The AP reports that the IRS “inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election” to verify that they were eligible for tax-exempt status. Doug Mataconis questions the claim that it was “not motivated by political bias”:
Targeting groups or people based on their political beliefs is, of course, strictly forbidden and completely unacceptable. It is one of the things that Richard Nixon and his cronies were accused of doing during the Watergate scandal, and ever since then there were supposed to have been strict rules in place to prevent outside pressure from effecting IRS investigations. … Even if this was all the work of low-level workers in one IRS office, the fact that the investigation targeted only groups of a specific political nature suggests pretty strongly that it was motivated by political bias even if it was just the political bias of these “low-lever workers.”
Kevin Williamson is outraged:
Using the IRS to target political opponents is banana-republic stuff, a clear and intolerable violation of the public trust, not to mention relevant criminal statutes. This is not the sort of offense that should get these IRS workers fired from their jobs — it is the sort of offense that should get them five years in prison.
Drum finally sees a “real scandal” for Republicans to pursue.
The Dish 