EDITORIAL: More stonewalling in IRS targeting probe

President Barack Obama promised to create “the most transparent administration in history.”

The word “transparent” is an adjective with different meanings. It can mean “free from pretense or deceit,” which is what the president was talking about: openness. But it can also mean “able to be seen through,” which is a far better description of the Obama administration. And one of the most transparent — in the less-flattering sense of the word — power plays our country has seen during his time in office involves political attacks by the Internal Revenue Service.

A year ago, President Obama insisted the targeting of conservative organizations by the IRS was not illegal or politically motivated, but rather the result of “some bone-headed decisions,” and that “not even a smidgen of corruption” was at play. The dominoes keep falling, however, and the president’s words sound even less believable now than they were then.

This week, the Obama administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request from The Hill for more than 500 documents on IRS targeting. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration cited various exemptions in the law in its denial of the request and a subsequent appeal, leaving many unanswered questions about who knew what and when regarding the agency’s targeting of conservative-leaning organizations seeking tax-exempt status.

Stonewalling has been the administration’s default response to this scandal.

Recall that IRS Commissioner John Koskinen once told lawmakers that the emails of Lois Lerner, the IRS administrator who led the tax-exempt unit, had been lost in a computer crash and that disaster backup tapes contained only a six-month record. He testified that the IRS made “extraordinary” yet ultimately unsuccessful efforts to locate the lost emails — tens of thousands of which miraculously have turned up in the months since.

Then there’s the refusal of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to obey a judge’s order to turn over more than 2,000 documents — documents that indicate the agency had been sharing individuals’ private tax data with the White House — because it would be an invasion of privacy, despite the fact that the agency already invaded citizens’ privacy by possessing the requested documents in the first place.

There’s also the case of the IRS agent in the Exempt Organizations Division — the same division overseen by Ms. Lerner until she retired in 2013 — who leaked confidential tax documents from the conservative National Organization for Marriage to gay marriage activists and left-wing media outlets. That agent’s employment status, disciplinary history and identity conveniently can’t be disclosed due to IRS confidentiality regulations — the same regulations that were supposed to protect the NOM and its donors but were violated by the IRS itself.

Not a smidgen of corruption? The refusal of any government office to release public records is, by itself, an act of corruption.

At its core, this scandal is about the executive branch of the federal government actively working to influence the outcome of national elections. The assertion from Democrats that this is a partisan witch hunt is alarmingly dismissive and dishonest. The administration that promised to be the most transparent in history is clearly hiding something. The Republican-led Congress needs to keep pushing to find out what that something is — and push for major tax reforms that strip the IRS of the power it’s all too happy to abuse.