Once in a while, a federal judge does something really cool

Emmett Sullivan, has had it with the IRS not delivering the goods:

The IRS is in hot water once again with no-nonsense federal district court judge Emmet Sullivan over Lois Lerner’s emails. A year ago, Judge Sullivan ordered the IRS to explain in writing and under oath how some of Lerner’s emails went missing, and to detail any potential methods for recovering them. 

The IRS managed to recover 1,800 emails that it previously claimed “inadvertently” were destroyed. Now, it has again incurred Judge Sullivan’s wrath.

Today, he threatened to hold the Commissioner of the IRS and Justice Department attorneys representing the government in contempt of court because they failed to produce status reports and newly recovered emails of Lois Lerner, as the judge had ordered on July 1, 2015.

Sullivan told the government that its excuses for not following his July 1 order were “indefensible, ridiculous, and absurd.” He reminded Justice Department lawyer Geoffrey Klimas that he had the ability to detain him for contempt. And he added, “I will haul into court the IRS Commissioner to hold him personally into contempt” if there is any more non-compliance with the July 1 order.

In that order, Sullivan directed the IRS to begin producing, every week, the nearly 1,800 newly recovered Lerner emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The IRS did not produce any Lerner emails until July 15. It also failed to provide Judicial Watch the status report regarding the Lerner email production that Sullivan had ordered.

Judge Sullivan was not amused. And he was as scathing in his written order as he was from the bench.

When President Cruz signs the bill a solidly conservative Congress sends him dismantling the IRS, we won't have to worry about further acts of persecution and sleaze from this agency that ought never to have existed.  Cleanup will be about the last bit of business regarding this horrid instrument of  tyranny.