Reportingth Irs News Today

Jon: i thought becky garrettson put it particularly well in that phrase when she essentially said, look, you know, i am an ordinary, free american, your jobs exist to maintain my freedom here in the u.s. congress, and that has been abused essentially by this agency of government. it just takes you back to the founding fathers, and what this country and what this government was set up to do. >> keep in mind, again we go back to this ridiculous comment that it was bad customer service. jon: yeah. ...

It is a great distance. thank you for being here and thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back the time. >> mr. nunez is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. kookogey, among the irs agents who demanded answer --. jon: the hearing goes on. we have to take a quick break, pay some bills. well be back with more coverage on "happening now."

Necessary coach today, joe? >> no, but i could use one. jon: what about the political impact? we just heard congressman jim mcdermott from washington state in the hearing suggesting that there have been abuses directed at democrats in the past as well. is there going to be trouble for the administration because of all of this? >> look, i think its clear that there will be. and, look, there may well have been some progressive groups that were hit like this. but that is no defense of an any of it....

Where was the outrage then? where was this sense of righteous indignation? as members of this committee, we must exercise our oversight role and honesty and fairness the american people expect and deserve. as we sit here today, let us also remember, that the irs has many good, hard-working employees who do a great job enforcing the tax code. we must not let the actions of misguided few hurt the reputation of the entire agency. if anything we must come together and find a bipartisan solution to a...

Of red flag warnings that analysts sometimes have. jon: adam shapiro, fox business network. thank you. >> reporter: you got it. jenna: from wall street back down to washington, d.c. where a fascinating hear something taking place. the house ways and means committee is having this hearing with organizations targeted by the irs. there is a slew of different panelists. youre taking a look at congressman richert. he is asking questions and there are more questions to come. well continue to watch thi...

The seriousness of this -- what this agency has at its disposal, but also its ability to keep you from organizing, just by demanding 90 pieces of information within a couple of months, or a couple of weeks. i mean, the short timeframes, these are -- a lot of these are small, mostly i think they are small organizations, they dont have the time or the resources to be providing all this information, and some of this information basically goes beyond the bound. i mean email communications, the names...

By law. you have proof that the i.r.s. leaked your confidential donor information to a group that opposes your point of view, and your donors were harassed as a result of that, is that correct? >> yes. >> all right. miss martingu quirks right next door in iowa i work with groups very similar to what you do in iowa. your board members -- the i.r.s. told you that if your board signed a letter saying that they would no longer picket or protest on behalf of the pro-life movement at planned parenthoo...

Happened here, and i think you need to state that, apologize for it, and then get to the bottom of it and change it, and -- one of the things i think that this may have some impact too is tax reform. all of the complicated stuff that groups have to do -- and i dont mean just these groups, i mean all americans have to do to get through the tax morass of the i.r.s. may be a real reform of the i.r.s. and the tax code is warranted beyond just this issue. jon: congressman dave camp the head of this c...

Organization, this one from the san fernando valley in california which was supposed to submit anything that says that their members might have violated ordinances while they were protesting, as if by the way they were occupy wall street or some one of these leftist groups that actually has violated some of these ordinances. some of this stuff is really, really deeply troubling, and i think the fact that it puts a face on these charges that people read about makes it really damaging for the i.r....

A conspiracy where there isnt than. mr. issa says he can feel it in his gut that someone has broke even thbroken the law. just ask yourself what is more likely that midlevel employees overwhelmed by as many as four times as many applications than before made stupid irresponsible short cuts or there is a nationwide plot to take down community organizers. this happened under an i.r.s. commissioner appointed by george bush and was investigated by a republican inspector general. what happened to you...