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The admission and apology sparked widespread news coverage. Obama said those stories were the first he heard of the scandal.
“Obviously, the entire thing was an incredibly bad idea,” Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller told the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday. “I think what we tried to do . . . is get the apology out and start the story. The report was coming, and we knew that.”
While Miller suggested last week that he was a passive participant in the plan to plant a question as a way of managing the release of the story, he said Tuesday that he helped devise the ploy.
“I will take responsibility for that,” Miller said, suggesting a botched effort at damage control. “We had all the facts. . . . We thought we’d get out an apology.”
A Treasury official who demanded anonymity to speak freely added Tuesday that agency officials learned in April that Lerner might make a speech acknowledging the targeting and “expressed some concern about the idea of a speech, but ultimately deferred to the IRS on that issue.”
The speech never happened, and Treasury learned later that Miller might make an apology in congressional testimony, the official said. Eventually Treasury staff “was made aware that Lerner would be asked a question about the issue at the ABA conference on Friday, May 10. Treasury again deferred to the IRS on their interest in making a public apology,” the Treasury official said.
White House officials were aware of the first two possibilities but not the planted question, the Treasury official said, adding that Lew was unaware of the plant.
Senators were incredulous Tuesday that the IRS had failed to notify lawmakers who’d been inquiring about alleged IRS harassment for nearly two years. These lawmakers were told repeatedly by Miller and other top IRS officials that there was no targeting.
Miller maintained that words and names such as “tea party” and “patriot” were used as shortcuts, not targeting, to flag applications for special scrutiny.
But the IRS letters sent to Susan Martinek, who sought tax-exempt status for the Coalition for Life of Iowa, suggest otherwise.
Martinek said that the IRS said her application was ready for approval but first required a letter signed by her board members that the anti-abortion group wouldn’t picket in front of Planned Parenthood offices.
“That’s outrageous,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, suggesting that groups were asked to forgo their First Amendment rights in order to get tax-exempt status for their organization.
Lesley Clark of the Washington Bureau contributed to this article.
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