IRS employees have told congressional investigators that they were ordered by the agency's Washington office to give extra scrutiny to tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status, according to excerpts from interviews with the employees that were released by House committee chairmen Wednesday.

Carter Hull, a tax law specialist with 48 years of experience at the IRS, told investigators that Lois Lerner, the former head of the Exempt Organizations division, demanded he send some of the reviews of tea party groups to the IRS chief counsel's office in Washington. The chief counsel is one of two political appointees in the IRS.

The Internal Revenue Service has come under fire over the past several months after the agency's auditor, J. Russell George, exposed that the agency was targeting conservative groups for intrusive scrutiny. This week, The Washington Times reported that government employees also improperly accessed IRS information to look at data on a handful of political candidates and donors.

Sen. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, said Wednesday that the investigation into the troubled agency must be expanded.
"It is clear that misconduct at the agency was not isolated to 'rogue employees' in the tax-exempt applications division," Mr. Flake said. "This recent development suggests that political targeting was potentially more widespread."
Even as Republicans push to broaden the inquiries, Democrats are preparing to go after Mr. George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, whose May report first exposed the IRS targeting of conservative groups. Mr. George and Mr. Hull are scheduled to testify Thursday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.