Rep. Michele Bachmann may be exiting Congress in 2014, but not without one last hurrah: Bachmann will make joint appearances Wednesday at two conservative gatherings on the Hill.
Bachmann is one of the conservative stars who appeared Wednesday afternoon at the Tea Party-led “Audit the IRS” rally, which has been billed as the Tea Party’s “largest demonstration” since 2010. The rally will bring together some of the movement’s biggest names, from radio host Glenn Beck to Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.
“We are energized more than we have ever been before. “It’s very clear from the Obama administration that they saw the Tea Party was a very strong threat,” Bachmann said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, suggesting that the IRS’s targeting of the Tea Party began as a result of the Republicans’ takeover over the House in 2010.
“What we saw was the worst form of tyranny,” Bachmann said. “Whether this went to the White House or not, clearly this seems to be politically-motivated.”
But on Tuesday, Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released the full IRS interview transcript, which he said debunks Bachmann and other conservatives’ theories about the IRS targeting controversy.
At the same time in D.C. on Wednesday, House Republicans met to hold an all-day immigration news conference that also featured Bachmann as a speaker, she assured Americans that she planned to be a vocal conservative for a “long, long time.”
Meanwhile, the Republican Party continues to come under fire for harsh rhetoric (Last week, Iowa Congressman Steve King tweeted that “illegal aliens have invaded my D.C. office”) and for pushing legislation to restrict women’s rights. House Republicans passed a measure Tuesday evening to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy despite both the Senate’s and the White House’s promise to kill the bill.
House Speaker John Boehner assured reporters last week that the GOP remained focus on the economy. “Jobs continue to be our No. 1 concern. And while we continue to be focused on this, there are other important issues that we have to deal with.”
Traci Lee