A federal court this week said the Internal Revenue Service’s inspector general is not exempt from disclosure rules as it investigates whether the White House received unauthorized access to protected taxpayer information.

Judge Amy Jackson, with the U.S. District Court in Washington, ordered the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to process a Freedom of Information Act request from a conservative legal group seeking documents related to the probe.

Federal law allows federal agencies to withhold information if releasing it might compromise law-enforcement efforts. TIGTA relied on that exception in arguing that merely acknowledging the documents could harm its review.



Treasury Inspector General Russell George (Charles Dharapak/AP)

Jackson concluded that TIGTA already waived the exemption by publicly acknowledging its investigation.

TIGTA also argued that releasing the requested documents would essentially amount to releasing tax returns. Jackson rejected that claim as well, noting that the requested information would not identify individual taxpayers.

“This information is not ‘unique to a particular taxpayer’ and it is not ‘return information,’ as broadly as that term may be,” she wrote.

The judge’s order came as part of a lawsuit by Cause of Action, a conservative organization that has accused the Obama administration of targeting taxpayers for harassment.

Dan Epstein, the group’s executive director, called the court’s decision a “decisive win” for government transparency and accountability. “The court has ruled that the federal government cannot hide behind confidentiality laws to prevent Americans from knowing if our president has gained unauthorized access to their tax information,” he said.

TIGTA declined to comment on the decision Friday.

The watchdog agency’s investigation stems from an earlier discovery that the IRS targeted nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny based on their names and policy positions. The IRS has attributed the actions to bureaucratic bungling, but many conservatives insist that the administration was trying to hinder right-leaning groups during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles.