Democrats reject committee chairman's claim that IRS employee interviews show source of 'Tea Party' language
A Republican US congressman investigating the Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of conservative groups says the targeting was probably directed from Washington, a claim quickly rejected by a top congressional Democrat involved in the investigation.
Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives committee on oversight and government reform, told CNN that interviews his staff conducted last week with Cincinnati IRS employees indicated the employees were being "directly ordered" from Washington to target Tea Party groups.
The committee's Republicans have posted online excerpts from interview transcripts of two Cincinnati IRS employees, one man and one woman, who talked to Democratic and Republican staffers in Washington, committee aides told Reuters. The individuals' names were being withheld to protect their identities, they said.
The IRS Cincinnati office is responsible for reviewing more than 60,000 tax-exempt applications a year. It remains unclear who in that office was responsible for using "Tea Party" language to screen applications for extra scrutiny in early 2010.
"This is a problem that was co-ordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters and we're getting to proving it," Issa told CNN's State of the union programme.
The top Democrat on the committee, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, rejected Issa's claims, accusing him of "lobbing unsubstantiated conclusions on national television for political reasons".
"So far, no witnesses who have appeared before the committee have identified any IRS official in Washington, DC, who directed employees in Cincinnati to use 'Tea Party' or similar terms to screen applicants for extra scrutiny," Cummings said in a statement.
Committee Democrats did not receive last week's full interview transcripts until late on Sunday, and were frustrated by Issa's move to post excerpts online first, a Democratic committee aide told Reuters.
The committee is due to interview more senior IRS employees from Cincinnati this week, committee aides said.
One of the individuals interviewed last week, a low-level, male IRS employee, was asked by a committee investigator whether Tea Party scrutiny "emanated from Washington". He replied "I believe so", according to the transcript excerpts.
A more senior female IRS employee, who handled the Tea Party portfolio, said there was "micromanagement" from Washington.
"I was taking all my direction" from the exempt-organisation office in Washington, the employee said, according to the transcript excerpts. This individual asked to be transferred away from the Tea Party portfolio.
The IRS has been under fire for three weeks since a mid-level IRS administrator publicly apologised for the extra scrutiny. That scrutiny was outlined in a Treasury Department inspector-general report, which concluded mismanagement allowed low-level employees to develop the controversial criteria for targeting political groups.
An IRS internal review also concluded that workers in the Cincinnati office were responsible for the scrutiny.
The controversy led President Barack Obama to force the resignation of the agency's top executive, Steven Miller, and an FBI investigation.