Two agents from the Cincinnati office of the Internal Revenue Service have told congressional investigators that IRS officials in Washington helped them conduct probes into conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, according to transcripts obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
Throughout the entire investigation into the improper scrutiny given to conservative groups top IRS officials have said that the probes were the work of a few rogue lower officials in the Cincinnati office, this testimony refutes that assertion.
One of the agents, Elizabeth Hofacre, said that her office received help from Washington while investigating the tea-party cases. Carter Hull, an IRS lawyer, closely helped Hofacre including suggesting questions to ask the tea-party groups, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"I was essentially a front person, because I had no autonomy or no authority to act on [applications] without Carter Hull's influence or input," Hofacre said, according to the transcripts.
The transcripts do not suggest that the scandal was known about by Obama administration officials within the Treasury or that the White House knew about the scandal, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Gary Muthert was one of the first IRS agents to start looking into the tea-party cases in March 2010. Muthert said that a local manager, whose name was redacted in the transcripts viewed by the Wall Street Journal, told him to use the phrase "tea party" in order to find all of the related applications to be set aside.
Muthert said he was asked to find more cases because he was told that "Washington wanted seven" by a local manager. Muthert would go on to find about 40 cases once he expanded his search beyond "tea party" and included "patriot" and "9/12" in his search, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Hofacre told investigators that she was sent a letter by Hull that he had already used to send out to a few tea party groups to use as a template for the writing of her letters. Hofacre told investigators that she found this to be demeaning and also did not understand why they were doing what they were doing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"All I remember saying and thinking is, 'This is ridiculous,'" Hofacre said. "Because at the same time, you are getting calls from irate taxpayers. And I see their point. Even if a decision isn't favorable, they deserve some kind of treatment and they deserve, you know, timeliness, and...these applications and their responses were just being sent up there [to Washington] and I am not sure what was happening."
Hofacre also told investigators that IRS officials in Washington knew about the targeting of tea-party groups in July 2010, a year earlier than officials have acknowledged, because she accidentally sent an email out to the entire IRS Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements unit, according to Reuters.
