Steven Miller, the outgoing IRS Commissioner apologized n Friday on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for unjustly targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. However, "partisanship" was not the reason for the agency's practices, Reuters reported.
"First and foremost, as acting commissioner, I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service," Miller said before a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.
"The IRS is a government agency that used political filters to target conservative groups," Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein said on Morning Joe.
The IRS is under fire for placing heavy scrutiny with organizations using words like "tea party" or "patriots" in their name when they applied for nonprofit status between 2010 and 2012, as reported by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration.
"I do not believe that partisanship motivated the people that engaged in the practices described in the inspector general's report," Miller said. "Foolish mistakes were made by people who were trying to be more efficient in their work."
Commentator Joe Scarborough said that Miller "may just have been the fall guy."
Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George testified in his investigation that he "did not" find evidence that the agency's decisions were motivated by politics.
The IRS scandal is one in a trifecta of problems facing President Obama, which also includes the Justice Department's decision to seize Associated Press phone records. He said that while respects freedom of the press, national security was at stake. "I don't think the American people would expect me, as a commander in chief, not to compromise their missions or might get them killed," Obama said Thursday.
The president has been criticized for being aloof and unengaged in these controversies, charges that have come from both sides of the political aisle.
