Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says two big stories out of Washington, D.C. in the past few days show the federal government is becoming “a threat to freedom and liberties.” In one instance, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted targeting conservative political groups with ties to the Tea Party or that had “patriot” in their names.
“There needs to be full accounting from the agency, including details of who was involved,” Grassley says, “An IRS official publicly stated last Friday that the agency had targeted certain groups after the IRS denied this kind of Nixonian activity last year.”
Grassley, a Republican, says he’s heard at countless town meetings in Iowa how people don’t trust the federal government and speak out about it getting bigger and more powerful.
“Now the fact that the IRS was targeting certain groups for political reasons crystallizes the distrust in a very big way,” Grassley says, “because of the IRS’ reach into taxpayer information and the intimidation that comes from the agency.”
It’s also reported the U.S. Justice Department dug into two months of Associated Press reporters’ and editors’ work and personal phone records. Grassley says that’s equally as distressing.
“The Constitution was written not to power government over people but to protect the people from the government,” Grassley says. “When government exercises power that goes beyond the Constitution, it becomes a real threat.”
Not only were the government’s actions unconstitutional, Grassley says, “but it’s a threat to the freedom and liberties guaranteed to the people by the Constitution.”