Letter: Holder Aide Accidentally Calls Issa Staff for Help Spinning IRS Scandal

by Jonathan Strong
9 Sep 2014

A senior communications aide to Attorney General Eric Holder seemingly called House oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa's staff by accident and asked for their help spinning new revelations about the IRS scandal, Issa said in a September 8 letter to Holder.

The aide, Brian Fallon, is a former senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and a well-known personality on Capitol Hill. The letter describes Fallon as “audibly shaken” when he realizes his request to leak documents to help get ahead of news stories about them was mistakenly made to the very office he was seeking to undermine. Issa believes the call was intended to be made to Democratic Rep. Elijah Cumming's staff, the ranking member on the oversight panel, the letter said.

According to the letter, Fallon – who is not named in the letter but confirmed he made the call – asked if the aides could release the IRS scandal documents to “selected reporters” to give Fallon an “opportunity to comment publicly on it.”

Fallon explained to Issa aides that the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Affairs had not permitted him to release the documents to the public and he wanted to get ahead of the story “before the Majority” – meaning Issa – could share it, according to the letter.

Issa aides – who had placed the call on speakerphone – were “caught off guard by the unusual nature of the call and the odd request” and asked Fallon to “e-mail the material for evaluation.”

“At this point,” Fallon “abruptly placed the call on hold for approximately three minutes.” When Fallon returned to the call, “he was audibly shaken. He immediately stated that there was a 'change in plans' and that there would be no effort” by DOJ to release the material early.

Fallon “proceeded to pitch the idea that the Department and the Committee should 'help one another' while simultaneously saying that 'you need to say what you need to say.'”

In the letter, Issa told Holder the phone call suggests ongoing coordination between DOJ aides and Cummings' staff to undermine oversight committee investigations.

Fallon's “efforts to prejudice the Committee's oversight work demands examination,” Issa wrote.

Fallon, however, said in a written statement that nothing untoward occurred.

“There is nothing inappropriate about department staff having conversations with both the majority and minority staff as they prepare responses to formal inquiries. That includes conversations between the spokespeople for the Department and the committee,” Fallon said.

Other than confirming he made the phone call in question, Fallon did not respond to any of the details of what took place during the call.

The letter referred to a “subsequent explanation” from Fallon that “he simply called to improve the Office of Public Affairs' working relationship with the Committee” but said the explanation “is inconsistent with statements and requests he made before he placed the call on hold.”

“It strains credulity to believe that the Department would seek to begin to improve relations via a telephone call between two individuals who had never spoken to each other before at 5:01pm on a Friday afternoon at the end of a District Work Period in the waning days of the 113th Congress,” Issa wrote.

(Excerpt)

Read more:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...ally-Calls-Issa-For-Help-Spinning-IRS-Scandal

Surely this guy is a relative of Jimmy Fallon, because it can only be a joke to call the opposition to ask and plead for information that would make them appear bad and incompetent. Talk about being caught with the goods?

 

Can one say "Busted!"? I think that leftwingers had better learn how, because this just busted things wide open!

There, now that I said what I feel, we both know that nothing will come of this since we not only have a rogue administration in control of the Executive Branch of government but we have it in place with the complete endorsement of at least two thirds of the Mainstream Media which in turn, long ago deep-sixed anything smacking of journalistic ethics, since they got in the way of being a political arm of the Democratic Party. So . . . it . . . goes.

 

Please let the left make intelligent comment on this event. By all that is holy, I ask for only this.

 

Lol, but we're crazy if we think that Holder and Obama are running interference on this thing.

 

This is almost as good as when the city board Democrats were caught on open mic talking about delaying funding for social programs in order to blame it on Republicans.

 

They're embarrassment is too great for a response.

 

Actually in a stunned-bunny mind set they are collectively waiting until Chris Matthews and the bloggers of The Huffington Post tell them what to think about it later on this week . . . that is if the Mainstream Media for some weird reason actually decides to cover this and make any sort of big deal of it. So what most of them are going to do is wait and see if the ever-obliging MSM will sweep it under the carpet for them. End of problem, yes?

 

You're asking for the impossible.

You see, one's wires need to connect. The left's don't.

It will be the usual lies and deflection.

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Embarrassed?

Surely, you jest.

The left has NO embarrassment. No shame. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

 

Sorry I erred in my evaluation. I thought that some still retained a little pride and loyalty to America.

 

Cummins needs to be called to floor and answer as to whether he is acting in cahoots with the White House to interfer in the congressional investigation and be immediately removed from the committee then Hold needs to be brought before Congress to answer why someone on his staff his attempting to infer in a Congressional investigation and copy of the indictment to be issued against the person. Then Obama can fire holder and get someone in there the American people can have faith in again.

Then I woke up.........

 

I'm thinking no comment because this is exactly the kind of thing that attorneys are not supposed to do.

 

Hah! I know, I also indulge in the momentary fantasy that this is the pre-Obama Democratic Party leadership with old fashioned ethics and with honesty and integrity to boot as standard features; but that's yesteryear stuff and today's leftwingers have no use for that old fashioned -- in their estimation -- crap.

 

You have already had on thread moved to the conspiracy section I guess you are going for two today.

 

Can you post the evidence that this is a conspiracy?

 

yeah, dems are not pros at making scandals like the right is, proves there is no scandal here

the kids job is pr, he has to make sure he has the story right and spin it in his employers favor... that is what people in PR do.... but embarrassing for sure

.

 

If the poster can do so then the entire Dem Party will forthwith give him (or her) a medal . . . because it appears to be a real news item.

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You mean realize in mid commission that he has just revealed an actual illegal conspiracy is occurring and then do his best to slink away?

 

"“There is nothing inappropriate about department staff having conversations with both the majority and minority staff as they prepare responses to formal inquiries. That includes conversations between the spokespeople for the Department and the committee,” Fallon said. "

he called ISIS by mistake... embarrassing.. yes.. illegal no

.

 

Since I can't find ANY other source than the RW echochamber garbage sites for this story, I need a LEGITIMATE source to see what it was SPUN FROM! It's entirely possible it is wholly made up.

 

Hahahahaha! But that's not just what he was doing. The physical act is still the physical act whether it is in the form of gentle lovemaking or a rousing bout of S&M, and what this bozo was doing was not the ethical OR legal equivalent of gentle lovemaking. It metaphorically contained a whip and padded cuffs . . . and a feather. One must not forget . . . the feather.

 

Yessss . . . because as the whole world knows MSNBC and The Huffington Post and et.al. of the Leftwing media are soooooooooooo eager and dedicated when it comes to reporting Bush Administration wrong doing. Ahem! Hahahahaha!

 

`Some can only wish.....Then its `entirely possible` they can say all is fake and "feel good"...cant have `o` and his appointed ones looking worse than they already are...`

 

Well in all fairness to the Left, false or completely true, at this point in the ongoing soap opera that is the "Hope and Change!" and "Perfect Transparency!" administration it's functionally impossible to make this bunch of anti-ethical clowns look any worse than they already do on a daily basis. I mean they make Nixon and his crowd of thugs look ethical and law abiding in comparison.

 

We are still waiting for your conspiracy Doll?

 

The liberals will always be able to figure out a way to defend the indefensible.

 

That is hilarious.