An investigation into the IRS and whether the federal agency unfairly targeted conservative political groups seeking tax exempt status reached the end of its first act today after the House Oversight Committee released an initial report.
Although the inquest is not over– Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is merely stepping down from his position as chairman– the committee already reviewed over 1.3 million pages of documents and interviewed 52 witnesses, according to the Associated Press.
The report found that between 2010 and 2012 groups affiliated with conservative issues received undue scrutiny form the IRS, and agency officials subsequently hid their actions and willfully misled congressional investigators. While the Obama Administration itself was not fingered as the puppet master of the systematic targeting of right wing political organizations, the report found the president was culpable to a degree.
“The White House’s obstruction not only violated the president’s promise of cooperation, but it affected the committee’s fact-finding obligations,” said the report.
Meanwhile, Democrats are crying foul after Rep. Issa released the report without sharing it with his colleagues across the aisle. Ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), said his Republican counterparts leaked “cherry-picked excerpts” of the files reviewed that supported a “preconceived political narrative” without allowing Democrats to review or vote on the findings of the Committee.
The report claims that eight senior IRS officials “were in a position to prevent or to stop the IRS’s targeting of conservative applicants,” but failed to act substantively.
These leaders include former Commissioners Douglas Shulman and Steven Miller, as well as the infamous Lois Lerner, who was in charge of the division processing tax exempt applications and claimed she lost a bevy of internal emails Congress requested.
“Each of these leaders could have and should have done more to prevent the IRS’s targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants,” said the report.
