An email has surfaced indicating former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner “sought an audit involving” Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley in 2012 after a mix up somehow led to her inadvertently led to her receiving an event invitation meant for Grassley.
He also apparently received hers due to an envelope stuffing error.
The event organizer apparently offered to pay for Grassley’s wife to attend the event. In an email to another IRS official, Lerner suggests referring the matter for an audit, saying it might be inappropriate for the group to pay for his wife.
Lerner quipped, “Perhaps we should refer to exam?” in response. As the reimbursement would fall to Grassley to report as income, it’s thought she would have been referring to audit him and not the event organizer.
Republican lawmakers currently investigating Lerner and the IRS for allegedly targeting Tea Party groups for political motives have seized on the email as potentially still more evidence of Lerner allowing her political leanings to impact her judgment while at the IRS.
“We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States senator is shocking,” Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said. “At every turn, Lerner was using the IRS as a tool for political purposes in defiance of taxpayer rights.”
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