BECAUSE THEY HAVE CONTEMPT FOR ANYONE WHO TRIES TO STOP THEM: Obama Administration lawyers have (once again) been threatened with contempt. This time, it’s federal district judge Emmet Sullivan, who threatened today to hold the IRS Commissioner and DOJ attorneys in contempt because the the IRS has failed to produce status reports and newly recovered emails of Lois Lerner, as Sullivan had ordered on July 1, 2015.

According to Judicial Watch, the group initiating the lawsuit against the IRS for its failure to comply with a FOIA request:

During the a status hearing today, Sullivan warned that the failure to follow his order was serious and the IRS and Justice Department’s excuses for not following his July 1 order were “indefensible, ridiculous, and absurd.”  He asked the IRS’ Justice Department lawyer Geoffrey Klimas, “Why didn’t the IRS comply” with his court order and “why shouldn’t the Court hold the Commissioner of the IRS in contempt.”  Judge Sullivan referenced his contempt findings against Justice Department prosecutors in the prosecution of late Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and reminded the Justice Department attorney he had the ability to detain him for contempt.  Warning he would tolerate no further disregard of his orders, Judge Sullivan said, “I will haul into court the IRS Commissioner to hold him personally into contempt.”

I don’t recall any prior Administration being threatened with contempt as often as the Obama Administration. It seems that, in multiple major cases, they are being threatened with contempt. DOJ lawyers are starting to get a bad reputation, when they used to be widely respected. DOJ lawyers in previous Administrations certainly did not so brazenly defy the orders of federal judges and Congress. The Obama Administration’s disrespect for the rule of law is permeating virtually everything it does.