the Labor Department wanted so much money for a simple list arouses suspicion that all is not above board in this administration.

Now with the revelation from Congressman Issa’s committee that there were no “rogue agents” who went after the tea party groups it’s clear to see how alias e-mail accounts could come in handy.  The “rogue agents” argument in the IRS scandal is starting to look like the “anti-Muslim video” argument in the Benghazi scandal.  The question is with all this obvious obfuscation will we ever really know what happened?

The AP has been trying to get a list of e-mail addresses from ten agencies including the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS.  Treasury has been dragging its feet for about three months.  The Treasury spokesman, by the way, is named Marissa Hopkins Secreto.  Perfect.  Sounds like the name for a Bond girl.

Several agencies have turned over some e-mail addresses but the lists are suspiciously incomplete.  The foot-dragging only compounds the suspicion in light of the IRS scandal where agents are now telling investigators that orders to single out conservative groups came from Washington.  How far up in Washington remains to be seen but we already know that the “two rogue agents” story was another fabrication.  Congressman Issa went so far as to refer to White House spokesman Jay Carney as “a paid liar.”

Having a second e-mail account is nothing unusual, especially for people in the public spotlight.  What’s bizarre is apparently EPA Administrator Jackson corresponded under the Richard Windsor pseudonym as Windsor, in some cases, never revealing her true identity to the people with whom she was corresponding.  What could possibly be the reason for that?

I’m sure the president will deny any knowledge of this, too, much as he has remained detached from the rest of the scandals swirling around him.  But, for how long can his plausible deniability remain plausible?  His senior advisors knew about the IRS investigation but didn’t tell him.  People all in his administration were unleashing the IRS on innocent people just because they didn’t like their politics and he had no idea.  Cabinet officials are apparently conducting official business behind some alias and he had no idea.  And don’t get me started on Benghazi.

If the president had no idea about any of this, in the very best light, it appears he was asleep at the switch.  As is typical with the Democrats, just saying you take responsibility seems to pass for punishment.  That is no longer acceptable nor is it sufficient.

How Benghazi, the IRS and the AP are all connected

There are three stories swirling around in the press right now and I'm going to tell you how they're all connected.  There's the Benghazi cover-up.  We'll get back to that one in a moment.  There's the IRS story in which the IRS was targeting conservatives.  Then there's the AP story.  The Obama justice department subpoenaed phone records from the AP ostensibly in search of a leak about a CIA operation in Yemen.  This is the story that connects the other two.

You see, the Associated Press and most of the mainstream media view the subpoenaed phone records as overreach, at the very least, and a gross violation of the sacred bond between a journalist and his or her source, at the very worst.  Once anonymous sources understand the government will violate that bond whenever they please then secret sources will cease to exist.  The mainstream media types view this as an abuse of power by the Obama administration and they know that anonymous sources are the bedrock of investigative journalism.

The AP story may not yield anything criminal by the administration.  After all, they saw a CIA operation compromised by someone who leaked information to the Associated Press and they're probably within their rights to plug that leak.  The White House denying any knowledge of the details of the story is laughable but that's another issue.  But what that story has done is it has made the mainstream media suspicious of the White House.

The IRS story, although it only involves conservative victims at this point, is troubling to the mainstream media because they know an administration powerful enough to sic the IRS on conservatives is powerful enough to sic the IRS on them, if they ever have a mind to.  That's why they're covering this story.

ProPublica, which bills itself as an investigative journalism organization, is really little more than a front group for George Soros and his liberal agenda.  They are funded, in part, by Soros' Open Society Foundation.  And they partner with practically every mainstream media outlet in the country including NPR and all the major news networks, as well as many establishment newspapers.  Pretty scary.  They have now admitted to getting nine confidential applications from the IRS last year and using them in hit pieces they tried to pass off as investigative journalism.  As the noose tightens on the IRS scandal it was inevitable that ProPublica would be exposed.  They tried to get out in front of the story to pass themselves off as whistle-blowers when, in fact, they're part of the entire ugly conspiracy to target conservatives.

ProPublica's involvement in this nasty affair is a not-so-subtle reminder to the rest of the mainstream media that the thin line between their being used by this administration and serious journalism is far thinner than they were previously willing to admit.  They feel sullied by it all.  They've awakened to the sad fact that they had become little more than apologists for this administration instead of holding it accountable, as is their duty as journalists.  The news in recent days that the heads of CBS News and ABC News both have siblings who not only work in the Obama White House but are directly involved in the Benghazi affair surely are jolting enough even for a jaundiced news media.

The AP story and the IRS story have caused the mainstream media to double back and start asking more questions about Benghazi.  What first appeared to them as conservative hysteria over minor details is now being viewed through the newly-grinded lens of an administration that will disregard any law to get what it wants or to cover up its indiscretions.  Here we are eight months after the Benghazi attacks and the major networks are just now demanding to see the e-mails pertaining to the talking points on Benghazi.

The AP story will probably pan out to be a non-issue but it will prove to be the catalyst that finally opened the eyes of the mainstream media about what's been going on for the last four-plus years.

For the first time ever the mainstream media don't trust Barack Obama.  Welcome to the club.