4 Cincinnati IRS workers to be interviewed in House investigation

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - Transcribed interviews conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are set to begin Monday, May 20th for five IRS employees.

Four of those IRS employees are based in Cincinnati. The committee wants answers, just like the conservative groups that feel like they were targeted.

"You get this and you go, where did this come from and why?" said Dale Huls, a board member for the Clear Lake Tea Party in Texas.

The five IRS that will be questioned by the committee are Holly Paz, Director of Rulings and Agreements in Washington D.C., John Shafer a screening group manager in Cincinnati, Gary Muthert a screener in Cincinnati, Liz Hofacre an Advocacy Case Coordinator in Cincinnati and Joseph Herr a Advocacy Group Manager in Cincinnati.

The Clear Lake Tea Party received a questionnaire in July of 2010 from Cincinnati based IRS worker Liz Hofacre.

Huls says that questionnaire made an unusual request.

"They wanted us to transcribe our YouTube videos and provide them scripts," said Huls. "It's like are you kidding me."

More documents obtained by FOX19 show in September of 2010, Hofacre sent a questionnaire to the Richmond Tea Party.

"We finally got a set of 17 questions and those were rather benign, so that really didn't alert us," said Larry Nordvig, board chairman of the Richmond Tea Party.

But Nordvig says a year later the group got a different questionnaire from a different IRS agent.

"They gave us a set of 55 questions, sub questions, bullets, all detailed information, all very intrusive, with only 2-weeks to get back to them with all that information," said Nordvig.

Other documents obtained by FOX19 show Cincinnati based agent Joseph Herr's name on a questionnaire to the Ohio Liberty Council. One of the requests those documents asks is to "list social media outlets and provide hardcopy printouts of those outlets".

The five IRS workers will be interviewed by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Washington D.C., in a behind closed doors setting.

"If I were them I would tell the truth, and whether they took it upon themselves to this, so be it," said Huls. "If they were directed I would encourage them greatly to name names and tell them who told them to do what."

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