The drip-drip-drip of bad news for the IRS keeps on dripping, kinda like the Chinese water torture. Now Reuters is reporting that IRS officials at HQ in DC knew about the Cincinnati office singling out conservative groups for more intrusive questioning about a year earlier than they’ve admitted so far.

A misfired email from a U.S. Internal Revenue Service employee in Cincinnati alerted a number of Washington IRS officials that extra scrutiny was being placed on conservative groups in July 2010, a year earlier than previously acknowledged, according to interviews with IRS workers by congressional investigators.

OK, so they didn’t intend to tell the bosses in DC … but they did, and the bosses did, what, exactly? So far, looks like they did zip, zilch, nada about it, and therein lies the scandal. The lying about it to try to cover it up is just the icing on the cake.