There are 7,000 previously unacknowledged IRS documents that could contain information about the targeting of tea party groups, the agency has admitted in a court filing.

The IRS told of the documents’ existence this week in a court filing responding to a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch.

However, the IRS has not agreed to a schedule for those documents’ public release.

“Our attorneys knew that there were more records to be searched but the Obama IRS ignored this issue for years,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.

Although the IRS maintains high-level officials did not know it was going on, the agency has acknowledged and apologized for giving heightened scrutiny starting in 2010 to tax-exemption requests made by groups with “tea party” and other conservative-identifying terms in their names.

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said in a statement Thursday evening that the IRS, having “magically [found]” the documents, must now “immediately release all these new documents, so the American people can finally begin to see what the IRS has been hiding regarding their scandalous abuse of power.”

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.