We will take a short break. [inaudible conversations] people are taking their seats and i want to announce that we expect a series of votes there will be a concurrent Committee Hearing here so it is your responsibility to go back and forth and we will comment to people as they going to take care of that. With that, we go to the gentleman. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you to the witnesses for your time. You know, as ive have been sitting here through this whole ordeal, it has been the refusal of higherups in the irs to take any responsibility for the malfeasance within the agency and we had that was shown and testify in front of this committee, and he said that that while he had this impropriety on his watch, he was responsible at the time. Lois lerner blamed rogue agents in cincinnati. It has been part of the personnel in cincinnati. The group was in denial because they could not appeal a decision and i think it had a very tangible effect on these groups. As the testimony demonstrated today, we deliberately misread the public by blaming rogue agents in cincinnati for something that she knew was being orchestrated from washington dc. As a witness testified, this was akin to a Nuclear Strike against employees in cincinnati. They were were the ones that you wanted to throw under the bus. She tried to cloak best buy ordering the employees use advocacy groups, which denotes a conservative group. But for her it is a behavior change change or could i think she needs to answer for her behavior. That she needs to wave her fifth amendment rights and i think that she should be required to testify as we get more information. Its becoming increasingly clear to me that if there were any rogue agents, that would be lois lerner. I yield back the balance of my time. I want to take a point of privilege for a moment. I want to make sure that i make something very clear. When i referred to my Ranking Member, when we are not sparring over politics, we work very well together and i talked about effectively doing too much as we debate the question of whether things not be rogue agents in cincinnati, but that would be in washington at various levels that we are discussing here today. Which include the office of the console and lois lerner. I have been offended by the Ranking Member who i have not accused. I took a shortcut and i want to make it clear that when i talk about the little boy putting his hand in the cookie jar, i am talking about cookie jar went into this. It is intended to be about a small child and no way to be anything else. The Ranking Member and i enjoy a personal relationship that is by definition strained because of our jobs but not because of how we respect each other. So i would like to make it clear that that difference of opinion should always be expressed in a way that you understand you and i disagree sometimes about policies but never about our individual roles. We want to make sure that that is clear. And so to the extent that anyone is offended, i certainly do not want to be. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this and i do appreciate this and i know you mean that. Like you said, we differ sometimes on our views but at the end of the day, the respect level is still extremely high. So i really appreciate that. The gentleman from illinois, mr. Davis come as the full five minutes. Thank you very much. I want to thank our witnesses for what i call the careful analytical professional way in which they have responded to many highly subjective individuals. So i appreciate your service to the agency as well as the professionalism. Yesterday it was testified before this committee that progressive groups received treatment from the irs that was similar to Tea Party Groups when they apply for taxexempt status. The congressman, who is the Ranking Member of the ways and means committee, explained these similarities in more detail. It took years to resolve these cases, just like the tea party cases. In the irs screens for these groups, transfers them to the exempt organizations technical unit made them the subject of the case report and have them reviewed by the office the chief counsel. Some of these progressive groups actually have their applications denied after a threeyear wait in the the revolution of the Inspector General had to the release of this information and i can only ask you about these groups in a vague manner. Let me ask you, i understand you were not assigned any of these progressive groups . Do you know who in the washington technically unit was assigned these applications . No , sir. No , sir, i do not. Do you have any information you can share with the committee about how such groups were screened or reviewed . No , sir, i do i cannot. According to Ranking Member levin who was able to review the name of the category of groups. Key terms to search for the groups are included in the screen in workshop slide show from july of 2010. It appears from that document that they were told to, and i quote, look for names like the ones for these groups as well as for the terms progressive and tea party and patriot and 9 1 12 project. Certainly from this document it appears the Tea Party Groups were not treated differently than progressive groups rather they appear to be handled in a similar manner. Do you agree that in order determine whether a group has been singled out and treated differently than it peers is it is important to review how all similarly sexually swotted group situated groups are handled . I think thats above my grade level. I wouldnt be able to comment on that. All right. To me, based on the evidence before us the Inspector Generals report did not tell us the full story how the Internal Revenue service handled applicants with political advocacy issues between 2010 and 2012. I hope that the reviews will provide relevant information and those corrections can be made. I thank you again both, and i yield back the balance of my time. I thank the gentleman. Were not now going complete as fast as we can as many as we can before the vote. Im sorry. If you please go next. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I wanted to thank you for your perseverance today both with the witnesses and. I have struggled to find out as we dont pursue what happened with the tea party cases. I think they look back and put them in the context. Im trying to find out on the baseline how cases were handled normally before Tea Party Got put in to your life. First, you were working in a division that was responsibility for you was to make decisions about people who were applicant for these 501 c 4 designations. Is that no
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