j. russell george, he didn't look at that aspect within the irs. two previous irs directors said they will not name names and they don't he no the answers anyway. then mr. werfel said, yesterday, he will find outs but that would be in the future. so who it ited the irs in an election season? we still do not know, martha. martha: yeah. i mean there's the suggestion, j. russell george says he had no indication it came from the white house. he doesn't know the answer to that question, he said. as you pointed out from the from the irs because it wasn't part of their purview in that investigation. that remains, stuart, the central questioner who. lois lerner and steven miller, as you pointed out, they don't seem to know where it came from. the folks in cincinnati pointing finger in the direction at folks in washington, d.c. and folks in washington, d.c. polk point pointing the finger at folks in cincinnati. the answer liars somewhere. >> three years after the events originally unfolded we have a stonewall. we still do not know who orchestrated this camp

j. russell george is back, screen left. new irs chief denny -- danny werfel.nd faris fink who played the role of spock in the spoof video. jason chaffetz we'll talk to who will ask some questions at the hearing. jason chaffetz, good morning. welcome back to "america's newsroom". >> thank you, bill. bill: think about the spending in government culture, what this shows you, they have the money, they will spend the money. >> yeah. it is just out of control. it is just pervasive culture with total disregard for, it's the people's money. whenever there's a decision to spend money, you're taking money out of somebody's wallet to give it to somebody else. bill: they don't think that way. >> no, they don't. bill: the irs could have negotiated cheaper rooms and chose not to. which company runs itself that way? the report says 2600 managers flown to anaheim, california. what a great gig that must be. $6400 gifts to its employees. how do you explain this stuff away? >> they spent $50,000 on these silly videos. they spent $3.7 million in flights and hotels. you are tellin

j. russell george who wrote the reports on the targeting and the lavish spending. today the house appropriations chairman says it's time to tighten up on the irs. >> we will, among other things, probably have to put enemy in a straight jacket and make their funding college on complying with the requests of the conference. >> don't expect huge anger at the hearing directed at the witnesses because one is bran new on the job, the one is the one who wrote the report to deveal all of this but you can expect some anger with the overall behavior. >> shepard: seems like wherever there's controversial the name-calling lately just goes to another level. what is up with these people? >> well, that's right. first you have house oversight chairman darrell issa whose staff members have been interview something of the irs employees in cincinnati who said they were essentially micromanaged and did no go rogue, and issa got angry with the obama administration's irs narrative. >> the administration is still -- their paid liar, spokesman, he is still making up things about what happ

. >> we found out the ig what is his name j russell george by the way put to lie yesterday this idea that the progressive word was used as a search term to, again, slow down or slow walk delay any of these petitions. the idea that the liberals were subjected to the same type of treatment that wasn't the case. a lot of these liberal groups got approval. a few were delayed a little bit. there wasn't that kind of equal burden being put on liberals versus conservatives that story got out that wasn't a true story. >> i would agree two thirds of what you said. >> laura: you are agreeing too much with me by the way. >> there was about 15 different lists, screening lists. and some of them did include liberal and progressive groups. but for the most part the enhanced screening or targeting was done on the conservative groups. >> laura: lavish parties, spending. another guy take the fifth. >> a lot of these groups on left and right should have never qualified because they were engaged in political activity. >> laura: what students they were tutoring. very intrusive. i think they have lost so m

. >> that was inspector j russell george.as back in may when this whole irs scandal blew up and all these organizations were campaigning the irs for non-profit status it looked as though the audit of that campaign was really tilted against tea party and right wing organizations. then on monday we learn wait a minicar the progressives were being targeted also. it looked as though the air was out that have balloon. we got a look at the bolo list. "be on the look out" list, and it was scrutiny on both sides. it looked like this scandal was dying, hermela, robin and chris moody, but as it unfolded this week we saw it take a turn. the turn was that as it turns out indeed, right wing and tea party groups were examined and scrutinized 100% of the time. versus 30% of the time for those progressive groups. so again issa and the committee look like they're going to be firing this up, and this could be a hot political issue again. as we move ahead on this, i want to bring our panel back in, i'm a little caught as to whether this is a le

j. russell george said only six progressive groups who applied for tax-exempt status were scrutinized comparedsome 300 conservative groups. meanwhile, the new head of the i.r.s.-- danny werfel-- faced criticism at a congressional hearing over his report about the activities released on monday. >> you're not conducting interviews, you don't know answers to the key questions, yet in the report, you declare there is no evidence of intentional wrongdoing or misconduct on the part of irs personnel. no evidence of intentional wrongdoing. mr. werfel, this report is a sham. >> the notion that no witnesses are being interviewed is not accurate. the accurate answer is that witnesses are being interviewed whether i am personally sitting across the table or not from interviewing. i would love to be able to but the reality is i am going to follow the process and the rule of law to get to the bottom of it. and one of the constraints i have is i have to let professional investigators do the interviewing and that's a constraint i'm willing to live with. >> holman: the i.r.s. practices were roundly condemned b

j. russel george here today. we thank you and look forward to your testimony. i would like to think, again, chairman crenshaw and ranking member of serrano for holding this very important hearing. we know that the irs is the first line of defense in ensuring that hard earned tax dollars of american citizens are appropriately handled. and as my colleague said, i join them in such shock that news that millions of dollars or unnecessarily spend on conferences, the diaz, sensors , baseball tickets, presidential suites, along with allegations of the irs targeting a large groups for increased scrutiny waste -- raised serious questions regarding whether the irs is properly working for the people. i, like so many citizens, and quite simply wondering, but was the irs thinking? what on earth were they thinking? it is truly amazing to me. i am furious that the irs engaged in is the logical scrutiny which is absolutely unacceptable. we have a responsibility to the american people to make sure this is rectified and does not happen again. our nation was founded on the princi

