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Congresswoman Jenkins Questions IRS Officials About Political Targeting Today

 

WASHINGTON - The House Ways and Means Committee questioned Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Steve Miller and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George today about the IRS practice of unfairly targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. As a member of the committee, Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) asked Mr. George who he notified about the political targeting and at what point in time other high-ranking government officials outside of the IRS were notified. She released the following statement after the hearing:

“Based on J. Russell George’s testimony and responses to my questions at the hearing today, we now know that at least as early as June 2012, nearly a year ago, high-ranking officials at the Department of Treasury knew about this investigation including Deputy Treasury Secretary Wolin and the General Counsel to Secretary of Treasury Geithner, in addition to former IRS Commissioner Shulman. But the question remains, who knew, for how long and why wasn’t corrective action taken prior to the pre-arranged leak of this information last Friday?   

“The IRS is still not being forthcoming about who knew information, when they knew, and whether the IRS shared information with those outside the organization. We heard the words, ‘I don’t know’ from Mr. Miller a lot today. I am not satisfied by these answers. Americans deserve to know why this happened and who is responsible for the decision to target groups based on their political beliefs.

“The IRS has demonstrated a culture of cover up and has failed time and time again to be completely open and honest with the American people. This investigation must continue to prevent taxpayers from being unfairly targeted in the future. There is still a lot of work to be done.”

Click here to watch the video of Congresswoman Jenkins’s questions during the Ways and Means Committee hearing today.

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