And he is going to keep making waves.

The treasury inspector general for tax administration’s audit of the IRS sparked an explosive political scandal that has consumed Washington — and even landed the inspector general in the critical gaze of congressional Republicans and Democrats.

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And this for a man who was virtually unknown outside wonkish tax circles just three months ago.

Appointed by President George W. Bush, the inspector general has been the chief watchdog of the IRS since 2002 — and has been, at times, the biggest critic of the much-maligned agency over management, fraud and spending.

He declined to be interviewed for this story.

Educated at Howard and Harvard universities — where it is rumored that he briefly dated future first lady Michelle Obama — George worked as a prosecutor in the Queens County District Attorney’s office. He was also the chief counsel for former Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.), who chaired a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.

His political career may not be on the rise, but the attention drawn by his watchdog office since the IRS scandal first erupted in May means that future reports on the agency’s misdeeds are guaranteed to be seen by a wider audience.

The initial inspector general report on the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups found that lax management and unclear internal rules allowed the agency to ask intrusive questions of nonprofits seeking tax-exempt status for more than two years.

In June, Democrats, including Rep. Sander Levin, the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, accused George of holding a partisan grudge when it came to light that progressive groups were also included on IRS watch lists. George previously told lawmakers that he wasn’t aware of progressive groups on the so-called be on the lookout lists.

“His failure to indicate that within the almost 300 groups that liberal groups were included essentially was flawed, and essentially what happened was Republicans saw an opportunity to politicize it and to talk about a White House enemies list,” Levin said at the time.

Republicans have also criticized the inspector general for not informing them of his findings in a timelier manner.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked George why he didn’t brief panel staffers about the IRS targeting program before the 2012 presidential elections.

But George pushed back against the bipartisan disapproval. He told Issa the audit was kept out of congressional hands because lawmakers are notorious leakers and the watchdog agency did not want an incomplete report shared with the news media.

And just hours after Levin suggested George return to testify — under oath — under the Ways and Means Committee, the inspector general defended the accuracy of his audit and said progressive groups were not targeted on the same scale as conservative groups.

“While we have multiple sources of information corroborating the use of ‘tea party’ and other related criteria we described in our report, … we found no indication in any of these materials that ‘progressives’ was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention,” George wrote to Levin in a June 26 letter.