Emails released by House Ways & Means show Lerner targeted GOP Senator

Via Fox News:

Congressional investigators have uncovered emails showing ex-IRS official Lois Lerner targeted a sitting Republican senator for a proposed internal audit, a discovery one GOP lawmaker called “shocking.” 

The emails were published late Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee and pertain to the woman at the heart of the scandal over IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. 

The emails appear to show Lerner mistakenly received an invitation intended for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in 2012. 

The event organizer, whose name is not disclosed, apparently offered to pay for Grassley’s wife to attend the event, which caught Lerner’s attention. The December 2012 emails show that in response, Lerner suggested to an IRS colleague that the case be referred for an audit. 

“Looked like they were inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?” she wrote. 

Her colleague, though, pushed back on the idea, saying an offer to pay for his wife is “not prohibited on its face.” There is no indication from the emails that Lerner pursued the issue any further. 

[…]

Grassley, incidentally, is a member of the Senate Finance Committee — which is one of the congressional panels investigating the IRS over the targeting scandal. 

The plot thickens ………