President Barack Obama released a statement Tuesday night deeming the findings of the IRS Inspector General's report on the service's targeting of conservative groups "intolerable and inexcusable."

In the statement, Obama said he has directed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to "hold those responsible" accountable.

Here's Obama's full statement:

I have now had the opportunity to review the Treasury Department watchdog’s report on its investigation of IRS personnel who improperly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. And the report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable. The federal government must conduct itself in a way that’s worthy of the public’s trust, and that’s especially true for the IRS. The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity. This report shows that some of its employees failed that test.

I’ve directed Secretary Lew to hold those responsible for these failures accountable, and to make sure that each of the Inspector General’s recommendations are implemented quickly, so that such conduct never happens again. But regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong. Public service is a solemn privilege. I expect everyone who serves in the federal government to hold themselves to the highest ethical and moral standards. So do the American people. And as President, I intend to make sure our public servants live up to those standards every day.

The IRS Inspector General's report failed to find any fault beyond "any individual outside the IRS. But it confirmed that the IRS unfairly targeted various conservative and Tea Party-affiliated groups who were applying for tax-exempt status.

The Obama administration has faced a firestorm over a triumvirate of recent issues — the IRS' inappropriate targeting, new revelations about last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, and the Department of Justice's decision to subpoena phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors.

On Monday, Obama called the IRS situation "outrageous."

"I've got no patience for it. I will not tolerate it, and I will make sure we find out exactly what happened on this," Obama said at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday.

In a subsequent statement Tuesday night, Lew said that the IRS' targeting "should never have happened and must not happen again."