Are Karl Rove & GOP behind IRS scandal?

We know the Republican Congress is in a tizzy about the IRS looking into requests for IRS Tax exemptions for organizations named "Tea Party" and other conservative labels. They even had some hearings on them, attempting to tie the White House and President Obama to the scene. But as hard as they try, they simply cannot, since the White House had no knowledge of the incidents until told by the Inspector General. But wait. If President Obama, the White House and Democrats had nothing to do with something that seems so political, what about the Republicans?

Rather than the guessing game that the Republican Congress wants to play,let's take a look at the facts, firstly from the hearings themselves. Democrats were not allowed to have any information gathered by the committee's staff or the list of witnesses in advance. That is highly unusual in a Congressional hearing. Why all the Republican control? To further the point, last week an eye opening report revealed that Congressman Darrell Issa, the House Oversight Committee chairman who made all the charges against the White House, actually knew about the Inspector General's report before them, the people he was accusing. Remember that this is the same committee that falsified White House emails during the hearings on Benghazi.

Second, let's take a look at the questions asked during those hearings, specifically the questions that were not asked. While they searched for a White House link, the committee never asked about any connections to Republican operatives. Not one question. Why?

The man in charge of the IRS when this took place was a Bush appointee, Douglas Shulman, at the same time that Karl Rove worked in the White House and Dick Cheney was Vice President. These guys know a thing or two about appointments. And take note that several Liberal organizations and churches were targeted during those Bush days. Most famously All Saints Episcopal, in Pasadena, California. Their crime? A sermon about the ills of the Iraq war. A subject so close to the Bush administration's hearts that they sent an American hero, Colin Powell, to lie before the United Nations. So rather than the Obama administration contacting the IRS, it is more likely that a Republican like Rove would give orders to the man that he helped appoint. But still, why would they target their allies the Tea Party?

The formal Republican party was frustrated with the Tea Party, who won primaries with candidates like one who believed in "legitimate rape," but lost general elections along the way. Rove and his gang realized that as long as the right wing elements of the Tea party were around, they would not win the Senate, much less the White House. And it was Rove who was the most outspoken about the Tea Party at that time. Heck, that Tea Party made Romney, the candidate of choice for Rove, go so far right in order to win the primaries, he never really had a shot. On the flipside, Democrats loved the Tea Party, who campaigned against women, gays, and immigration. The Tea Party was helping the Democrats win elections, why would they want to stop them?

Step in Rove, a man who would step on your grandmother's grave to win an election. He knows all the IRS players, he helped appoint some of them in his days in Bush's White House. In fact, many in formal Republican circles did, too. Isn't it time to summon those phone and email logs from those Bush-era IRS appointees? Unless, of course, they have something to hide.

Mark Segal is one of Philadelphia's most awarded opinion writers and has been recognized by the National Newspaper Association, Pennsylvania News-media Association, Suburban Newspapers of America and the Society of Professional Journalists, among others. He can be reached on facebook or on twitter.