Senior members of the Obama Administration's Treasury Department were made aware that investigators were looking into complaints from Tea Party groups that they were being harassed by the IRS in June 2012, revealing that the probe was conducted during the presidential campaign, The Washington Times reported.
J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general and the ousted IRS head Steven Miller testified on Friday, acknowledging the agency made mistakes in targeting right-wing and conservative groups for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, but insisted that agents never broke any laws, and that there was not an effort for a cover-up.
Many lawmakers at the hearing were hardly satisfied, however.
"I don't know that I got any answers from you today," Representative Mike Kelly said while speaking directly to Miller. "I am more concerned today that I was before."
After the hearing, inspector general spokeswoman Karen Kraushaar said that George "informed Department of Treasury officials that we were looking into the IRS' handling of applications for tax-exempt status, partly due to allegations raised by conservative organizations."
The U.S. Treasury Department issued a statement on Friday saying officials first became aware of the actual results of the investigation in March 2013 when they provided a draft of George's report.
"First and foremost, as acting commissioner, I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes that we made and the poor service we provided," Miller told the committee. "The affected organizations and the American public deserve better."
Miller insisted that he "did not mislead Congress or the American people," even though he repeatedly failed to reveal anything about the brewing controversy last year when he was confronted by lawmakers about it.
The Obama administration has been in "damage control" this week following the IRS scandal, which broke out over a week ago. Obama said he was undeterred by "distractions," in Washington.
"While others may get distracted by chasing every fleeting issue that passes by, the middle class will always be my number one focus, period," Obama said.
The president, and administration seeks to pivot away from three scandals, which have hit the White House, including the IRS probe story, the attacks on the consulate in Benghazi and the Justice Department's probe into the seizure of the Associated Press' documents. Obama administration officials -and the president himself - said that they learned of the seizure of the AP documents and the IRS probe, from news reports.
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