Big, really big breaking stories showing that the targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups extended beyond Cincinnati and included leaked tax documents.
The Washington Post reports tonight, IRS officials in Washington were involved in targeting of conservative groups:
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.
The head of the IRS was aware for over a year, Top IRS official didn’t reveal tea party targeting:
Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Steven T. Miller repeatedly failed to tell Congress that tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted, even after he had been briefed on the matter.The IRS said Monday that Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra, sometimes burdensome scrutiny.At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without revealing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee but again was not forthcoming on the issue — despite being asked about it.
Pro Publica discloses, IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups:
The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year.The IRS did not respond to requests Monday following up about that release, and whether it had determined how the applications were sent to ProPublicaIn response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)
Update: This is actually a NY Times reporter (shock):
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