WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ways and Means Committee voted Wednesday to refer a former Internal Revenue Service official to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution in the agency's tea party controversy. 
 
 Committee investigators say they have uncovered evidence that Lois Lerner may have violated the constitutional rights of conservative groups, misled investigators and risked exposing confidential taxpayer information. 
 
 Lerner, who retired last year, headed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. The agency has acknowledged that agents improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012. 
 
 "We think there's reason to believe that laws were broken, that constitutional rights were violated," said committee chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. "We have to make sure that the signal goes out that this can't happen again." 
 
 The Ways and Means Committee has been investigating the IRS for nearly a year, since shortly after the mishandling of tea party applications became public. Wednesday's vote to refer the matter to the Justice Department was 23-14, with all Republicans voting in favor and all Democrats voting against. 
 
 Democratic leaders said the vote was a political stunt designed to fire up the Republican base in an election year. They noted that the Justice Department is already investigating whether any crimes have been committed. 
 
 "It now seems clear that Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee have decided that they do not want to be left behind in the Republican campaign to declare this a scandal and keep it going until November," said Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat. 
 
 Lerner's lawyer issued a statement Wednesday declaring her innocence. 
 
 "This is just another attempt by Republicans to vilify Ms. Lerner for political gain," said the lawyer, William W. Taylor III. "Ms. Lerner has done nothing wrong. She did not violate any law or regulation. She did not ?mislead Congress. She did not interfere with the rights of any organization to a tax exemption. ?Those are the facts." 
 
 Levin said Camp could have simply transmitted the information to the appropriate authorities at the Justice Department, without making it public. 
 
 Camp defended making it public. 
 
 "Look, the potential violation of constitutional rights occurred in secret, inside the bowels of the IRS," Camp said. "I think it's important that the public has an understanding of what went on, and I think if I sent a secret letter to the Department of Justice, I think that would be doing a disservice to the Americans whose constitutional rights are on the line." 
 
 Lerner first publicly disclosed the issue at a lawyers' conference in May 2013. At the time, she apologized on behalf of the IRS. 
 
 Soon afterward, President Barack Obama forced the acting IRS commissioner to resign, and much of the agency's top leadership has been replaced. 
 
 Lerner has emerged as a central figure in investigations by congressional committees. The House Oversight Committee has scheduled a vote for Thursday on whether to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions at two congressional hearings. 
 
 At both hearings, Lerner invoked her constitutional right against self-incrimination. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Lerner had effectively waived her Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions by providing an opening statement at a hearing last year. 
 
 Taylor and Democrats on the oversight committee disagree. 
 
 Lerner is an attorney who joined the IRS in 2001. She retired last fall, ending a 34-year career in federal government, which included work at the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap ||||| House Republicans on Wednesday accused former IRS official Lois Lerner of breaking agency rules by aggressively urging denial of tax-exempt status to Crossroads GPS, the giant political nonprofit founded by Karl Rove. 
 
 The House Ways and Means Committee released emails showing the former chief of the tax-exempt unit took a special interest in Crossroads GPS in early 2013 — inquiring with IRS officials why they hadn’t been audited. Around the same time an email suggested she might be applying for a job with a pro-President Barack Obama group, Organizing For Action, though it is unclear if she was joking. 
 
 Text Size - 
 
 + 
 
 reset Cummings speaks out against Lerner contempt vote 
 
 Democrats decried the release, calling it an election year gimmick to win over the party’s political base. One campaign finance group came to the defense of Lerner, who has denied any wrongdoing, calling the probe a partisan witch hunt. 
 
 (DRIVING THE DAY: Can spending secure GOP Senate?) 
 
 The Republican committee letter calls her actions an “aggressive and improper pursuit of Crossroads… but no evidence [that] she directed review of similarly situated left-leaning groups.” 
 
 The documents were released after a rare, closed-door Ways and Means markup, where the panel voted 23-14 along party lines to send a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, requesting he take the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division to court — though the department already has an ongoing investigation. 
 
 The scandal, spurred when Lerner publicly acknowledged extra scrutiny of tea party groups followed by a critical inspector general report, has surged back into the spotlight in recent months as congressional committees finish their investigations. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Lois Lerner returns to the Hill) 
 
 Lerner became a lightning rod for Republicans after she pleaded the Fifth and refused to testify before a House panel. The original inspector general report found that the targeting was inappropriate but found no evidence of partisan motivations. 
 
