IRS planned secret new rules to justify targeting tea party groups two years ago, reveals bombshell email

• The IRS was working on a plan to justify targeting some nonprofit groups for special scrutiny as early as 2012, according to a new document
• Republicans demanded answers on Wednesday as the IRS circled its wagons
  
• President Obama said there wasn't 'a smidgen of corruption' in a plan that singled out right-wing groups applying for tax exemptions
• The new timeline shows that the IRS was working to change its rules long before an inspector general report revealed the depth of the targeting
  
• Investigators still haven't interviewed many conservative groups that were denied tax-exempt status while their liberal counterparts sailed through
  

By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor

Republicans clashed with the Internal Revenue Service's new commissioner Wednesday in a Capitol Hill hearing that featured the unveiling a document indicating that the agency planned as early as 2012 to change its rules in a way that justified singling out tea party groups for special scrutiny.

The document, an email from Treasury Department tax policy attorney Ruth Madrigal to a group of IRS officials including the disgraced Lois Lerner.

'Don’t know who in your organizations is keeping tabs on c4s,' Madrigal wrote, quoting an election law blog and referring to the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt groups that were the subject of the tea party targeting scandal, 'but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off plan) in 2013, I’ve got my radar up and this seemed interesting.'

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp insisted Wednesday that Madrigal's note indicated that new regulations were planned as a 'remedy to the target[ing]' back in 2011 and 2012. 'I’m pretty sure [off-plan] means "hidden from the public",' he said.

more @ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2552413/Sparks-fly-knives-come-hearing-IRS-targeting-tea-party-groups-new-email-document-shows-agency-cover-mode.html