The first specific change in how the IRS was engaging these tea party groups did not happen, according to the inspector general’s report, until Feb. 29, 2012, around the time that media reports were getting the IRS’ attention. At this time, Lerner halted new requests for information, and discussed rescinding the IRS demand that groups print out their entire website. The second substantive change came on March 8, 2012, when Miller, then the deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, told a unit within the IRS that if an applicant contacted them about “having to provide donor information, the Determinations Unit would allow them to not send the donor names but would inform them that the IRS may need it later.”
By late April, the contours of a full-blown clean operation were taking shape. A senior official from Washington with a title that parodies bureaucratic officialdom –- the senior technical advisor to the acting tax exempt and government entities division commissioner — paid a visit on April 23 to the “Determinations Unit in Cincinnati,” which had been set up to deal with a huge jump in 501c4 applications following the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision.
On April 24, IRS officials had begun to “identify troubling questions, which organizations received them, and which members of the team of specialists asked them.” The inspector general’s report noted that “the results included the names of donors as a troubling question.”
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