Congressmen ask Holder if Obama is receiving updates on IRS probe

Three Republican congressmen on Wednesday asked Attorney General Eric Holder if President Obama is being briefed on the investigation into whether the Internal Revenue Service specifically targeted organizations due to their conservative politics.

The letter from Reps. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, was prompted by Obama’s interview Sunday with Bill O’Reilly, host of “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News, in which Obama said there was “not even a smidgen” of corruption in the targeting scandal.

Click here to read the letter.

“If the IRS investigation is ‘ongoing,’ and there has been no determination as to whether criminal charges will be brought, how does the president know there is no criminality?” the letter asks.

In the letter, the congressmen, who say they’ve received “very little information” on the Justice Department’s investigation, also ask if Congress can be briefed on the probe’s status.

The letter comes on the same day the House of Representatives held a hearing about the scandal, after which the new head of the IRS apologized to those who “suffered.”

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters after the hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee that the singling out of such organizations for special scrutiny would be “intolerable,” and vowed the IRS is not doing so now.