Quoted here:
Sander Levin, the [House Ways and Means Committee's] ranking Democrat, said the IRS and its employees 'have completely failed the American people' by 'singling out organizations for review based on their name or political views, rather than their activity.'
'All of us are angry about this on behalf of the nation,' the left-leaning Michigan congressman said.
Lois Lerner is the civil servant who heads up the IRS division in charge of evaluating charitable and other nonprofit organizations. Levin called for her head.
'Ms. Lerner should be relieved of her duties.' he said.
We must seek the truth, not political gain.'
In what [ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven] Miller called 'a prepared Q-and-A' on May 10, Lerner told an American Bar Association conference about a pending IRS Inspector General report examining the targeting of conservative groups inside the IRS's Exempt Organizations section.
That admission started the media feeding frenzy that has spiraled into a full-blown scandal. The acknowledgement that Lerner went to the event with the intention of publicly disclosing the IG report's existence raised eyebrows on the congressional panel.
The Daily Caller here emphasizes that the disclosure by Lerner was pre-planned and misrepresented as an answer to an innocent question posed by an audience member at the American Bar Association conference when in fact the question was planted:
As it turns out, it was not a spontaneous revelation. The question, said outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday, was planted, as part of a prepared strategy for the IRS to release this information to the public.
