Congressman Sanford: D.C. Scandals Belie Culture of Arrogance

Rep. Mark Sanford is still staffing his offices in Washington and South Carolina, but spent Wednesday in the Charleston area meeting with constituents.

During an exclusive interview with Patch outside a Summerville Rotary Club meeting, the former governor recently returned to Washington by voters weighed in on the Benghazi attack, IRS scrutiny of TEA Party groups and Department of Justice subpoenas of the Associated Press and Fox News.

He said the targeting of TEA Party groups filing for 501(c)4 status as tax-exempt social welfare organizations should be distressing to all Americans.

"This notion of the tax collection arm of our government being partisan in its focus is at odds with what people believe about civil liberty...," Sanford said. "I think it was alarming at any number of different levels from the standpoint of the administration, and enforcement of the executive branch. I think it's alarming from the standpoint of civil liberty, which is a big deal in this country, one that we were founded on in terms of individual liberty.

"And I think it suggests there's a real cultural arrogance that exists within our system that again a lot of people find very concerning."

He said groups that seek tax-exempt status should have to prove they are social welfare organizations and not political in nature, but said the way in which the IRS was revealed to have singled out conservative leaning groups was improper.

"The fact that it was narrowly focused suggests that it wasn't about that, it was about partisan politics or ideology, which shouldn't be the place for the IRS to determine," Sanford said.

The controversy over the secret Department of Justice subpoenas on AP and Fox News phone records show the importance of limited government, he said.

"Regardless of your political philosophy, what people would agree would be that there's a legitimate place in a free and open society for a robust and equally free and independent media," Sanford said.

Noting that an independent media is needed to keep politicians and political forces in line, Sanford said he fears a chilling effect on both news organizations and the populace who may be more reticent to speak with reporters in the wake of revelations that Justice officials sought reporters' phone and email records.

"In essence that's the fourth branch of government that holds in line not only political figures but political forces at times," he said. "And so the idea that you're going to have a group out there breaching a 200-year tradition in terms of the independence of the media, I think would have a chilling effect in terms of witnesses, I think it has a chilling effect in terms of information flow," he said.

"What you'd want in a free and open society is that if I'm ticked off at the government, for me to be able to speak very freely to AP, or Patch, or Fox News or anybody else about what ticks me off, and if all of a sudden a news organization, an information gathering organization, is going to begin to worry about looking over it's left hand about a government subpoena, then it's going to impact the way they gather information."

He said he expects questions to continue to linger over the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

"I think with the Benghazi thing, the issue there essentially has been was there or wasn't there a cover-up?" Sanford said. "There are going to be tragedies that occur around the world on a daily basis, period. If you have operations as far flung as the United States does with the State Department apparatus, there are going to be things that go wrong. The issue was, what I think a lot of the hearings have been about, is when did they know and what was the response."

Taken together, Sanford said, those three issues leave many people feeling unsettled.

"In other words we've had these three different bites at the apple," he said. "In the whole it has been unsettling for folks that I talk to as to, not any one single event, but the larger context of three in a row, what does it mean?"