IRS Claims Release of Conservative Groups' Confidential Info to Soros-Affiliated Media Outlet 'Inadvertent and Unintentional

AP

The Internal Revenue Service claims the disclosure of conservative groups' confidential information to investigative journalism outfit ProPublica was "inadvertent and unintentional."

After the IRS admitted to deliberately targeting conservative organizations that applied for tax-exempt status, ProPublica reported it had received nine still-pending applications as part of its request for information about 67 nonprofits last year. The pending applications should have remained confidential.

“When these two issues were previously raised concerning the potential unauthorized disclosures of 501(c)(4) application information, we immediately referred these cases to TIGTA [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration] for a comprehensive review. In both instances, TIGTA found these instances to be inadvertent and unintentional disclosures by the employees involved," read an IRS statement to ProPublica sent Friday.

ProPublica bills itself as an independent nonprofit investigative journalism outlet, but has been described as liberal by its detractors and is supported in part by George Soros' Open Society Foundations.

--

​Related:

• Charles Krauthammer: IRS Scandal Could Be a ‘Fatal Problem’ for Obama
• Obama Suggests IRS, Benghazi, AP Phone Scandal Are Just ‘Politics’
• IRS Released Confidential Info About Conservative Groups to Media Last Year
• Obama Dodges Big Question on IRS Scandal
• Why Is Mainstream Investigative Journalism Outfit ProPublica Funded by Soros-Affiliated Donors?