Lois Lerner, the director of the I.R.S. division that oversees tax-exempt groups, acknowledged that the agency had singled out nonprofit applicants with the terms “Tea Party” or “patriots” in their titles in an effort to respond to a surge in applications for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012.
She insisted that the move was not driven by politics, but she added, “We made some mistakes; some people didn’t use good judgment.”
“For that we’re apologetic,” she told reporters on a conference call.
Republicans seized on the acknowledgment, demanding more information and adding it to a growing list of missteps by the Obama administration that they say prove political interference, from hiding the terrorist origins of the attack in Benghazi, Libya, to the demand for disclosure of donors to conservative “super PACs.”
