It has been nearly nine months since the Inspector General’s IRS audit report was published. And yet, Republicans are no closer today to finding any evidence to back up their baseless allegations of White House corruption than when they began making those claims immediately after the report came out, including during this committee’s first hearing on the matter May 17.
Instead of this prestigious committee using its broad jurisdiction to address critical issues that confront us, it has been consumed by a tireless effort by Republicans to find political scandal, regardless of what the truth holds, as they look toward the November election. That focus does not live up to the long, honorable tradition of this vital committee.
More than 500,000 pages of IRS documents have been turned over to congressional committees. Five dozen interviews of current and former IRS employees have taken place. Lawmakers at fifteen congressional hearings have questioned IRS officials.
In all, more than 150 IRS employees have worked 70,000 hours - time taken away from taxpayer services - to accommodate the ongoing requests for information from congressional investigators.
And yet, there’s been absolutely no evidence of any corruption unearthed. Not a single piece of evidence showing any political motivation. Nothing showing any involvement outside the IRS.
Had the Treasury Inspector General not left out vital information -- producing a fundamentally flawed audit report - it may have dissuaded Republicans from immediately accusing the White House of keeping an “enemies list" and trying to turn the audit into a scandal that they are intent on keeping alive, no matter the facts.
For one, the IG failed to disclose that progressive and other liberal groups were singled out alongside tea party organizations and were among the 298 organizations that he reviewed in his audit.
What’s more, not until two months after the audit report was published did we learn that the IG had instructed his chief investigator to look into the possibility of political motivation by the IRS and that the investigator had concluded that it was confusion - not political motivation - that led IRS employees to single out organizations for further scrutiny.
On May 3, 11 days before the audit report was published, the IG’s chief investigator summed up his findings in an email to the senior staff at TIGTA.
He wrote: “There was no indication that pulling these selected applications was politically motivated. The email traffic indicated there were unclear processing directions and the group wanted to make sure they had guidance on processing the applications so they pulled them. This is a very important nuance."
Indeed it is - and it is precisely that lack of clarity that the IRS was responding to in proposing new regulations for 501(c)(4) organizations. New regulations are designed to bring certainty in determining whether an organization's primary activities are political.
The regulations are among several steps the IG himself recommended in his audit report that the IRS undertake - each of which the IRS has acted upon, I should note.
They are anything but final - and I and many of my colleagues on this Committee have our own questions about aspects of them. But the proposed regulations are an important start to bringing both clarity to what now are wholly confusing rules governing 501(c)(4) and much-needed disclosure by organizations spending heavily to influence elections.
Applications for 501(c)(4) status nearly doubled between 2010 and 2012 - to 3,357. The designation allows organizations to keep their donors secret. Spending during the 2012 election by 501(c)(4)s soared to more than $250 million, from $92 million in 2010 and just $1 million in 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Unfortunately, the proposed regulations are being used by Republicans in Congress to renew a tireless campaign to turn the issue into a scandal that would pay political dividends. Last week they pointed to a 2012 email as evidence that the IRS was considering making changes to the regulations two years ago, claiming that an employee’s use of the term “off plan" suggested the IRS was hoping to hide its work from the public. The irony is that in seeking to delay these regulations for a year under the guise of a “scandal," what really remains hidden are donors to groups pouring millions of dollars into campaign advertising.
The truth is that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has recommended consideration of guidance on how to measure the “primary activities" of 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and the Treasury included that in its Priority Guidance Plan in August 2013.
Without a shred of evidence to keep alive their allegation that the White House was targeting its political enemies, Republicans have now turned to the proposed regulations to renew their attack.
This Committee has started the new year where it left off - showing painfully little interest in legislating - and instead keeping its politically based dual focus squarely on seeking to unearth scandal in the IRS where none exists and undermining the Affordable Care Act.
