Senate Panel Asks I.R.S. Chief to Detail Communications With White House

If the Internal Revenue Service and the Obama administration thought the Senate Finance Committee and its Democratic leaders would offer something of a respite from the battering they have been taking from Congressional Republicans, they learned otherwise on Monday.

Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is the chairman of the committee, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican, forwarded a six-page letter to Steven Miller, the acting I.R.S. commissioner, who announced his resignation last week. It contained 41 pointed questions about the I.R.S.'s efforts to single out for special scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Those questions, which are to be answered by May 31, go well beyond the agency's actions and address the questions Republicans have been asking for a week: Who in the Obama administration knew what? And when did they know it?

“Provide copies of all documents between I.R.S. employee(s) and anyone else regarding the targeting of applications based on the existence of certain phrases and/or subjecting those targeted applications to full development and heightened scrutiny,” the letter read.

“Was the decision to target any tax-exempt applications for review and subject them to full development or heightened scrutiny influenced or prompted in any way by political pressure directed at the I.R.S. from any members of the Congress or other elected officials?” it asked.

“Provide documents relating to communications between any and all I.R.S. employees and any and all White House employees, including, but not limited to, the president, regarding the targeting,” the letter said.

The document also demanded the identity “by name, grade and position title” of “every I.R.S. supervisor, I.R.S. manager or other I.R.S. employee who became aware that any individual in the White House or Treasury Department became aware of any improper targeting.”

The Finance Committee will convene a hearing on the issue on Tuesday featuring Douglas Shulman, a Bush administration appointee who led the I.R.S. while much of the targeting was taking place and who has not yet been questioned.

“I have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out, frankly. It's broader than the current focus,” Mr. Baucus said on Bloomberg Government's “Capitol Gains” television program. “And I think it's important that we have the hearings, and I think that will encourage other information to come out that has not yet come out. I suspect that we will learn more in the next several days, maybe the next couple, three weeks, which adds more context to all of this.”