Two days after being pushed out of his job as Acting IRS chief, Steven Miller told a House committee that no politics were involved in the IRS targeting of more conservative political groups seeking tax exempt status, as he sparred with Republican lawmakers in the first hearing on the tax agency scandal that erupted a week ago.
In his testimony, Miller apologized for the incident, but rejected GOP assertions that it was part of some kind of political vendetta, saying it was an effort to "centralize" political cases for further investigation by IRS agents.
"While centralization was warranted, the manner in which we initially designated cases for centralization was inappropriate," said Miller.
But Republicans didn't buy his arguments, as Miller even objected to the use of the word "targeting," and clearly was not interested in giving the GOP much in the way of new information.
"I don't know that I got any answers from you today," groused Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who drew applause from the audience near the end of the hearing as he lectured Miller on the overreach of the IRS.
"You're not answering my question," Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) said to Miller in a frustrated voice.
"I can tell you, in my private experience, you would have been fired on the spot," said Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY).
Republicans tried repeatedly to get Miller to identify who came up with the idea to run broad checks on Tea Party groups - but they came up with nothing.
"Who is responsible for targeting these individuals?" asked Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX).
"I don't have names," Miller said.
"Your answer is a non-answer, once again," complained Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA), when he went through the same type of exchange.
One area where Miller did volunteer some new information was about how these revelations came out a week earlier, as IRS official Lois Lerner spoke about it at a Washington, D.C. tax conference.
"It was a prepared Q-and-A," Miller said.
That angered some lawmakers in both parties, who had seen Lerner just a few days earlier in the same committee, when she had not answered a question about this same subject.
"I asked her, and she didn’t answer the questions," said Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY), who said he was "outraged" by her conduct.
And that was true in both parties, as lawmakers felt like Miller and other top officials had withheld information on this story for months, if not years.
Two more hearings will be held next week, one on Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee, and one on Wednesday by the House Oversight panel.
We'll see in coming days whether lawmakers will have any new information to work with; so far, this story has kept churning out new material daily.
