WASHINGTON — A House Republican investigation faults senior IRS officials in the mistreatment of conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status, but could find no link to the White House, according to a report released Tuesday.
The probe isn't over, although investigators have reviewed 1.3 million pages of documents and interviewed 52 officials. The report, however, marks the end of Rep. Darryl Issa's tenure leading the investigation.
Issa, a Republican from California, is stepping down as chairman of the House Oversight Committee because of term limits. Issa has repeatedly clashed with the White House and congressional Democrats over the way the IRS treated tea party and other conservative groups.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, will take over the committee in January. Chaffetz has said his approach to the committee will be less confrontational.
The report does not absolve anyone from blame. Instead, it complains that the IRS and the White House have not fully cooperated with the investigation.
"The White House's obstruction not only violated the president's promise of cooperation, but it affected the committee's fact-finding obligations," the report said.
An IRS spokesman said the agency had no comment.
The report says conservative groups were given improper scrutiny for more than two years from 2010 to 2012. It says senior IRS officials covered up the misconduct and misled Congress about it.
The report specifically faults eight senior IRS leaders who "were in a position to prevent or to stop the IRS's targeting of conservative applicants."
The eight include former Commissioner Douglas Shulman, former acting Commissioner Steven Miller, and Lois Lerner, who used to head the division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.
"Each of these leaders could have and should have done more to prevent the IRS's targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants," the report said.
Both Shulman and Miller told Congress last year that they first learned that conservative groups were being singled out for additional scrutiny in the spring of 2012.
They said they put a stop to it and cooperated with a review by the agency's inspector general, who issued a report about a year later. During that year, Shulman and Miller were repeatedly asked by members of Congress about the treatment of conservative groups by the IRS. But at congressional hearings and in letters, they didn't reveal anything.
See Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more on this story.