So now we have people thinking that somewhere there's a lie hidden in what Administration officials said publicly: Did they know ahead of the scandal's public airing? Mind you, the difference here is 24 days.
But don't you worry: Rep Darrell Issa will get to the bottom of whether the Administration knew 34 days ago or 10 days ago, and who knew what, when and where Waldo was during this scandal.
Oh, and on a related note: This WaPo's examination of the truthfulness of Lois Lerner's statements, requires some scrutiny.
"But between 2010 and 2012, we started seeing a very big uptick in the number of 501(c)(4) applications we were receiving, and many of these organizations applying more than doubled, about 1500 in 2010 and over 3400 in 2012." -- Lois Lerner.Whereas WaPo's Glenn Kessler focuses on the question of whether there was a surge between 2009 and 2010, let's step back and look at IRS staffing numbers.
Year
|
R and A staffing numbers
|
% change from prev year
|
Number of 501(c)4 applications
|
501(c)4 applications / staff
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
2008
| 364 | not appl | not avail | not avail |
2009
| 366 | +0.5% | 1751 | 4.8 |
2010
| 337 | -7.9% | 1735 | 5.1 |
2011
| 332 | -1.5% | 2265 | 6.8 |
2012
| 335 | +0.9% | 3357 | 10 |
While the number of 501(c)4 applications had gone down in 2010, staffing within the Rulings and Agreements section (which is responsible for processing tax-exempt applications) also decreased. So if the intention was to focus on possible political groups sneaking into the 501(c)4 category, then, while technically not a surge, the number of applications for 501(c)4 did increase per employee between 2009 and 2010.
Furthermore, you can see that the number of 501(c)4 applications per employee has doubled between 2010 and 2012.
So, her concise statement was truthful. It was Glenn Kessler who took some liberties in interpreting what she meant, as opposed to her precise words. She might have been misleading (or misinterpreted), but she was truthful.
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