Is This the IRS Boss Who Oversaw the Targeting of Tea Party Groups?

AP

The contention that the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups was limited to several low-level workers may not be holding up.

Former IRS acting head Steven Miller testified last week that two "rogue" agents responsible have already been disciplined. But Fox Cincinnati affiliate WXIX-TV has identified six local employees that sent probing letters to Tea Party groups: Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a woman known only as Ms. Richards.

According to WXIX, all of those workers have separate managers, and separate territory managers above them; the only supervisor they do have in common is Cindy Thomas, the program manager of the IRS' tax-exempt organizations determinations division.

Image source: WXIX-TV

A biography of Thomas from the Cincinnati Bar Association says she is a 35-year IRS veteran who has held the program manger title for about eight years. Thomas was listed as a presenter at a Cincinnati Bar Association program in January titled, "What Is the Best Structure for Your Nonprofit?"

Additionally, it was Thomas' signature on an IRS letter to investigative journalism outfit ProPublica sent along with confidential, still-pending applications from conservative groups in November.

ProPublica had requested information on conservative groups who had received tax-exempt status, and with it received some still-pending ones that should have remained confidential. The IRS has said the disclosure of the confidential documents was "inadvertent and unintentional.”

Several IRS officials have been called before Congress, including Lois Learner, the director of the tax-exempt determinations office, who on Wednesday invoked her constitutional right not testify. Thomas so far has not been called.

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