A majority of Americans are in favor of a deeper investigation into the Internal Revenue Service for targeting the tea party and other conservatives, a new survey shows.
Fifty-seven percent of likely American voters believe the Obama administration has not gone far enough in its probe into the scandal surrounding the agency's officials giving special scrutiny to right-wing groups while processing their tax-exempt claims, according to
Rasmussen Reports.
A little more than one-quarter of Americans, 28 percent, think the case should be closed, according to Rasmussen.
The Justice Department and three congressional committees have been investigating the matter for nearly a year. But Attorney General Eric Holder has
dismissed calls from Republicans demanding a special counsel to investigate the IRS, which has denied that the targeting was politically motivated.
In the study of 1,000 potential voters conducted May 9 and 10, the research also found that almost one out of every two Americans, 49 percent, said the IRS broke the law when it singled out conservative groups for special attention. Only one in four said the IRS did not break the law, while the rest were undecided.
More than seven out of every 10 Americans, 72 percent, said it's "important" to find out exactly why the IRS targeted groups diametrically opposed to the ideology of the Democratic government, while 46 percent thought it was "very important" to learn why the agency appeared to go way beyond its responsibilities.
The survey also revealed that only four out of 10 Americans think it's "somewhat likely" that the White House has fully disclosed why the IRS put conservative organization under the microscope. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Last week, former IRS official Lois Lerner was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about the scandal before a congressional committee, instead invoking her Fifth Amendment right.