said to us. they said lois lerner was there. se said nothing about the targeting. days later in a planned, calculated question and answer question disclosed it at a public conference. what the committee smells here is number one contempt for congress, the agency has not been answering honestly. let s say on tuesday the answer is i don t know, on thursday you come into information, what the congress is trying to say the law requires you to call us an come back and say i have that information. when i told you this i was not aware of that. that s going to get to a broader question on the republicanaire republican narrative. that this president on this and other issues and his feel just look down their noses at congress and decide, we don t have to tell you anything. but then they made a calculated step to put this out in public, because they knew that inspector general report was coming down the pipeline. the thing that struck me at the beginning of the hearing, congressman dave camp, c
establish the facts that we do know. based on the report, we know for an 18-month period beginning in spring 2010, irs in the agency s determinations unit employed key word, such as tea party, patriot and 9/12 to target tax exempt status. they were subject to further irs investigation and document requests. irs employees later expanded search to include groups concerned with government spending, debt, taxes, the constitution, the bill of rights or trying to make america a better place to live. let me repeat that. people were targeted for trying to make america a better place to live. thighs americans had their applications delayed for nearly
harder to get to the facts and get to the issue going on here. there is a difference in my mind between stupid mistakes and malicious mistakes. the overwhelming political activities were from far right groups and examiners took a shortcut, which they clearly regret, deeply regret. the report says in black and white on page 7, quote, the determination unit employees stated they con considered the tea party criterion as a shorthand term for all potential political cases. closed quote. these applications were singled out for their names and policy position, not for the activities, which is really what they should have been singled out for. some of these political groups are delayed in getting their taxpayer status and that was wrong. as much as i dislike the right, i think it s wrong to be uneven handed in government application. the inspector general s report
page 7 of the i.t. report statsz, all of the individuals stated the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside of the irs. is that correct? that is the information we received, correct, sir. did you find any evidence of political motivation in the selection of the tax exemption applications? we did not, sir. mr. miller, during your review of this matter, you indicated when you started it, did you find any evidence of political motivation on the part of employees involved in processing the applications at issue? we did not, sir. if we could put on the screen the organizational chart, is that possible from the report?
statement before i take your questions. first and foremost, as acting commissioner i want to apologize on behalf of the internal revenue service for the mistakes we made and poor services we provided. the american public deserve better. partisanship or the perception of partshisanship has no place the irs. it can t even appear to have a role in determining tax exempt status in the organization. i don t believe politics motivated the people engaged in the treasury inspector general s report. i believe its conclusions with consistent with that i think what happened here, is foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection. the listing described in the report while intolerable was a mistake. and not an act of partisanship. the agency is moving forward. it has learned its lesson. we have previously worked to