IRS officials in Washington, D.C. and two other offices discriminated against Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status, The Washington Post reports.
The IRS admitted Friday that it unfairly targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny during the 2012 campaign but blamed the problem on a "few low-level workers" in Cincinnati.
Now the Post has reviewed documents that make the problem appear a lot more widespread than IRS officials made it out to be. IRS officials in Washington and California repeatedly sent conservative groups detailed questionnaires about their voter outreach, the documents revealed.
The Wetumpka Tea Party of Alabama said it had a two-year delay after it applied for tax-exempt status after the IRS asked for detailed information including the names of all of its volunteers and the text of speeches its members had given.
Details of this unfair targeting reached the "highest levels" of the IRS in May 2012 — a lot sooner than it has said it knew, the Post reported.
“For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false,” Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer representing True the Vote, told the Post.
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