WASHINGTON -- In March 2012, when Rep. Charles Boustany R-Lafayette asked then IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman about reports the agency had been targeting Tea Party groups, few paid much attention. But this week, a videotape of the hearing in which Boustany asked his question, and Schulman's offered his assurance that "there is absolutely no targeting," has been played repeatedly...
WASHINGTON -- In March 2012, when Rep. Charles Boustany R-Lafayette asked then IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman about reports the agency had been targeting Tea Party groups, few paid much attention.
But this week, a videotape of the hearing in which Boustany asked his question, and Schulman's offered his assurance that "there is absolutely no targeting," has been played repeatedly on network and cable newscasts.
A report this week by a federal inspector general that the IRS had been improperly targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny on applications for tax-exempt status has put Boustany, the chair of the House Ways and Means Oversight subcommittee, into the forefront. It's quite a jump for the physician-turned lawmaker, who only last year was fighting for his political life in a race he eventually won against Tea Party favorite Jeff Landry of New Iberia.
The probe began quietly two years ago, according to Boustany staff, when some Tea Party and other conservative groups, including the Acadiana Patriots, complained to Ways and Means Committee staff that their tax exempt status applications seemed to take forever and that the agency was asking intrusive questions, such as would you provide us with a detailed list of donors.
The committee staff got more suspicious when they listened to an interview on Fox News with a Richmond, Va., tea party official making the same complaint about the IRS division in Ohio that handles tax-exempt applications.
"I've been trying to get to the bottom of this for two years now, basically," Boustany said this week, in one of a series of interviews. "And, in fact, we've had nothing but stonewalling, evasion and misleading statements from the IRS, from the acting commissioner and others."
It's not that the IRS refused to answer any questions, according to Ways and Means staffers. They answered some questions, but without acknowledging what the inspector general found in a report this week -- that beginning in 2010 the IRS was singling out conservative groups.
It used words and phrases such as Tea Party, Patriots, 9/12, We the People and Take Back the Country to flag tax-exempt applications for extra scrutiny.
The Inspector General found no evidence that the action was politically motivated, or that top officials at the IRS or the Obama administration were initially aware of the action.
Still, Ways and Means Committee members, both Republicans and Democrats, said Friday that it's clear the higher ups at IRS eventually found out about the improper action and failed to carry out their responsibility to notify Congress.
The inspector general said that IRS acting Commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired this week by President Barack Obama, was told about the problem in May 2012.
But in a June, 2012, letter to Boustany, according to a Ways and Means timeline, Miller said the agency had taken "steps to coordinate the handling" of tax exempt applications "to ensure consistency." But he never mentioned that the criteria had included references to Tea Party and Patriot organizations.
"Why did you mislead Congress and the American people on this?" Boustany asked Miller Friday. Miller responded: "I did not mislead Congress and the American people."
Miller said he answered truthfully "the questions" that were asked him.
Boustany also played the now famous video of his questioning of the then IRS commissioner a year ago.
Did Schulman lie? Boustany asked.
Miller said his testimony was "incorrect, but not untruthful." He also said that the understaffed Ohio IRS office faced with reviewing a flood of complex applications for tax exempt status wasn't motivated by partisan politics.
"What happened here is that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient," Miller said.
Boustany is promising Congress will get to the bottom of the scandal. On Friday, the committee issued a timeline of the panel's investigation.
"I want to root out the rot there," Boustany said in an interview. "You know, the IRS is the most powerful organization, basically, in our federal government. It interfaces with basically every taxpayer. And we cannot tolerate any of these abuses."
This week, Boustany got a quick lesson on Washington politics.
With the IRS scandal now big news, Friday's hearing was overseen by the chairman of the full Ways and Means Committee, Rep. David Camp, R-Mich. Boustany was one of the first to get to ask questions. But Camp used his prerogative, as committee chair, to oversee the proceedings.