For Republican leaders in Congress, the Internal Revenue Service scandal always had a higher purpose. They had no interest in fixing the clear management problems at the agency, or tax-exemption laws so vague they are an invitation to misinterpretation, leading to the singling out of Tea Party groups for special scrutiny. All they wanted was a connection to the White House, no matter how slim, so they could accuse President Obama and his administration of using the tax agency as a political weapon.

But the furious efforts of Republican bloodhounds have not turned up any such connection over the last month. So lawmakers have now decided to claim one anyway, insisting recently that the improper focus on conservative groups could not possibly be the result of misguided employees in the Cincinnati I.R.S. office.

“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,” said the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Darrell Issa of California.

Harold Rogers of Kentucky, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, referred to “the enemies list out of the White House that I.R.S. was engaged in shutting down, or trying to shut down the conservative political viewpoint across the country.” And according to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camp of Michigan, “We know it didn’t originate in Cincinnati.”