Darrell Issa Takes Jabs At Elijah Cummings At Irs Hearing 7/18/2013

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) were sparring a bit in the IRS hearings today. While that in itself isn’t unexpected, the terms used were at least a little amusing.

Even more amusing was the report from MSNBC on the incident:

At the beginning of the hearing, Cummings called Issa’s remarks “unsubstantiated nonsense,” adding the Republican rushed to his previous conclusions “with no evidence whatsoever.”
A bit later, Issa skewered the Maryland Dem, arguing he never said it came from the White House, only from Washington, D.C. “We now see it today leading to Washington…Although I expect the right to immediately say it leads to the White House, I’m always shocked when the ranking member seems to want to say, like a little boy whose hand has been caught in a cookie jar, ‘What hand? What cookie?’ I’ve never said it leads to the White House.”

The argument at hand was about reports that surfaced the night before the hearing that initially stated that the investigation into discrimination by the IRS against conservative organizations seeking non-profit status had lead to DC. Later, “DC” was reported as “The White House”, however exactly how that happen isn’t exactly clear. Either way, Issa wasn’t going to stand for having Cummings make accusations that he was the source of those statements. As for the “hands in the cookie jar” comment, that was presumably referring to Cummings’ attempt to deflect blame for the apparently unethical actions of the IRS workers in charge of handling non-profit applications. Regardless, Issa did apologize for his comment later, stating that is was turn of phrase from his childhood, nothing more.