Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Wednesday went after Sarah Hall Ingram, who once headed the IRS division that targeted conservative groups, expressing his frustration that it took her five whole months before she agreed to come before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Some GOP lawmakers have been hammering Ingram for months as she headed the IRS division that targeted conservative political groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. Hall said she left to run the agency's health care office in 2010, about six months before a top deputy learned about the targeting.
Sarah Hall Ingram, director of the Affordable Care Act Office at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) , listens as she testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing examining the IRS role in Implementing and enforcing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Credit: AP
"Finally she's here," Jordan said. "We've been trying for five months to get Mrs. Ingram in front of this committee. I was beginning to think there was such no person as Sarah Hall Ingram."
"Here's the lady, who as the chairman said, is at the center of the storm for two of the biggest issues this country has dealt with in recent history: The targeting of conservative groups and implementation of Obamacare," he later added. "Here's the lady that was Lois Lerner's direct boss, and today is the first time she has been in front of this committee when the scandal has been known about for five months? Here's the lady for the last three years has been head of the office for implementing the Affordable Care Act and today is the first time she becomes in front of the committee?"
"This is unbelievable," Jordan continued.
Jordan also claimed that the IRS again tried to stop Ingram from appearing before the Oversight Committee yet again on Wednesday.
"So it raises just one simple question: Why?" he said. "What does she know that the IRS doesn't want this committee, this Congress and the American people to know? What are they trying to hide?"
As TheBlaze reported earlier Wednesday, the Oversight Committee hearing focused on emails between Ingram and top
White House officials that allegedly contained confidential tax information, a violation of IRS code.
Section 6103 of the IRS code prohibits federal employees from 'disclos[ing] any return or return information obtained by him in any manner in connection with his service as such an officer or an employee,'" TheBlaze's Becket Adams writes.
The penalty for disclosing confidential taxpayer information could include up to five years in prison.
Read the email exchange that has sparked controversy for the IRS yet again here.
Credit: Getty Images
Later in the hearing, Jordan grilled Ingram on the email exchange that reportedly contained confidential tax information and also details surrounding a number of dismissed lawsuits against the government filed by groups and businesses over the contraception mandate.
Watch that interaction below:
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