 Republicans want her charged for improperly influencing the IRS to take action against conservative organizations; disclosing confidential taxpayer info, a felony; and impeding an investigation. 
 
 Democrats cried foul play, accusing Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) of releasing private taxpayer information, and said its protests have nothing to do with holding Lerner accountable. 
 
 “This executive session isn’t about any of us condoning the mismanagement at the IRS tax-exempt division,” top panel Democrat Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said after the public was dismissed from the hearing, according to a release. “It now seems clear that Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee have decided that they do not want to be left behind in the Republican campaign to declare this a scandal and keep it going until November.” 
 
 (PHOTOS: 8 key players in IRS scandal story) 
 
 Lerner’s lawyer William Taylor III said he had not heard from Ways and Means on the issue, and maintained his client’s innocence. 
 
 “Ms. Lerner has done nothing wrong,” Taylor, a partner of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP said in a statement. “She did not violate any law or regulation. She did not mislead Congress. She did not interfere with the rights of any organization to a tax exemption. Those are the facts.” 
 
 Camp defended the release. 
 
 “We have a right and obligation to protect the American people and to oversee the IRS and to hold them to account for their actions,” he said. “This was a career employee at the IRS so we have to make sure the signal goes out that this can’t happen again.” 
 
 The Justice Department said it will review the letter and noted it is already probing the matter. 
 
 “It remains a high priority of the Department,” Justice spokeswoman Emily Pierce said. 
 
 The actions come a day before the House Oversight Committee will vote to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions on the controversy. 
 
 Advocates for reform of campaign finance rules say the scandal obscures an important policy debate about whether such politically active groups deserve tax-exempt status in the first place. 
 
 Crossroads spent $176 million during the 2012 election cycle — 99 percent of the time to back Republicans and bash Obama and Democrats. Its nonprofit arm spent about $70 million. ||||| The House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday accused former IRS official Lois Lerner of targeting the prominent GOP group Crossroads GPS and urged the Justice Department to take a fresh look at whether she should be prosecuted. 
 
 The rare step by the tax-writing panel comes as congressional Republicans are turning up the heat on the IRS, and a day before Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and the House Oversight Committee are expected to vote to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress. 
 
 In a referral to Attorney General Eric Holder, Republicans make the case that Lerner took an “aggressive and improper” interest in Crossroads GPS, the group co-founded by Karl Rove that spent tens of millions of dollars in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. 
 
 The committee voted to send that referral to Holder after a session conducted mainly behind closed doors and on a 23-14, party-line vote. 
 
 Lerner, who headed an IRS division overseeing exempt organizations, pushed to deny Crossroads GPS’s application for tax-exempt status and to audit the group, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) says in his letter to Holder. 
 
 Lerner showed no such interest in liberal groups, the letter adds, despite concerns by campaign finance reform groups. Ways and Means also alleges that Lerner misled federal investigators about when she first became aware of the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups, and that she recklessly handled confidential taxpayer information. 
 
 [READ THE LETTER.] 
 
 Camp told reporters after Wednesday’s vote that the committee and Congress needed to stand up to an immensely powerful agency that “can strike the fear of God” into average taxpayers. 
 
 “We have to make sure that the signal goes out that this can’t happen again,” Camp told reporters. “If we don’t stand up for people’s constitutional rights on behalf of the American people, who else will?” 
 
 The Ways and Means vote was the latest wrinkle in the controversy, now 11 months old, that erupted when Lerner apologized in May 2013 for the IRS’s treatment of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status. The referral could also broaden the congressional investigations, which have largely focused on more grassroots organizations. 
 
 Lerner, who has since retired from the IRS, is expected to face another legal headache on Thursday, when Issa begins contempt proceedings. House GOP leaders who said Wednesday that they supported the Ways and Means referral are also on record backing contempt charges. 
 
 Issa has said that Lerner, who has twice refused to answer questions in front of the Oversight panel, is the most important figure in his IRS investigation. 
 
 Ways and Means Democrats accused Camp and their GOP colleagues of taking a page out of Issa’s playbook and playing politics by releasing taxpayer information. 
 
