House report finds IRS cultural bias against conservative groups

The Hill:

IRS employees subverted the agency’s nonpartisan mission to further President Obama’s political goals, according to a new House GOP report that will be released Tuesday.

The report, from Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), seeks to undercut the administration’s explanations for the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups, including that the conduct was centered in a Cincinnati office and that confusing regulations played a role.While the 210-page report finds no evidence that Obama or White House officials ordered the special treatment of Tea Party groups, it says the record points to a “culture of bias against conservative organizations among certain IRS employees."

That bias, the report says, underscores that the IRS is no longer the neutral tax collector it claims to be, at a time when its employees are tasked with implementing Obama’s signature healthcare law.

“Evidence shows an IRS responsive to the partisan policy objectives of the White House and an IRS leadership that coordinates with political appointees of the Obama administration,” the report says.

Issa says the IRS took cues from Obama’s criticism of the Supreme Court’s Citizens Uniteddecision, which gave corporations and unions freer rein to spend on elections.

“The rhetoric led the IRS to hold a deeply skeptical view of the merits of applications filed by new conservative groups,” the GOP report says.

The report also says that as many as eight senior IRS officials could have stopped the improper scrutiny — which lasted for over two years — but the agency was frozen by “bad judgment, inexperience, and bureaucratic rigidity.”
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There is certainly evidence to support such a charge despite some obvious attempts to cover up with missing emails and text messages.  The lack of cooperation with the investigation also suggest that the bias continues and goes to the top of the IRS.