President Obama should apologize for the admission by the IRS that it singled out conservative Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny as they applied for non-profit status, Republican members of Congress said Sunday. They also called for an investigation of the agency. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the IRS actions were “truly outrageous” and “chilling” on CNN’s State of the Union. A public apology was “absolutely” needed, Collins said. “I think that it’s very disappointing the president hasn’t personally condemned this and spoken out. … (T)he president needs to make it crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.”
“I don’t care if you’re a conservative or a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican — this should send a chill up your spine,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said on Fox News Sunday.
Darrell Issa, the California Republican who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, said on NBC’s Meet the Press the initial apologies from the IRS have been insufficient. An inspector general’s report that examined the issue was leaked by the administration, he said, so that its impact would be lessened.
“This mea culpa is not an honest one,” Issa said.
Collins, Rogers and Issa spoke in reaction to an admission Friday by Lois Lerner, the IRS director of exempt organizations, that employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office routinely required conservative groups seeking non-profit status to undergo more extensive scrutiny than other groups seeking such a designation.
Full Article: GOP reaction in IRS case spurs calls for probe, apology.