 Rep. Sandy Levin (Mich.), the panel’s top Democrat, said Camp was undermining the panel by making it into “an arm of any campaign committee.” Democrats later said Republicans merely wanted to “promote and protect” GOP moneymen like Rove. 
 
 “The way it should have been handled was to simply forward any documentation over there and indicate the full cooperation of the committee,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas). 
 
 Lerner’s attorney, Bill Taylor of Zuckerman Spaeder, called the timing of Wednesday’s vote “odd,” and said he had not heard from the Ways and Means Committee about its referral. 
 
 “The committee’s referral affects nothing. The Department of Justice is already investigating the IRS. This is just another attempt by Republicans to vilify Ms. Lerner for political gain,” Taylor said in a statement to reporters. 
 
 But Steven Law, Crossroads GPS’s chief executive, said the Ways and Means referral “confirms that there was an organized high-level effort within the IRS to subvert the agency’s own standards and procedures in order to harass law-abiding conservative advocacy groups like Crossroads GPS.” 
 
 Law said in a separate statement that the group was still waiting for a final decision from the IRS on its application, which it first asked for in 2010. 
 
 The group can continue to operate as tax-exempt until that IRS ruling. Under the current IRS rules, 501(c)(4) groups need to make promoting social welfare their primary purpose. The law says those groups should be exclusively concentrating on social welfare, a difference campaign finance reform organizations believe has been part of the problem. 
 
 “It is now apparent that Ms. Lerner was directly and improperly involved in targeting our application, which may explain why we are still awaiting final action on our 501(c)(4) certification,” Law said. 
 
 Camp also defended his decision to bring the charges against Lerner public. “If I sent a secret letter to the Department of Justice, I think that would be doing a disservice to the Americans whose constitutional rights are on the line,” he said. 
 
 In the documents Ways and Means released Wednesday, Lerner also discusses going after a job at Organizing for Action, the offshoot of Obama’s campaign operation. 
 
 “Oh — maybe I can get the DC office job!” she told colleagues in an email, though it’s unclear whether she was joking. 
 
 The Ways and Means referral also accuses Lerner of targeting conservative groups outside of Crossroads. In January 2013, Lerner circulated a news article on five groups whose status she wanted to discuss. Three of those groups were eventually audited. 
 
 Republicans also suggest Lerner tried to influence the appeals process for exempt organizations whose application was denied, an area outside her jurisdiction. 
 
 Plus, GOP lawmakers say that Lerner gave Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration a “half-truth” by not revealing she knew that Tea Party cases were being flagged as far back as 2010. 
 
 In all, Ways and Means says the laws that Lerner might have violated are punishable by up to 11 years in prison. But the final decision on whether to prosecute lies with Holder, who has also been held in contempt by House Republicans and has a generally toxic relationship with GOP lawmakers. 
 
 Emily Pierce, a Justice Department spokeswoman, would only say Wednesday that “there is already an active, ongoing investigation into the IRS’s handling of applications by tax-exempt organizations.” 
 
 “It remains a high priority of the department,” she added. 
 
 — Updated at 8:37 p.m.
– Last year's IRS scandal is back in the headlines. The House Ways and Means panel today formally asked the Justice Department for a criminal investigation into retired IRS official Lois Lerner, reports the Hill. Republicans on the committee pushed the vote through, alleging that emails show Lerner sought to deny tax-exempt status to conservative groups, particularly Crossroads GPS, while letting liberal ones slide. Democrats, meanwhile, accused the panel of political theatrics ahead of the midterms, given that the Justice Department already is conducting an investigation into the matter, reports AP. Some dueling quotes: Republican Dave Camp: "We think there's reason to believe that laws were broken, that constitutional rights were violated," said the committee's chairman. "We have to make sure that the signal goes out that this can't happen again." Democrat Sander Levin: "Making this committee an arm of any campaign committee does a deep disservice to the proud traditions and legacy of this committee. I don’t understand why you are doing this, Mr. Chairman.” Lerner's attorney: “Ms. Lerner has done nothing wrong. She did not violate any law or regulation. She did not mislead Congress. She did not interfere with the rights of any organization to a tax exemption. Those are the facts.” This isn't the only House panel investigating the issue. Tomorrow, Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee will vote on whether to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions, reports Politico.