WASHINGTON — Idaho Republican Rep. Raúl Labrador said Wednesday that President Obama deserves to win the “Lie of the Year” award again in 2014 for saying there wasn’t a “smidgen of corruption” at the Internal Revenue Service when conservatives were targeted.
Labrador made the comments during a press availability with conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“I find it fascinating that this administration says there’s no smidgen of corruption, which I think will be the lie of this year,” Labrador said.
During a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly this week, Obama was asked about the revelation last year that the IRS had been intentionally targeting conservative groups for review.
Asked if there had been corruption at the IRS, Obama acknowledged “some bone-headed decisions” but said there was “not even a smidgen of corruption.”
On Wednesday, Labrador expressed disbelief over Obama’s claim. He also drew parallels between the IRS scandal and what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going through. Both Obama and Christie denied having prior knowledge of the respective scandals.
Making the argument that Christie has been given a much harder time than Obama, Labrador said: “They’re both allegations of political payback. One seems to go straight to the top of the Obama administration, and that’s because it’s an investigation of a Republican. And something that is clearly just as bad, or even worse, they’re not even getting to the bottom of it.”
Fact-checking website, PolitiFact, awarded its 2013 “Lie of the Year” to Obama for his infamous health-care promise that “if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan.”