Former IRS Official Says Politics Didn’t Affect Her Work

The IRS official at the center of a scandal over alleged targeting of conservative groups says in a new interview that her personal political leanings never impacted her work.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Lois Lerner told Politico in an interview published Monday, her first since the scandal broke more than a year ago. “I’m proud of my career and the job I did for this country.”

Lerner was drummed out of the agency and became a lightning rod for conservative criticism after reports detailed how the tax agency gave extra scrutiny to conservative political groups seeking nonprofit, tax-exempt status. Later reports showed liberal groups were also given extra scrutiny, but the issue quickly became a political headache for the Obama Administration.

Congressional Republicans investigating the matter have accused Lerner of letting her liberal political leanings influence her work, but she was unapologetic in the interview.

“What matters is that my personal opinions have never affected my work,” Lerner said.

She again denied being involved in a cover-up by destroying emails saying, “How would I know two years ahead of time that it would be important for me to destroy emails, and if I did know that, why wouldn’t I have destroyed the other ones they keep releasing?”

[Politico]