WASHINGTON — Senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general’s report obtained by The AP.
The report seems to contradict Congressional testimony by IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman.
On June 29, 2011, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog’s report.
At the meeting, Lerner was told that groups with “tea party,” ‘‘patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny.
The 9/12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck.
Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups “immediately,” the report says.
Responding to queries from congressional committees, Shulman did not acknowledge the targeting.
And at a hearing on March 22, 2012, Shulman was adamant. “There’s absolutely no targeting,” Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.
In a statement yesterday, the IRS said the IG’s report “supports what the IRS acknowledged on Friday, that mistakes were made. There were not partisan reasons behind this.”