Last night President Obama made a statement to the country promising to hold those responsible for inappropriate targeting of conservative groups at the IRS. He announced that his Treasury Secretary had asked and received the resignation for Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller. Sounds great right? Wrong. Apparently Miller was leaving anyway...at the end of June. Not to mention, Miller had only been in his position as acting director since November 2012. Six months after the election and two years of harassment toward conservative groups.
Accountability! The question now is whether Miller will receive a full pension and how many others will be "held accountable." The real people to be looking at are:
-Douglas Shulman: he was in charge of the IRS as Commissioner until November 2012 and lied to Congress about ongoing harassment of tea party groups
-Lois Lerner: the director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS and the woman who admitted to and apologized for inappropriate targeting of tea party groups last week. By the way, she received $42,000 in performance bonuses.
-Nan Downing: the director of Examinations for the Exempt Organizations division of the IRS
UPDATE: As Ed Morrissey points out, Miller isn't totally innocent here and served as the deputy commissioner for Services and Enforcement before taking the position as acting commissioner in November 2012. He knew about harrassment of tea party groups in May 2012, but didn't say anything about it.
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