[h=3]By SIOBHAN HUGHES And JOHN D. MCKINNON[/h]WASHINGTON—House Republicans on Friday opened the first congressional hearing on the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, saying lawmakers had been lied to and that there had been additional violations at the agency.
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) asked who started targeting conservative groups, who knew about the practice, why it went on for so long and why the IRS wasn't forthcoming when lawmakers asked whether conservatives were being targeted.
ReutersSteven Miller, the outgoing IRS chief, appears before a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the Internal Revenue Service on Friday.
"Despite a two-year-long investigation by this committee, the IRS never told the American people or their representatives about this simple truth," Mr. Camp said. "In fact, we were repeatedly told no such targeting was happening. That isn't being misleading; that is lying."
Republican outrage was palpable at the first hearing since the IRS disclosed last week that tea-party and other conservative groups seeking nonprofit status had been subjected to a special, sometimes years-long screening process. Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller has already agreed to resign, and the IRS said yesterday that another top official will step down. But that has done little to quell the anger among lawmakers.
"Mr. Miller, with all due respect, this systemic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation," Mr. Camp told Mr. Miller, who is testifying about the handling of applications from conservative groups. "And, as much as I expect more people need to go, the reality is this is not a personnel problem. This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too powerful, too intrusive and too abusive of honest, hardworking taxpayers."
The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, called for the resignation of another official, Lois Lerner, who runs the exempt-organizations unit at the IRS. But he also cautioned Republicans against using the inquiry for partisan gain.
"We must seek the truth, not political gain," Mr. Levin cautioned.
Seeking to restore order at the agency and gain a measure of control over the controversy, President Barack Obama on Thursday named a new acting IRS commissioner, a day after sacking Mr. Miller.
Mr. Obama chose Daniel Werfel, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget, equivalent to the government's chief financial officer. His appointment is effective Wednesday, and Mr. Werfel has agreed to serve through the end of fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Multiple investigations into the IRS—by congressional committees, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration and the Justice Department—are likely to keep the focus on what went wrong. In the latest twist that is generating interest among lawmakers, Joseph Grant, the commissioner of tax-exempt and government entities, said Thursday that he planned to retire on June 3. Mr. Grant helped oversee the unit where the targeting problems occurred. He wasn't to comment. He took over his current post from another official who now runs the IRS Affordable Care Act office.
An overarching question in the hearings will be whether the misdeeds were influenced by political winds, particularly from Washington, or resulted from bureaucratic snafus.
Many Republicans believe the problems ultimately trace to senior officials, despite IRS denials. "I just simply refuse to believe that lower-level IRS personnel were making these kinds of decisions," said Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R., La.), who chairs the Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the IRS.
GOP lawmakers are particularly interested in the role of Ms. Lerner, who knew of the problems at least as early as 2011 but failed to disclose them to Congress in letters during 2012.
On Thursday, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee asked for an investigation into recent unauthorized disclosures of confidential tax information by the IRS, including from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, which spent heavily in the 2012 elections. The IRS sent its confidential application for tax-exempt to ProPublica, a news organization investigating whether such groups were entitled to that status.
"There's going to be a complete and thorough investigation of this in Congress—not only who above may have known about it, but what the rank-and-file believed was their mission," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said at a news conference with tea-party groups.
ProPublica said in a news article earlier this week it obtained the applications from the Cincinnati office of the IRS, the same office at the center of the broader controversy, which singled out for extra scrutiny applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status from groups with names like "tea party" and "patriot."
Republicans also are questioning whether the IRS improperly released donor information of the National Organization for Marriage, a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organization.
The IRS said it "takes its role to protect confidential tax information very seriously" and that the "unauthorized disclosures" were reviewed by the inspector general, who found them to be "inadvertent and unintentional."
A Crossroads GPS spokesman has said the group has been told the IRS is investigating. Its application is still pending.
Write to Siobhan Hughes at [email protected] and John D. McKinnon at [email protected]
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) asked who started targeting conservative groups, who knew about the practice, why it went on for so long and why the IRS wasn't forthcoming when lawmakers asked whether conservatives were being targeted.
ReutersSteven Miller, the outgoing IRS chief, appears before a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the Internal Revenue Service on Friday.
"Despite a two-year-long investigation by this committee, the IRS never told the American people or their representatives about this simple truth," Mr. Camp said. "In fact, we were repeatedly told no such targeting was happening. That isn't being misleading; that is lying."
Republican outrage was palpable at the first hearing since the IRS disclosed last week that tea-party and other conservative groups seeking nonprofit status had been subjected to a special, sometimes years-long screening process. Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller has already agreed to resign, and the IRS said yesterday that another top official will step down. But that has done little to quell the anger among lawmakers.
"Mr. Miller, with all due respect, this systemic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation," Mr. Camp told Mr. Miller, who is testifying about the handling of applications from conservative groups. "And, as much as I expect more people need to go, the reality is this is not a personnel problem. This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too powerful, too intrusive and too abusive of honest, hardworking taxpayers."
The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, called for the resignation of another official, Lois Lerner, who runs the exempt-organizations unit at the IRS. But he also cautioned Republicans against using the inquiry for partisan gain.
"We must seek the truth, not political gain," Mr. Levin cautioned.
Seeking to restore order at the agency and gain a measure of control over the controversy, President Barack Obama on Thursday named a new acting IRS commissioner, a day after sacking Mr. Miller.
Mr. Obama chose Daniel Werfel, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget, equivalent to the government's chief financial officer. His appointment is effective Wednesday, and Mr. Werfel has agreed to serve through the end of fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Multiple investigations into the IRS—by congressional committees, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration and the Justice Department—are likely to keep the focus on what went wrong. In the latest twist that is generating interest among lawmakers, Joseph Grant, the commissioner of tax-exempt and government entities, said Thursday that he planned to retire on June 3. Mr. Grant helped oversee the unit where the targeting problems occurred. He wasn't to comment. He took over his current post from another official who now runs the IRS Affordable Care Act office.
An overarching question in the hearings will be whether the misdeeds were influenced by political winds, particularly from Washington, or resulted from bureaucratic snafus.
Many Republicans believe the problems ultimately trace to senior officials, despite IRS denials. "I just simply refuse to believe that lower-level IRS personnel were making these kinds of decisions," said Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R., La.), who chairs the Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the IRS.
GOP lawmakers are particularly interested in the role of Ms. Lerner, who knew of the problems at least as early as 2011 but failed to disclose them to Congress in letters during 2012.
On Thursday, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee asked for an investigation into recent unauthorized disclosures of confidential tax information by the IRS, including from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, which spent heavily in the 2012 elections. The IRS sent its confidential application for tax-exempt to ProPublica, a news organization investigating whether such groups were entitled to that status.
"There's going to be a complete and thorough investigation of this in Congress—not only who above may have known about it, but what the rank-and-file believed was their mission," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said at a news conference with tea-party groups.
ProPublica said in a news article earlier this week it obtained the applications from the Cincinnati office of the IRS, the same office at the center of the broader controversy, which singled out for extra scrutiny applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status from groups with names like "tea party" and "patriot."
Republicans also are questioning whether the IRS improperly released donor information of the National Organization for Marriage, a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organization.
The IRS said it "takes its role to protect confidential tax information very seriously" and that the "unauthorized disclosures" were reviewed by the inspector general, who found them to be "inadvertent and unintentional."
A Crossroads GPS spokesman has said the group has been told the IRS is investigating. Its application is still pending.
Write to Siobhan Hughes at [email protected] and John D. McKinnon at [email protected]