Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Darrell Issa grappled with State of the Union host Candy Crowley Sunday morning over whether there was any direct evidence linking the IRS targeting of conservative groups to the Obama administration.

“As late as last week,” Issa claimed, “the administration’s still trying to say there’s a few rogue agents in Cincinnati, when in fact the indication is they were directly being ordered from Washington.”

But Crowley played an excerpt of a transcript from an interview with an implicated IRS agent, in which the agent had no idea whether the order to scrutinize tea party groups came from Washington or not. “It’s totally not definitive,” Crowley said.

“Well, that one isn’t,” Issa protested. “These are in real time, and the administration, their paid liar, their spokesperson, he’s still making up things about what happened and calling this ‘local rogue.’ The reason Lois Lerner tried to take the Fifth is not because there’s a rogue in Cincinnati. It’s because this was a problem coordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters and we’re getting to proving it.”

“But that’s it,” Crowley said. “You don’t have that direct link. You have the frontline agents going, ‘Yeah, we figured it was from Washington or I believe it was,’ but as of yet you don’t have that definitive, ‘Yeah, this guy called me and said, people, go look for tea party and patriot applications.'”

“My gut tells me that too many people knew that this wrongdoing was going on before the election,” Issa said, “and at least by some sort of convenient, benign neglect allowed it to go on through the election.

“Now, I’m not making any allegations as to motive, that they set out to do it,” Issa demurred. “But certainly people knew it was happening that could have done something and would have done something, I’m sure, if these had been progressive groups or groups that supported the president.”

Watch the whole exchange here:

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