Now that the elections are over, the IRS confesses to illegal search of tax records involving 300 conservative groups.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.   Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.  In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.   "That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review,"    Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association. . . . . . Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice.

Note:  understand that approximately 300  conservative teaparty type organizations were targeted,  nationwide,  a fact that,  in and of itself,  refutes the notion that this was anything other than an established policy of the IRS in the weeks and months leading up to the 2012 elections. --  blog editor

(AP)  IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

Editor's Note:  as it turns out,  this was a lie.  It is simply not credible to target 300 teaparty and “patriot” organizations without that being for political purposes.  Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.,  chairman of the House investigative committee overseeing governmental affairs,  said "the fact that Americans were targeted by the IRS because of their political beliefs is unconscionable."   There is speculation that,  in time,  there will be further investigations into this,  if not in the House,  then in the Senate.

While AP did the reporting,  the American Center for Law and Justice,  a conservative watchdog firm headed by Jay Sekulow did  "the dirty"  of funding and pushing forward with the legal challenges.  

Most  importantly,  as to the bias of the AP,  it should be noted that the IRS made the above admissions because of the work of Jay Skeulow and the American Center for Law and Justice. The investigation began with the complaints of 30 teaparty groups.  Understand that the Supreme  Court has already ruled that what the IRS did,  in these targeting,  was and is illegal.  The IRS,  as of this morning,  has corrected only 14 of these complaints.  In short,  a crime has been committed,  on a nationwide basis,  and in the interest of partisan politics.  No such IRS probe was conducted against groups identified as “liberal.”  You can view the video report on this matter at FoxNews.com