IRS employees biased against conservatives: report
Internal Revenue Service employees charged with scrutinizing tea party groups nonprofit status applications showed a marked antipathy to the organizations, with one examiner calling a group icky and others saying they were searching for ways to deny the requests, according to a congressional oversight report Tuesday.
The staff report, released by Rep. Darrell E. Issa, the California Republican who is giving up the reins at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at the end of this year, also found that IRS officials repeatedly changed their stories about what went on and who was responsible for targeting the conservative and tea party groups.
The different stories, and roadblocks erected by the tax agency, the White House and congressional Democrats, have made it difficult to figure out exactly what went on in the agency as it was targeting tea party and conservative groups for improper scrutiny and delaying approval of their applications, the investigators said.
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Nearly four years after the committee began probing complaints about disparate treatment towards applicants for tax-exempt status, the committees investigation is not closed, the report concludes after giving a status check on what the investigation has found and what questions are still outstanding.
However, the report says it has been unable to come to a conclusion about whether the White House knew about the targeting beforehand because of conflicting accounts.
Democrats questioned the way the report was written and released, saying it was odd Mr. Issas investigators didnt share the report with them before it was released.
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It is revealing that the Republicans yet again are leaking cherry-picked excerpts of documents to support their preconceived political narrative without allowing committee members to even see their conclusions or vote on them first, said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee.
The release of excerpts of the committees interviews has long been a sore point for Democrats, who have tried to get Mr. Issa to release the transcripts in their entirety. Democrats argue that would give the public a more accurate view than the snapshots Mr. Issa releases.
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IRS employees biased against conservatives: report