So says a low-level IRS whistleblower who will testify on Capitol Hill tomorrow morning. The Washington Post reports:
The chief counsel’s office for the Internal Revenue Service, headed by a political appointee of President Obama, helped develop the agency’s problematic guidelines for reviewing “tea party” cases, according to a top IRS attorney. In interviews with congressional investigators, IRS lawyer Carter Hull said his superiors told him that the chief counsel’s office, led by William Wilkins, would need to review some of the first applications the agency screened for additional scrutiny because of potential political activity. Previous accounts from IRS employees had shown that Washington IRS officials were involved in the controversy, but Hull’s comments represent the closest connection to the White House to date. According to a partial transcript released by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and House Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the chief counsel’s office also discussed using a template letter to ask questions about the groups’ activities, despite Hull’s warning that such a boilerplate approach would be impractical.
IRS inspector general Russell George released a report in May that said the agency had inappropriately targeted groups based on ideology rather than looking for politically neutral signs of campaign activity. He also found that the IRS went too far in its questioning of applicants, asking them for everything from resumes to names of donors or membership lists, which experts say the IRS cannot legally do. Democratic and Republican lawmakers in recent months have offered competing narratives about who was to blame for the IRS’s actions. GOP lawmakers have suggested that Washington IRS officials and even the White House had a hand in the controversy, while Democrats have said the issue started with mid-level employees in the agency’s tax-exemption office in Cincinnati. While talking about the controversy in May, White House press secretary Jay Carney referred to “the apparent conduct by our IRS officials in Cincinnati” and said “line IRS employees in Cincinnati improperly scrutinized 501 (C)(4) organizations by using words like ‘tea party,’ in quotes, and ‘patriot.’”
Also recall former IRS commissioner Stephen Miller had been made aware of the targeting problem by (at least) last spring, but chose not to inform Congress -- even when asked about the specific issue under oath. Doug Schulman didn't bother to correct the record after making this blanket, inaccurate statement either. Lois Lerner similarly misled investigators on Capitol Hill. As the
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