Mr. Issa ratcheted up the pressure over the weekend with the selective release of excerpts from continuing committee interviews with I.R.S. employees in Cincinnati involved in the added scrutiny of Tea Party groups and other conservative associations.
In one excerpt, an employee said I.R.S. officials in Washington as far back as March 2010 had ordered up the screening of tax-exemption applications for references to “Tea Party” and other conservative keywords. By April that year, the employee had forwarded 7 of around 40 screened cases to Washington.
Another employee told committee investigators of seeking another job in July 2010 because of “micromanagement” from Washington.
“It was the whole Tea Party. It was the whole picture,” the employee said, according to the excerpt. “I mean it was the micromanagement, the fact that the subject area was extremely sensitive, and it was something that I didn’t want to be associated with.”
None of that constituted evidence of wrongdoing at the White House, but Republicans suggested on Sunday that such evidence would emerge in due time.