A fresh Op-Ed this morning by IRS head Steven Miller reveals the lengths to which the IRS and the White House are going to spin the on-going scandal.

“The agency was simply trying to manage the explosive growth in applications for 501(c)(4) status that started pouring in to the IRS in 2010. The Internal Revenue Service recognizes that we should have done a better job of handling the influx of applications by advocacy groups,” Miller wrote.

We saw the shoots of this line of thinking yesterday both from David Plouffe and Nancy Pelosi. Trying to suggest that all these groups that have sprung from the Citizen’s United ruling clogged up the IRS, who was then somehow reduced to scrutinizing groups in order to manage this problem. If only Citizen’s United could be overturned!

David Plouffe, former WH Adviser observed on Twitter “What IRS did dumb and wrong. Impt to note GOP groups flourished last 2 elections, overwhelming Ds. And they will use this to raise more $.”

And Nancy Pelosi was a bit more to the point:

“We need accountability at the IRS, of course, as to how this happened. But we’ve really got to overturn Citizens United which has exacerbated the situation. So I’ve called for DISCLOSE, that’s a dare, disclose… I’ve been calling for it for over a year, disclose, who are these people? Transparency, amend the constitution to overturn Citizens United, reform the political system, let’s take money down as far as possible. Public financing of campaigns, clean campaigns and empowerment of people because people feel very left out of the loop“.

However, the organizations who were subject to additional scrutiny were applying for either 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 or others, as revealed in this timeline put out by the WSJ on May 13th. but the apologists are counting on citizens to not know the different. By focusing on the 501(c)4 side of it, they can focus on calling out and blaming Citizens United.

Now back to Steven Miller. Further down his Op-Ed, he writes

“Mistakes were made, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan motivation,” he wrote. “We are — and will continue to be — dedicated to reviewing all applications for tax-exempt status in an impartial manner.”

Except, of course, when it comes to the Barack H Obama Foundation.

I have not found this elsewhere, so you’re seeing it here first.

Let’s go back to May 8, 2011, right in the thick of the IRS targeting activity. The NY Post writes a revealing piece about the Barack H Obama Foundation, run by Obama’s half-brother Malik:

“President Obama’s half-brother runs an off-the-books American charity that claims to support poor Kenyans — but it lies about its federal status and no one knows how it spends its money.” … “Malik started his charity the year his brother ran for president. The foundation claims to be a tax-exempt, federally recognized nonprofit. It is not. Nor are there any filings of its expenditures, which the IRS requires of larger charities. Alton Ray Baysden, a former State Department employee at whose Virginia home the charity was founded in 2008, admitted the organization has not even applied for tax-exempt status”

Oh and incidentally, the National Legal and Policy Center, a Washington, DC, watchdog group, made a formal complaint to the IRS and US Post Office about the Foundation that prior week in the beginning of May 2011.

The result? This sunlight on the foundation means that the The Barack H Obama Foundation hurriedly applied for and received tax exempt status in an unprecedented 30 days. The letter of their approval is currently available on the foundations’ website.It was signed Lois Lerner, the senior IRS in the middle of this scandal, of all people. On top of it, the status was made retroactive to December 2008.

See here:

Barack H Foundation Letter For Tax Exempt Status in June 2011

The plot thickens, as the apologies ring hollow.

UPDATE: Thanks Daily Caller for “borrowing” from information regarding the Obama Foundation in my post this morning (written at 9:45 am) for your post at 5:00pm. It was also posted on Canada Free Press and Red State this morning before anyone else wrote on it. Glad I could help (without receiving credit).