Camp: Lerner emails show abuse of power

Camp had previously raised questions about Lerner’s communications with the FEC, where she used to work. Lerner, currently on leave from her position at the IRS, first disclosed and apologized for the agency’s singling out of Tea Party groups in May.

{mosads}In another released email, Lerner correctly predicted the agency would “get dinged” by the inspector general’s report that outlined the IRS’s treatment of Tea Party groups.

But Lerner also says that the division that oversees exempt organizations had already corrected many of the problems, a statement that Ways and Means says isn’t true.

In a statement, the IRS said that its interim chief, Danny Werfel, had made it a priority to get congressional investigators the information they needed, and that it continued to correct the problems identified in the May report from Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration.

“We support a complete review of these documents to fully understand the circumstances that led to these events,” the IRS statement said.

Lerner’s emails are the latest release in a controversy that has been increasingly shunted to the side in recent weeks, with the conflict in Syria and the latest round of fiscal fights taking up much of the attention on Capitol Hill.

But House Republicans insist that the investigation into the IRS is far from over, even as Democrats continue to stress that no evidence so far has shown White House involvement or political motivation behind the agency’s actions.

Democrats have also raised questions about the inspector general’s audit, and both parties have accused the other of releasing cherry-picked statements to score political points.

On Thursday, Rep. Sandy Levin (Mich.), the top Democrat on Ways and Means, said the latest emails merely confirmed that Lerner’s work was shoddy.

“Lois Lerner was incompetent in her management of the IRS tax-exempt division and unprofessional in her conduct – reasons why I immediately called for her to be relieved of her duties,” Levin told The Hill in a statement.

“Selective leaking by Republicans does not change the fact that tens of thousands of documents and dozens of interviews with IRS employees have revealed absolutely no evidence of political motivation, no evidence of outside influence and no evidence of White House involvement.”

In her email calling the Tea Party matter dangerous, Lerner adds that the cases could be high-profile, and an eventual court test of how the Citizens United case banning limits on corporate spending applies to tax-exempt groups.