The investigation of the IRS’s targeting of conservatives has been all about the scapegoat, and nobody has been hit harder than the “low-level” employees in the Cincinnati IRS office.
Now, excerpts of testimony from several of those employees released by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) have completely destroyed that explanation.
One of the employees said he did a search for Tea Party applications for 501(c)(4) status at the request of his supervisor, who said that the order had originated in Washington.
He made it clear that Cincinnati employees could not be faulted for the targeting. “From an agent standpoint, we didn’t do anything wrong. We followed directions based on other people telling us what to do,” he said. “In my mind I still hear people saying we were low‑level employees, so we were lower than dirt, according to people in D.C. So, take it for what it is. They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.”
Issa called out the Obama administration for deceiving the American public. “As late as last week, the administration was still trying to say the [IRS targeting scandal] was from a few rogue agents in Cincinnati, when in fact the indication is that they were directly being ordered from Washington,” Issa told Candy Crowley on CNN.
Fortunately, Issa knows this is a chance to use his bulldog tendencies to get some information, and he isn’t letting it go to waste.
