#IRS scandal: Officials in Washington, California targeted Tea Party groups

**Posted by Phineas

Hey, remember when IRS official Lois Lerner said that onlyΒ a wayward local officeΒ in Cincinnati was improperly investigating conservative groups?

Yeah, well…Β about that:

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquartersΒ sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donorsΒ and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.

IRS employees in Cincinnati also told conservatives seeking the status of β€œsocial welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists.

Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS,Β told reportersΒ on Friday the β€œabsolutely inappropriate” actions were undertaken by β€œfront-line people” working in Cincinnati to target groups with β€œtea party,” β€œpatriot” or β€œ9/12” in their names.

In one instance, however, Ron Bell, an IRS employee, informed an attorney representing a conservative group focused on voter fraud that the application wasΒ under review in Washington. On several other occasions, IRS officials in D.C. and California sent detailed questionaires to conservative groups asking more than a dozen questions about their voter outreach and other activities, according to the documents.

β€œFor the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false,” saidΒ Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the law firmΒ Foley & Lardner LLPΒ who sought to communicate with IRS headquarters about the delay in granting tax-exempt status to True the Vote.

“True the Vote”Β is an organization dedicated to electionΒ integrity and fight vote fraud. What a shock it was hassled during… an election year.

So, we’ve gone from “front-line people” to the agency’sΒ General Counsel, one step below the Commissioner, who, um… testified there wasΒ no such thingΒ going on.

Except there was, and it wasn’t just local and it wasn’t just “front-line people.”

Between this,Β Benghazi, theΒ DoJ-AP scandal, and the buddingΒ Sebelius/HHS solicitations scandal, this week has already turned bad for Team Hopenchange.

Can’t wait to see what comes out between now and Friday.Β smiley devil

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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