witnesses in the subcommittee program include danny worthall and j russel george. the irs is now facing a lawsuit. you can watch it live at 3:00 p.m. eastern over on c-span 3. >> next, the future of the marine corps with, and don james amos. he talks about the automatic spending cuts and the drums in afghanistan. from the brookings institution, this is one-and-a-half hours. now general james amos discusses automatic spending cuts and the challenges he is facing because of them. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to brookings. on behalf of my colleagues, we would like to welcome you and especially welcome general james amos, the commandant of the u.s. marine corps, to be here today. the format for today is that the general was before 10 or 15 minutes, summarizing some of his spot on some issues that i know our interest to you as well. then he and i will have a conversation here, and then we will turn to the crowd. we have c-span you are covering and some other tv. if i call on you in the course of that conversation, please be sure to identify yourself, wait for a mi

witnesses include irs official in charge of the small business division and j russell george, it the inspector general for tax administration. this portion is about one hour. >> the committee will come to order. the oversight committee's mission statement is that we exist to secure two fundamental principles. first, americans have a right to know the money washington takes from them through the irs is well spent. second, americans deserve an efficient government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. it is our job to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy. today more than any other hearing, we revisit the kind of waste and the kind of failure to secure taxpayers hard on money hard earned money than i can remember in history. i was shocked when the gsa, the body

j. russell george the inspector general is guilty of anything -- any wrongdoing here, but he was just limited by what he was allowed to do and the people he interviewed had their supervisors in the room, which is why it may not be right to call these two cincinnati employees whittle blowers it may be this is the first time they actually had to tell the truth under oath without their bosses in the room, and the story you get from these people when they are under oath and not under pressure from above is very different than the white wash that we've got even so far. that is why you actually need a real investigation to go all the way through this and not have some sort of the white house or the democratic version of this which simply says, we know all we need to know, let's move forward, let's talk about how to fix this problem. we don't really know what happened, we still don't know who ordered this. all we do know is that the story that came out of lois lerner and her associates and the leadership was flatly untrue, that's why she's pled the fifth. >> there is a new bloomberg poll out, jonah,

he will be joined by j russell george who wrote the report on activities at the irs. so you can expect werfel to get plenty of questions what he has found so far and what he is doing to fix the problem. bill? bill: mike, thank you. leading the coverage there on the hill. will be an interesting week. thank you, mike. there have been a lot of developments since the story first broke the targeting started three years ago, early 2010, march of that year apparently, when the irs began inappropriately began screening conservative groups. nearly 500 groups fell into that net and were subjected to unfair and overly burdensome scrutiny and questions. tom of the groups with tea party and patriot waited more than three years to have their tax-exempt applications processed. while they waited, two election cycles came and then went. martha. martha: it is a very busy week ahead as we have said this morning. today you have the appropriations committee. they will get rolling with their questioning about 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. the acting irs commissioner and treasury inspector gene

j. russell george here today. we thank you and look forward to your testimony. i would like to thank the chairman crenshaw and ranking member soprano for holding this very important hearing. -- ranking member serrano. we know that the irs is the first line of defense in ensuring that hard-earned tax dollars of american citizens are appropriately handled. as my colleagues have said, i at newsm in such shock that millions of dollars were unnecessarily spend on conferences, videos, senseless purchases, such as baseball tickets, presidential suites, along with allegations that the irs targeted the ideological groups for increased scrutiny, raised serious questions regarding whether the irs is properly working for the people. citizens, amny quite simply wondering what was the irs thinking? what on earth were they thinking? it is truly amazing to me. irsi am curious that the engaged in an ideological scrutiny, which is absolutely unacceptable. we have a responsibility to the american people to make sure this is rectified and does not happen again. our nation was found

. >> we now welcome our first ,ownship -- panel of witnesses the honorable j russell george, the inspector general for tax ministration. mr. gregory kutz, assistant inspector general for exempt organizations. welcome back. we know you had a big part in this investigation. we also welcome mr. fink, commissioner of the small is this and self employed division at the irs. pursuant to the rules of the committee, but all three witnesses rise, raise your right hand to take the oath. or affirmemnly swear the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? >> i do. like but the record reflect all witnesses -- >> let the record reflect all witnesses answered in the affirmative. there is one opening between the two of you, mr. george. thank you again for being here. i know we will rely on you for a number of questions. we appreciate that. i also appreciate the fact that you created a relationship with the acting commissioner that i believe is going to provide a great deal of transparency without redundancy by committees. i like to recognize -- george, d

. >> we now welcome our first township -- panel of witnesses, the honorable j russell george, the inspector general for tax administration. mr. gregory kutz, assistant inspector general for exempt organizations. welcome back. we know you had a big part in this investigation. we also welcome mr. fink, commissioner of the small is this and self employed division at the irs. pursuant to the rules of the committee, but all three witnesses rise, raise your right hand to take the oath. do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? >> i do. like but the record reflect all witnesses -- >> let the record reflect all witnesses answered in the affirmative. there is one opening between the two of you, mr. george. thank you again for being here. i know we will rely on you for a number of questions. we appreciate that. i also appreciate the fact that you created a relationship with the acting commissioner that i believe is going to provide a great deal of transparency without redundancy by ommittees. i like to recognize