Conservative groups who claim they were targeted by the Internal Revenue Service are getting their say on Capitol Hill as hearings on the growing agency scandals continue Tuesday.
The hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee will feature leaders of groups allegedly targeted by the IRS, including several Tea Party groups and an anti-gay marriage organization that has claimed its donor details were inappropriately released.
Several of the six groups scheduled to testify say their applications for tax-exempt status were delayed while agents asked intrusive questions that the IRS has since acknowledged were inappropriate.
At a hearing Monday, the watchdog who exposed the IRS’ targeting testified nobody in the Ohio office being blamed for the scandal would tell his investigators who directed the program, as the new IRS chief vowed to “get to the bottom” of that growing question.
Nearly a month after the scandal broke, the issue of who directed agents in Cincinnati to single out Tea Party and other groups is perhaps the most glaring unanswered question. Inspector General J. Russell George, at a House appropriations subcommittee hearing, revealed Monday that his audit of the agency tried — unsuccessfully — to get to the root of the targeting.
“We did pose that question and no one would acknowledge who, if anyone, provided that direction,” he said.
Danny Werfel, testifying for the first time in his new role as acting IRS commissioner, acknowledged: “We have to get to the bottom of it.” However, he also said he has not yet asked who ordered the program.
George later testified that the scandal itself is “unprecedented.” He cited past attempts by the Nixon administration to use the IRS for inappropriate purposes, but said this program was unprecedented.
The two officials testified as Republican lawmakers voiced skepticism that the program started and ended with a few low-level staffers in Cincinnati. Fueling the skepticism, partial transcripts released over the weekend of an interview with an IRS field agent in that division showed the agent claiming Washington guided the