As the scope of the scandal grows, so too does the implication that this may go very high up the chain.
From the Washington Post:
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.
The Blaze report that this went to the top officials, that they were made aware of this one year ago!
The Blaze: And all this on top of the fact that top-ranking IRS officials were made aware of the targeting in May 2012:
… details of the IRS’s efforts to target conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency in May 2012, far earlier than has been disclosed, according to Republican congressional aides briefed by the IRS and the Treasury Inspector for Tax Administration on the details of their reviews.
Then commissioner, Douglas Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee who stepped down in November, received a briefing from the Treasury Inspector for Tax Administration about what was happening in the Cincinnati office in May 2012, the aides said. His deputy and the agency’s current acting commissioner, Steven T. Miller, also received a briefing that month, according to the aides.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Monday that the White House counsel’s office was notified of the IRS investigation back in April, TheBlaze reported earlier today
How high does this go? I don’t know. Does it involve the Obama Administration? I don’t think we can leap to that conclusion just yet.