Already planning for a GOP president in 2017, Sen. Ted Cruz sent a letter Monday demanding that the Justice Department preserve all documents from its completed investigation into the IRS’s tea party targeting, saying too many questions still remain.
Mr. Cruz, a Texas Republican who is himself seeking his party’s presidential nomination, said the department’s decision to close the investigation and clear IRS employees of any wrongdoing was a sign of just how broken the Justice Department has become.
“It is important for you and other officials in this Administration to understand that this administration’s decisions to neither continue this investigation nor appoint a special prosecutor do not represent the conclusion of this matter,” Mr. Cruz said in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “Given this Administration’s refusal to conduct itself appropriately, or take the issue of the potential illegal conduct of IRS employees seriously, any subsequent administration should reserve the right to reopen the matter, conduct its own investigation, or appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation.”
Mr. Cruz charged Ms. Lynch with preserving all documents obtained by her investigators during their probe, and said copies should be given to the National Archives and to the department’s inspector general so they could also preserve them.
And the senator warned that anyone who doesn’t comply with his request could face criminal penalties.
“It is my hope that a future administration would pursue justified prosecutions with all due energy,” he said.
The Justice Department announced last month that while the IRS showed poor management and decision-making, no employees broke the law by blocking tea party groups’ nonprofit status applications or subjecting them to intrusive questions that the tax agency has admitted were inappropriate.
Investigators specifically cleared former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner, saying that far from being blamed for wrongdoing, she appeared to try to correct the situation once she learned of it.
Republicans questioned the Justice Department investigation’s validity, saying it was tainted by President Obama’s own comments early on declaring no evidence of any wrongdoing, and by staffing choices, which included an Obama campaign donor as one of the lawyers handling the investigation.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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