Two Republican lawmakers Wednesday urged the Department of Justice to take a fresh look at former IRS official Lois Lerner "in order to assure the American people that DOJ's prior investigation was handled fairly and to restore taxpayers' trust in the IRS," The Hill reported.
Lerner, who oversaw tax-exempt groups, was at the center of the political tax scandal in 2013 where the IRS targeted conservative groups with "tea party" or "patriot" in their names and improperly delayed or scrutinized their tax-exempt status application. At the time, Lerner, who resigned in 2013, said the actions were not driven by partisan motives.
Republicans Kevin Brady and Peter Roskam are members of the House Ways and Means Committee which sent the DOJ a letter in 2014 arguing Lerner might have violated criminal laws. But the DOJ said it did not find evidence IRS employees violated protocol for political reasons.
"It is clear that when the DOJ announced in October 2015 that it would not bring charges against Lois Lerner, the agency was following President Obama's signal on how he wanted the investigation to be handled," the lawmakers said in their letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "Taxpayers deserve to know that the DOJ's previous evaluation was not tainted by politics."
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