Obama Says Government Must Never Target Political Enemies. LOL! Remember the IRS Scandal?

Barack Obama is warning Americans about the danger of a president using federal power against political critics.

That is an important principle. I guess.

It is also a message that lands awkwardly coming from a former president whose own administration spent years embroiled in controversies over the IRS, aggressive investigations involving journalists, and an FBI investigation into Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Obama weighed in Sunday on the Trump administration’s investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar, arguing that government cannot selectively target people because of their political beliefs or speech. Federal agents recently searched Omar’s residence and seized her phone as part of an investigation into whether decades-old immigration and naturalization paperwork contained false statements. Omar denies wrongdoing, and no charges have been filed. Yet.

Obama attempted to present himself as the clean messenger on politicized government power requires some historical amnesia.

Let’s not foget the facts.

In 2013, the Treasury inspector general found that the IRS had used inappropriate criteria to identify tax-exempt organizations for additional scrutiny, including criteria tied to names such as “Tea Party” and “Patriot” and to policy positions. The audit documented unnecessary information requests and delays that sometimes lasted years. A later inspector-general review found that the IRS had also used questionable screening criteria affecting other ideological groups, complicating the claim that every improper action was exclusively aimed at conservatives. There was no finding that Obama personally ordered the targeting.

Then there was Obama’s Justice Department.

The DOJ secretly obtained records from more than 20 Associated Press phone lines during a leak investigation, sweeping up calls involving scores of journalists. The AP called the seizure a massive intrusion into newsgathering.

Federal investigators also obtained emails and phone records belonging to Fox News reporter James Rosen while investigating a classified-information leak. The Committee to Protect Journalists later described the Obama administration’s aggressive leak prosecutions and surveillance of journalists as having a chilling effect on the press.

And then came Crossfire Hurricane.

The FBI opened its 2016 investigation into whether people associated with Trump’s campaign were coordinating with Russia. We know how that turned out.

The underlying principle Obama is pretending to support now is that law enforcement should not become a weapon for settling political scores…

So we’ve gotta ask ourselves why that principle did not begin before January 2017, why it disappeared for four years after 2020, and should return now in 2026 before inevitably vanishishing again whenever Dems win White House.