Remember the Senate inquiry on televangelists? Well the inquiry ended and they’ve got nothing to show for it.
Why did it fail?
Four of the televangelists would not provide full information to Grassley. Some pastors questioned whether Grassley had the authority to conduct the investigation. Others accused him of violating their religious freedom.
Grassley’s staff said in the report that they did not issue subpoenas to further the investigation because witnesses feared retaliation if they spoke out publicly and the Finance Committee did not have the time or resources to enforce the subpoenas.
So the religious hucksters didn’t participate and witnesses wouldn’t talk because of fear. You’d think this was me and some friends doing an inquiry, not the government. Good grief. What a total waste of tax dollars and time. If they had no power to do anything, what was the point?
There’s a part of me that wants to give them credit for trying… but clearly they didn’t try hard enough.
Here’s some more info on the inquiry and it’s failure:
A senator’s high-profile investigation of spending by televangelists wrapped up after more than three years Thursday with no penalties for the pastors who refused to cooperate and no definitive findings of wrongdoing.
The report released by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley raises questions about the personal use of church-owned airplanes, luxury homes and credit cards by pastors and their families, and expresses concern about the lack of oversight of finances by boards often packed with the televangelists’ relatives and friends.
However, the senator draws no specific conclusions about whether the ministries violated IRS rules that bar excessive compensation for leaders of religious nonprofits.
(via)
Religion is untouchable and exempt from normal standards of decency. There’s a shock.
jesus.
I would say the investigation just shows how much fear elected officials have of the religious.
The way to do these things properly would be reciprocal outsourcing. Like, if we in Britain have a polarising and emotive issue/group to investigate, get a Yank to do it, and if the USA has one then get a Brit to do it. Impartiality, see.
I’m not at all surprised that Grassley let those scam artists off the hook.
A lot of people are getting away with a lot of fraud and corruption simply because all our regulatory agencies are under-funded. New consumer protection legislation gets passed, but there aren’t enough inspectors or auditors in the field to enforce the regulations. When’s the last time you heard of someone’s taxes being audited? It used to be fairly common.
Christian Broadcasting Network reported on this two nights ago — I accidentally flipped to the channel, my bad! — and they reported that “the investigation showed no evidence of wrongdoing” and went on to boast how great and sweet and wonderful christians are and how this investigation was another attack on christians.
Not one mention of how these wonderful christians refused to cooperate, just that there was “no evidence of wrongdoing” by wonderful, sweet christians.
I wanted to hit my head against the wall, but I changed the channel instead.