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| FILE – In this Nov. 9, 2011, file photo then-Controller Danny Werfel of OMB Office of Federal Financial Management watches as President Barack Obama (not shown) signs an Executive Order to cut waste and promote efficient spending across the federal government in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. Friday May 31st, 2013, Werfel, the new acting Commissioner of the IRS, issued a statement commenting on a report by Treasury Department's Inspector General in which he criticized a $4 million IRS conference in August 2010 in Anaheim, Calif. The report will be released Tuesday. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- A government watchdog has found that the Internal Revenue
Service spent about $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for
employees between 2010 and 2012, a House committee said Sunday.
The
chairman of that committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also released
excerpts of congressional investigators' interviews with employees of
the IRS office in Cincinnati. Issa said the interviews indicated the
employees were directed by Washington to subject tea party and other
conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status to tough scrutiny.
The
excerpts provided no direct evidence that Washington had ordered that
screening. The top Democrat on that panel, Rep. Elijah Cummings of
Maryland, contested that, saying none of the employees interviewed have
so far identified any IRS officials in Washington as ordering that
targeting.
The conference spending included $4
million for an August 2010 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., for which the
agency did not negotiate lower room rates, even though that is standard
government practice, according to a statement by the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee.
Instead, some of
the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and
stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 per
night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in
fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about "leadership through art," the
House committee said.
The report by the
Treasury Department's inspector general, set to be released Tuesday,
comes as the IRS already is facing bipartisan criticism after agency
officials disclosed they had targeted tea party and other conservative
groups.
Agency officials and the Obama
administration have said that treatment was inappropriate, but the
political tempest is showing no signs of ebbing and has put the White
House on the defensive.
Three congressional
committees are investigating, a Justice Department criminal
investigation is under way, President Barack Obama has replaced the IRS'
acting commissioner and two other top officials have stepped aside.
The
Treasury Department released a statement Sunday saying the
administration "has already taken aggressive and dramatic action to
reduce conference spending."
IRS spokeswoman
Michelle Eldridge said Sunday that spending on large agency conferences
with 50 or more participants fell from $37.6 million in the 2010 budget
year to $4.9 million in 2012. The government's fiscal year begins Oct. 1
the previous calendar year.
On Friday, the
new acting commissioner, Danny Werfel, released a statement on the
forthcoming report criticizing the Anaheim meeting.
"This
conference is an unfortunate vestige from a prior era," Werfel said.
"While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of
the expenses associated with it were inappropriate and should not have
occurred."
Issa's committee also released
excerpts from interviews congressional investigators conducted last week
with two IRS employees from the agency's Cincinnati office. The
excerpts omitted the names of those interviewed and provided no
specifics about individuals in Washington who may have been involved.
One
of the IRS employees said in an excerpt that they were told by a
supervisor that the need to collect the reports came from Washington,
and said that in early 2010 the Cincinnati office had sent copies of
seven of the cases to Washington.
The other said "all my direction" came from an official the transcript said was in Washington.
One
of the workers also expressed skepticism that the Cincinnati office
originated the screening without direction from Washington, according to
the excerpts.
Appearing Sunday on CNN's
"State of the Union," Issa said this conflicted with White House
comments that have referred to misconduct by IRS workers in Cincinnati.
Without naming White House spokesman Jay Carney, Issa said the
administration's "paid liar, their spokesperson" is "still making up
things about what happens in calling this local rogue."
He
added, "This is a problem that was coordinated in all likelihood right
out of Washington headquarters and we're getting to proving it."
In briefings with reporters, Carney has not referred to the Cincinnati IRS office as "rogue."
"He's
good at throwing out outlandish charges but it's unclear what he's
saying he lied about," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said of Issa's
remark.
Cummings said Issa's comments
conflicted with a Treasury inspector general's report that provided no
evidence that the Cincinnati office received orders on targeting from
anyone else.
"Rather than lobbing
unsubstantiated conclusions on national television for political
reasons, we need to work in a bipartisan way to follow the facts where
they lead," Cummings said.
The interviews with
IRS employees were conducted by Republican and Democratic aides on
Issa's committee and also involved aides from both parties from the
House Ways and Means Committee.
One of the
employees was a lower-level worker while the other was higher-ranked,
said one congressional aide, but the committee did not release their
names or titles.
The IRS Cincinnati office
handles applications from around the country for tax-exempt status. A
Treasury inspector general's report in May said employees there began
searching for applications from tea party and conservative groups in
their hunt for organizations that primarily do work related to election
campaigns.
That May report blamed "ineffective
management" for letting that screening occur for more than 18 months
between 2010 and 2012. But that report - and three hearings by
congressional committees - have produced no specific evidence that the
Cincinnati workers were ordered by anyone in Washington to target
conservatives.
The latest report on IRS
conferences will be the subject of a hearing Thursday by the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Karen
Kraushaar, spokeswoman for the inspector general's office, said public
discussion of a report before it is released "serves no purpose and
should generally be avoided."
Werfel is
scheduled to make his first congressional appearance as acting
commissioner Monday when he appears before a subcommittee of the House
Appropriations Committee.
According to
congressional aides briefed by the inspector general's office, the IRS
did not formally seek competitive bids for the city where the agency's
2010 conference was held, for the event planner who assisted the agency,
or for the speakers.
The aides, who spoke on
condition of anonymity to describe a confidential congressional
briefing, said other benefits given to some attendees at the Anaheim IRS
conference included vouchers for free drinks and some tickets to attend
Angels baseball games.
Two videos produced by
the IRS were shown at the Anaheim conference. In one, agency employees
did a parody of "Star Trek" while dressed like the TV show's characters;
the second shows more than a dozen
IRS workers dancing on a stage. The
two videos cost the agency more than $50,000 to make, aides said.
The
lecturer who spoke about leadership through art produced six paintings
of subjects that included Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jordan, the rock
singer Bono and the Statue of Liberty, the aides said.
