The Hill
One year later, Republicans put IRS probe on the backburner
By Bernie Becker

A year after it began, the IRS targeting controversy has been overtaken by the Benghazi attacks on the oversight agenda of House Republicans.

While Republicans are convinced that the Obama administration is stonewalling them on both matters, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the House GOP have only set up a special committee for Benghazi.

On the IRS, House Republicans have instead pushed the Justice Department to more aggressively pursue its investigation, and this week pushed Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor.

There are a variety of reasons for the emphasis on Benghazi, including the chance to further examine further Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s record before a potential 2016 race.

But the shift also underscores that the investigation into the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups — which Lois Lerner acknowledged and apologized for on May 10, 2013 — hasn’t been quite the open-and-shut case Republicans once thought it was.

Following Lerner’s apology, Republicans accused the White House of targeting its political enemies. But a year later, senior Republicans in the party say that might be overstating the case, even though Obama administration deserves ample criticism.

“My instinct is that it is much more a bureaucracy run amok than it was some sort of directed plot from the White House,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said about the IRS’s singling out of Tea Party groups...

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