Top IRS official didn't reveal tea party targeting
...On Monday, the IRS said Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra scrutiny. Congress, though, was not told tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted, even after Miller had been briefed on the matter.

At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without disclosing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, but again did not mention the additional scrutiny — despite being asked about it.

Miller's op-ed, however, did not address why he did not inform Congress after he was briefed....

IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo
In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.

That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.

In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups....

Former White House Adviser Says Obama Didn't Know About IRS Targeting Because the Government Is Just Too Dang Big
...The targeting, Axelrod told MSNBC, was done by “folks down in the bureaucracy—you know we have a large government.” And that’s why the president didn’t know what was happening. “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast,” he said.

That’s right. The government is just so big that the president can’t possibly be involved in everything that’s happening, and can't know what multiple offices of tax bureaucrats across the country are doing. This is mostly just excuse-making, but fair enough, I suppose. Still, if the “vast” size of government makes oversight and management of the bureaucracy a problem, it seems like there’s a fairly obvious approach one might take to begin addressing it....