Portman said he finds it hard to believe that a couple of "rogue agents" in Cincinnati were responsible for the conservative targeting and that it was done as an efficiency measure to handle a large number of applications, as was initially suggested.
The left was targeting conservative groups and donors well before the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling on independent political expenditures by corporations.
The group she leads is under investigation for targeting conservative groups.
NPR: With White House Bogged Down By Scandal, GOP Looks For Boost
Officials at the Internal Revenue Service knew in June 2011 that their agents were targeting conservative groups for additional scrutiny on tax documents, the report indicates.
"If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous, " he said during a news conference with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.
His comments followed Miller's disclosure earlier Tuesday about the planted question at the ABA meeting on May 10 that provided Lerner, who oversaw the IRS division handling requests for tax-exempt status, to publicly apologize for targeting conservative groups ahead of the report's release.
None of this proves that Mr. Obama was involved in the IRS targeting of conservative nonprofits.
The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.
House Republicans, at a contentious four-hour hearing Wednesday, barraged Attorney General Eric Holder with questions about the AP case and other issues, including the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups.
The IRS also said the report reflects that "IRS senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details" at the time of a March 2012 hearing where Mr. Shulman denied any targeting of conservative groups.
The IRS' announcement about targeting of some conservative groups raises questions over its impartiality in doing so, he added.
The IRS said Friday that it was sorry for what it called the "inappropriate" targeting of the conservative groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.
Critics have accused some IRS officials of misleading Congress about what they knew of the targeting of tea party and other conservative groups.
The improper targeting of tea-party and other conservative groups appears to have started in early 2010.
Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps told the BBC's Sunday Politics in November that targeting these seat would be "very important" for the party as would engaging in "pavement politics" in local communities.
The Conservative strategy for the next election involves defending its 40 most marginal seats, whilst also targeting the 40 seats held by other parties which the party thinks are most winnable.
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