Baucus had ‘concerns’ about Treasury inspector general in 2004

Baucus has not publicly expressed any problems with the inspector general’s report on the agency’s targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, but his 2004 comments add a new wrinkle to Tuesday’s hearing.

{mosads}The Finance chairman’s staff did not respond to a request for comment on Baucus’s original concerns about George’s nomination.

Baucus and the Finance panel’s ranking Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), did cite George’s report extensively in pressing the IRS for a wide range of new information on Monday. The audit’s findings, the two top tax writers said, “appear to be a clear breach of the public’s trust.”

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee – which held the first hearing into the IRS uproar on Friday – have also not expressed much concern about the report, and have said that it highlighted shoddy work at the agency.

But Democrats also suggested during Friday’s hearing that there was no proof that the targeting was politically motivated, and suggested that Republicans were overreaching on the issue.

George W. Bush also nominated Russell George to be inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service.