Paul L. Caron
Dean





Thursday, June 4, 2015

The IRS Scandal, Day 756

IRS Logo 2Washington Times, IRS Official: ‘Lois Lerner Was the Tip of the Iceberg’:

The IRS’s director of privacy, governmental liaison and disclosure division testified Wednesday that the tax agency set up a special team with hundreds of lawyers to handle the probe into whether Tea Party groups were targeted, but repeatedly said she had no idea how it operated.

Mary Howard, who also works as the head Freedom of Information Act officer in the IRS, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that once the “special project team” was created and operational, she never saw requests for information. ...

Republican Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz also asked about the information requests after news broke that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, holding up their requests for tax-exempt status. Those requests “went to the commissioner, and it went to the general counsel,” he said. “There’s only two political appointees in all of the IRS, the commissioner and the general counsel. Those are the only two out of 90,000.”…

“I think that Lois Lerner was the tip of the iceberg,” Howard said.

“Really?” Chaffetz said. “So do we.”

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/06/the-irs-3.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

"Those requests “went to the commissioner, and it went to the general counsel,” he said."

If that is true, this goes to the very top of the IRS and beyond because we know people at the DOJ and EPA were involved too. You don't have multiple government agencies coordinating something like this without the approval of the President.

Posted by: wodun | Jun 4, 2015 11:41:31 PM

A special team of "hundreds of lawyers?" Literally, that would mean no less than 200 lawyers. No hyperbole from Ms. Howard, I'm sure.

Posted by: Publius Novus | Jun 4, 2015 11:12:36 AM

This is huge news that will not be covered on ABCBSNBCNNPRPBS...also known as American PRAVDA.

Posted by: VoteOutIncumbents | Jun 4, 2015 9:38:12 AM