Cleta Mitchell, a Republican strategist and lawyer who is representing clients suing the IRS, told MSNBC she’s convinced high-level Obama campaign officials were aware of the targeting of conservative groups.
Although she didn’t provide evidence she reportedly mentioned Obama’s former senior adviser David Axelrod.
“I’m not saying Obama sat in the Oval Office and directed [the targeting]. But I am absolutely convinced that people in the [Obama] campaign were well aware of all this,” she told the news organization. “I think there’s a very good chance that it will lead to people who are very highly placed politically.”
There has been no evidence so far that top-level officials were involved in the targeting. Internal IRS emails that have been unearthed suggest it was directed by low-level staffers.
Mitchell, a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, is representing the tea party group True the Vote is a lawsuit against the IRS. Insistent on accusing Obama officials higher up the ladder, she told the Washington Post earlier this month, “For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false.”
