Criminal Probe Starts Over IRS Targeting

Eric Holder

Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday (May 14th) addressed two controversies that surfaced this week, saying that he'd ordered the Justice Department to investigate the IRS for any criminal activity for targeting Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status, and that he played no role in the subpoenas of a broad range of Associated Press phone records.

Holder's statements came as the Treasury inspector general report blamed ineffective management at the IRS for the improper focus on tea party groups, pointing the finger at IRS supervisors in Washington who oversaw the specialists in Cincinnati who screen applications for tax exempt status.

The report doesn't say that Washington initiated the targeting of conservative groups, but that a top supervisor there didn't adequately supervise agents in the field even after she learned they were acting improperly. In a statement, President Obama called the report's findings, quote, "intolerable and inexcusable," and said that he's ordering all of the report's recommendations to improve oversight at the IRS be implemented.

Holder also addressed the uproar over the Justice Department's secret subpoena of AP phone records covering two months, April and May 2012, for more than 20 phone lines assigned to the news organization and its journalists, saying what was done was justified as part of an investigation into a, quote, "very serious . . . very grave" national security leak.

However, he said he played no role in it, having recused himself from the probe because he'd been interviewed by FBI agents as part of the investigation and wanted to ensure the probe was independent and to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

Officials have said investigators are trying to find who leaked information used in a May 7, 2012, AP story that revealed details of a CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot. The probe is being run out of the U.S. Attorney's office in the District of Columbia. Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a letter to AP yesterday that they'd followed the rules for subpoenas, and hadn't sought information about the content of the calls.

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