IRS Chief: Using a Planted Question to Reveal IRS Scandal Was "Incredibly Bad Idea"
No shit Sherlock
The outgoing IRS commissioner expressed regret Tuesday for a decision to use a planted question to go public with the agency's practice of targeting conservative groups, calling the move "an incredibly bad idea."
Steven Miller, appearing on the Hill for a second hearing in two weeks on the scandal, acknowledged that the agency was trying to get ahead of a damning investigative report at the time. As was confirmed over the weekend, he admitted the agency had a question planted at a conference two Fridays ago -- a senior IRS official, in response to the question, then confessed to a long-running program that singled out conservative groups for additional scrutiny.
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No it wasn't a bad idea. Plenty of bad news gets quietly released late on a Friday afternoon with the knowledge that nobody can pursue the story over the weekend and hope that by Monday it will have sunk out of sight. And often enough that tactic works - which is precisely why you released the story this way. You aren't sorry you did a bad thing, you're only sorry you got caught.