IRS’s Lerner Weighed Audit Involving Senator Grassley

Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the controversy over scrutiny of Tea Party groups, once considered requesting an audit involving U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

The House Ways and Means Committee yesterday released a partial e-mail exchange from Dec. 4, 2012, in which Lerner said an organization that invited Grassley to an event may have been “inappropriately offering to pay for his wife.” Lerner retired from the agency last year.