It is well established that the Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party and Patriot groups before the 2012 presidential election. Conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status were delayed and denied using special scrutiny from the IRS. At first, officials blamed “low-level employees” in the Cincinnati IRS office for the misconduct, but as more information came to light, it is evident the targeting was broader and instructions came from higher up. New emails revealed this week show it was indeed political and directed from Washington.

Judicial Watch secured the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request. It’s not the first time the group has discovered a bombshell – they reported previous IRS revelations, as well as the Benghazi smoking gun.

“One key email string from July 2012 confirms that IRS Tea Party scrutiny was directed from Washington, DC,” Judicial Watch reports. “On July 6, 2010, Holly Paz (the former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance) asks IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky ‘to let Cindy and Sharon know how we have been handling Tea Party applications in the last few months.’ Cindy Thomas is the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati and Sharon Camarillo was a Senior Manager in their Los Angeles office. Grodnitzky, a top lawyer in the Exempt Organization Technical unit (EOT) in Washington, DC, responds:

‘EOT is working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases in EOT and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob [Choi, then-Director of Rulings and Agreements in the IRS’s DC, headquarters].’”

Not only that, but Democrats in Congress were involved. Judicial Watch reports, “A series of letters between Senator Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations, and top IRS officials throughout 2012 discuss how to target conservative groups the senator claimed were ‘engaged in political activities.’” Levin demanded scrutiny for conservative groups like Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform, the 60 Plus Association and the Susan B. Anthony List.

Last week, Congress held retired IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt for her refusal to answer any questions about her sizeable role in the scrutiny. But it’s doubtful she or anyone else involved in this scandal will face any real consequences.

As with Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and every other scandal of this administration, their primary goal has been to cover it up and then treat it as old news when facts confront them. As commentator Charles Krauthammer put it, “This a major abuse of power. They covered up for two years and now they say, ‘Hey, dude, two-year-old story.’ So it’s old news. Let’s see if the mainstream media will treat it as old news or what it really is – new news of misleading America and covering it up.” We think the answer on that last part is obvious. How high does the scandal go? We still don’t and may never know.