According to an internal Republican House report, the IRS almost admitted explicitly to political targeting during the early part of the House investigation of the beleaguered agency.
It was revealed that former IRS Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote to his chief of staff in an email in June of this year, prior to a House hearing on the scandal:
“I am beginning to wonder whether I should do [the hearing] and affirmatively use it to put a stake in politics and c4.”
Miller went on to testify before the House oversight committee six times in the following months, reports FOX News. However, he refused to admit any wrong doing by the IRS other than mere “poor service”.
The House’s report on the investigation detailed of Miller’s testimony, “Though Miller was never asked as directly as [Commissioner Doug] Shulman about the targeting … Miller likewise never told Congress about the IRS misconduct. Miller’s multiple missed opportunities to tell Congress about the targeting continued the IRS’s pattern of failing to inform Congress.”
The report went on to charge the Department of Justice and IRS with obstruction of the investigation:
“Only a month after Attorney General (Eric) Holder announced the administration’s investigation, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller was unable to answer basic questions about the status. Even as recently as July 2014, after the IRS informed Congress that it had destroyed two years of Lerner’s e-mails, the FBI continued its refusal to provide any information about its investigation.”
Miller and the agency were concealing what now-infamous IRS department head Lois Lerner later admitted, “[The IRS] used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title. That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive and inappropriate.”
