- John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o
Quick reminder: anyone who told you the IRS scandal was “collapsing” because progressive groups also appeared on watch lists is not a “journalist.”
The Treasury Inspector General made that painfully clear, as reported by The Hill:
Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, told Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) in a letter dated Wednesday that the IRS did not use inappropriate criteria to scrutinize groups with “progressives” in their name seeking tax-exempt status.◼ PROBER GIVES MORE DETAIL ON IRS, PROGRESSIVES - AP
“Our audit did not find evidence that the IRS used the ‘progressives’ identifier as selection criteria for potential political cases between May 2010 and May 2012,” George wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill.
The inspector general also stressed that 100 percent of the groups with “Tea Party,” “patriots” and “9/12” in their name were flagged for extra attention.
“While we have multiple sources of information corroborating the use of Tea Party and other related criteria we described in our report, including employee interviews, e-mails and other documents, we found no indication in any of these other materials that ‘progressives’ was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention,” George wrote to Levin, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
The Treasury Department watchdog who detailed Internal Revenue Service mistreatment of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status says he has no evidence the IRS mishandled progressive groups' applications in the same way, even as Democrats continue criticizing him for conducting a one-sided probe.◼ Just interesting, and semi-related: 26% of Obama Supporters View Tea Party as Nation’s Top Terror Threat - Rasmussen
Half of all voters consider radical Muslims the bigger terrorist threat facing the nation, but supporters of President Obama consider the Tea Party to be as big a danger.