IRS Claims Tea Party Targeting was the Work of Just Two 'Rogue' Employees

It’s a claim that few are likely to accept, given the scale and breadth of the abuse that’s known so far.

The Internal Revenue Service has identified two “rogue” employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office as being principally responsible for “overly aggressive” handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, a congressional source told CNN.

In a meeting on Capitol Hill, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller described the employees as being “off the reservation,” according to the source. It was not clear precisely what the alleged behavior involved.

Miller said the staffers have already been disciplined, according to another source familiar with Miller’s discussions with congressional investigators. The second source said Miller emphasized that the problem with IRS handling of tax-exempt status for tea party groups was not limited to these two employees.

Ridiculous. For starters, Miller himself was at the IRS in the Clinton years. During those years, the IRS was also accused of abusing conservatives via tax audits. Now, that same Steven Miller is limiting the scandal to just two “rogue” employees, whom he doesn’t name, while claiming that they’ve already been disciplined? Miller is not a disinterested party in this case, and cannot be trusted to render a fair outcome.

We need names. We need hearings. There is no way that just two people are responsible for the scale and pattern of abuse, across three years, and impacting as many as 500 groups and now, apparently, some individuals who have criticized the Obama government.