WASHINGTON — The IRS official who was running the department that targeted Tea Party groups is now in charge of the tax agency’s ObamaCare office, The Post has learned.
Sarah Hall Ingram, who led the tax-exempt division at the heart of the Internal Revenue Service scandal received a plum assignment working in the IRS Affordable Care Act office.
She ran the tax-exempt division between 2009 and 2012, when the targeting of conservative groups took place. Her successor, Joseph Grant, apparently took the fall and set a retirement date for next month.
Meanwhile, President Obama dismissed calls for an independent probe into the fallout from the IRS scandal. Speaking during a rainy press conference in the Rose Garden yesterday, the president insisted an independent counsel was not necessary.
“It is going to be sufficient for us to be working with Congress,” said Obama, noting investigations were under way or pending by the Treasury Department, a host of congressional committees and Attorney General Eric Holder.
“Between those investigations, I think we’re going to be able to figure out exactly what happened, who was involved, what went wrong, and we’re going to be able to implement steps to fix it.”
Obama moved quickly yesterday to tap Daniel Werfel as the new IRS chief after the agency’s acting commissioner, Steven Miller, resigned Wednesday.
“Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time,” Obama said.
Republican lawmakers and Tea Party leaders remained adamant about the need for a special counsel, who typically would be appointed by the attorney general to ferret out criminal wrongdoing within the federal government.
Obama avoided answering a question about when White House officials first knew the IRS was targeting the Tea Party and other conservative groups for scrutiny of their tax-exempt statuses.
Instead, he focused on when he first learned of a report this week by the Treasury inspector general that detailed the abuses.
“I assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked to the press,” he said. “Typically, the IG reports are not supposed to be widely distributed or shared.”
The IRS went after as many as 500 conservative groups, demanding member and donor names, copies of every flier and meeting agenda, lists of political positions and copies of Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Thrown off balance, Obama has struggled to gain control of the scandal and convince voters he’s on their side against IRS abuses.
At least three congressional committees are investigating IRS abuses, including the House Ways and Means Committee, which today is slated to grill Miller, whose resignation has not taken effect.
House Speaker John Boehner ripped the Obama administration for its “remarkable arrogance.”
“This House will stop at nothing to get to the American people the answers and the accountability that they expect,” said Boehner (R-Ohio). “But the best way to repair this damage is for the administration to come forward with the truth — the whole truth — so that the American people will have all of the facts.”
The Obama administration also could face fallout in federal court.
The American Center for Law and Justice, which represents more than a dozen Tea Party groups, announced it was preparing a lawsuit against the IRS.
“This is far from over,” said its chief counsel, Jordan Sekulow.
Yesterday, Obama expressed outrage at the prospect of the IRS becoming a political weapon.
“If a future administration is starting to use the tax laws to favor one party over another or one political view over another, obviously we’re all vulnerable,” he said.