Timing is everything: Charges for Menendez but not Lerner

The payola charges have been rattling around at the Justice Department for years so why did they have to drop as Menendez’s main issue – opposition to the Obama nuke deal – was hitting yet another milestone moment amid deepening opposition? Why not do it before the legislation Menendez is sponsoring to constrain the administration’s Iran dealings was underway? Doing it now looks too much like the administration is sending a message to critics and, fairly or not, further stamps the Obama Justice Department as a political operation. [In the latest Fox News poll, 76 percent of voters say President Obama should be required to get congressional approval on an Iran deal.] The political consequence of the timing was made more pungent to congressional Republicans coming, as it did, alongside another decision from the Justice Department: No charges will be brought against the central figure in the IRS political targeting scandal, Lois Lerner, for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena. Lerner has been stonewalling investigators about her role in the agency’s targeting of Obama’s political enemies. This twin-bill of highly charged decisions from the Justice Department could be all coincidental, but if that were so, prudence would demand outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder do something to prevent the appearance of impropriety. It seems instead that that he is just fine with that.

Timing is everything: Charges for Menendez but not Lerner | Fox News