Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) grilled outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller Friday in a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.
Ryan took issue with past omissions Miller made in testimony before Congress in 2012 in which Miller was questioned about protests and allegations made by some conservative organizations who felt they were being treated unfairly by the IRS.
The Wisconsin congressman quoted 2012 testimony where the IRS commissioner declined to reveal conservative organizations were being targeted despite having been previously briefed that political filters for conservatives were being used:
PAUL RYAN: [...] You just acknowledged a minute ago that they were outrageous and then when you're asked about this after you were briefed about this, that was the answer you gave us? How can we not conclude that you misled this committee?
STEVEN MILLER: That was a lot of questions sir.
PAUL RYAN: It's one, how can we conclude that you did not mislead the committee?
STEVEN MILLER: I did not mislead the committee. I stand by my answer then and I stand by them my answer now. Harassment discussion which was part of that discussion applies to political motivation. There is a discussion going on, there is no political motivation.
PAUL RYAN: Let me ask it again sir.
STEVEN MILLER: May I answer the question?
PAUL RYAN: I'm going to help you and give you some clarity here. What kind of actions are being taken place of inaction you are aware of?
STEVEN MILLER: So that the discussion of the context of that and again we need to go back and look at the context, there was the listing, there was the treatment of the cases. My understanding of that question was the treatment of the cases because all of the letters that he was talking, and I think Mr. Marchant was talking about, I'm hearing that people are complaining about the letters. My response was to that, we found out about those letters. We dealt with them as had been explained. We gave more time. We went and talked to them about expanding the way they could answer it and we dealt I think fairly and successfully with the donor list issue.