Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://oversight.house.gov/wp-conten...IRS-Report.pdf
(page 7)
Quote:
"Findings
The Committee’s investigation has resulted in the following findings to date about the
Internal Revenue Service’s inappropriate treatment of tax-exempt applicants:
The Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative-oriented applicants for tax-
exempt status;
Unlike applications from conservative groups, the small batch of applications from
liberal-oriented groups received additional scrutiny for non-political reasons. Of the
applications that received additional scrutiny, only seven contained the word
“progress” or “progressive,” all of which were subsequently approved by the IRS,
while Tea Party groups were subjected to an unprecedented degree of review and
years-long delays.
Senior Internal Revenue Service officials covered up the misconduct and misled
Congress about the existence and nature of the targeting;
The Internal Revenue Service sought to rein in conservative-oriented non-profits as
early as 2010;
The Administration is using the targeting as pretext to support its proposed regulation
to limit political speech of conservative non-profits;
Mismanagement among the senior leadership of the Internal Revenue Service
contributed to the targeting;
The Internal Revenue Service and the Obama Administration knowingly and wrongly
blamed line-level employees for the misconduct;
Employees of the Internal Revenue Service inappropriately used non-official e-mail
to conduct official government business;
The Internal Revenue Service has compromised its traditional position as an
independent tax administrator;
The Obama Administration exhibited a lack of accountability for the IRS misconduct;
Lois Lerner’s refusal to testify hindered the Committee’s investigation;
The Internal Revenue Service obstructed the Committee’s investigation; and
The White House and congressional Democrats obstructed the Committee’s investigation. "
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it's still early, I'm still half asleep, so maybe I'm mis-reading it or something, but doesn't that sound like there was indeed some misconduct?