President Obama and Virginia leaders bash IRS targeting of conservative groups [View all]

[Douglas Carpenter]

Source: The News Virginian


President Barack Obama said Monday he will not tolerate political bias at the Internal Revenue Service and promised to get to the bottom of the agency's admitted targeting of conservative groups.

"You don't want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased and anything less than neutral in terms of how they operate,'' Obama said. The president said "I've got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it, and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this."

Virginia U.S. Sen. Mark Warner called the efforts of the IRS "appalling'' and "completely unacceptable." "We need a quick but thorough investigation, and those who are found to have been responsible for this betrayal of the public trust should be fired,'' Warner said.

Virginia U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said "there's no excuse for ideological discrimination in our system." He said swift action is needed by the Obama administration and said appropriate safeguards should be established "to prevent this from ever happening again."

While the IRS apologized on Friday for what it described as the targeting by low-level employees, a draft report by a watchdog group obtained by the Associated Press indicates the agency knew about targeting two years ago.


Read more: http://www.dailyprogress.com/newsvirginian/news/president-virginia-leaders-bash-irs-targeting-of-conservative-groups/article_2046690e-bc27-11e2-9658-001a4bcf6878.html