Miller: No Partisanship in Targeting Conservative Groups

Outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller told the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday that the targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups by the IRS was the result of IRS employees trying to be “more efficient” and making “foolish mistakes.” He denied that the actions of the IRS employees were the result of partisanship.

Miller stated:

I do not believe that partisanship motivated the people who engaged in the practices described in the Treasury Inspector General’s report. I reviewed the Treasury Inspector General’s report and I believe its conclusions are consistent with that. I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection.

The IRS has admitted to targeting conservative groups that had words such as “patriot” in their titles and were seeking tax-exempt status for greater scrutiny.