Obama On Alleged IRS Targeting: 'Outrageous'; Vows To Hold IRS Accountable

During a joint press opportunity between President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the American leader was dogged about his knowledge of allegations against the Internal Revenue Service.

As the Latin Times previously reported, IRS official Lois Lerner admitted last week that she knew as early as 2011 that the nation's tax collection agency was allegedly targeting conservative groups, including the Tea Party.

"If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous," Obama said. He told the press that the IRS' position as an agency independent of the White House and most other Washington establishments, that it must conduct business with "absolute integrity".

CBS News reported that in January 2012, Lerner wrote high-powered California Republican Darrell Issa, the Congressman that chairs the House Oversight Committee, guaranteeing that reports from conservative political nonprofits of complaints against the IRS were merely in response to "the ordinary course of the application process". In order to hold tax-exempt status, interest groups must petition the IRS and be approved.

On the MSNBC wake-up program, "Morning Joe", former Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., the main co-host of the program, spoke with journalists John Heilemann, Mark Halperin and Willie Geist, calling the allegations "unspeakable". Scarborough said the "wall" separating the government from the freedom of political speech had been "knocked down by the IRS".

Pennsylvania Congressman Charlie Dent, R-Allentown, was one of many legislators on the Hill to also react publicly to the news. On his Facebook page, he wrote in-part that "People of different political ideologies can all agree that what the IRS has done is wrong. It is fundamentally un-American for the government's tax enforcement arm to scrutinize groups of citizens based on their beliefs."