 At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general. The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that the IRS field office in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status decided to focus on groups making statements that “criticize how the country is being run” and those that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” 
 
 The staffers in the Cincinnati field office were making high-level decisions on how to evaluate the groups because a decade ago the IRS assigned all applications to that unit. The IRS came under withering attack from GOP lawmakers Sunday. “This is truly outrageous,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that even though White House spokesman Jay Carney has said the matter deserves an investigation, “the president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.” 
 
 In March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, told Congress that the agency was not targeting conservative groups. “There has to be accountability for the people who did it,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding: “And, quite frankly, up until a few days ago, there’s got to be accountability for people who were telling lies about it being done.” 
 
 The appendix of the inspector general’s report — which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released — chronicles the extent to which the IRS’s exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of “social welfare” groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums on elections as well as register for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, as long as their “primary purpose” was not targeting electoral candidates. Of the 298 groups selected for special scrutiny, according to the congressional aide, 72 had “tea party” in their title, 13 had “patriot” and 11 had “9/12.” Lerner, who apologized Friday for the targeting of such groups, described it as a misguided effort to deal with a flood of applications for tax-exempt status. The inspector general's office has been conducting an audit of the IRS's handling of the applications process and is expected to release a report this week. According to the report, by June 2011 some IRS specialists were probing applications using the following criteria: "issues include government spending, government debt or taxes; education of the public by advocacy/lobbying to 'make America a better place to live'; statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run." Lerner, who is a Democrat, is not a political appointee. But then it changed again in January 2012 to cover "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, social economic reform/movement," according to the findings contained in a Treasury Department watchdog report. The agency did not appear to adopt a more neutral test for 501(c)(4) groups until May 17, 2012, according to the timeline in the report. In May 2012, the criteria for scrutiny were revised again to cover a variety of tax-exempt groups "with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit)," according to a TIGTA timeline included in the findings. “We want nonpartisan, non-biased enforcement.” 
 
 Loyola Law School professor Ellen Aprill, who specializes in tax law, said any groups that have applied for tax-exempt status has “opened themselves up to scrutiny” by the IRS.
– The IRS scandal goes beyond the Tea Party: Documents show that over the past two years while evaluating applications for tax-exempt status, officials also zeroed in on groups that criticized the government or educated Americans about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights; as well as groups that were interested in taxes, government spending, or government debt; limiting or expanding the government; improving America; or "social economic reform." The documents show how the Cincinnati office frequently redefined the types of groups that should be targeted for increased scrutiny, even after division chief Lois Lerner objected in June 2011, the Washington Post reports. In March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman testified before Congress that the IRS was not singling out conservative groups, the Wall Street Journal reports. It wasn't until May 2012 that a neutral policy was adopted, with the IRS agreeing to target any group that was significantly concerned with political campaigns. The documents don't make it clear who the decision-maker was, Reuters reports.