By
David Martosko In Washington
Letters
from the IRS to tea party-related organizations in Oklahoma City and
Albuquerque, New Mexico show that IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C.,
and two satellite offices in California, were directly involved with
sending harassing letters to conservative organizations that sought
tax-exempt status.
The IRS
has acknowledged only the involvement of its Exempt Organizations office
in Cincinnati, Ohio, which typically makes most decisions about
granting or denying tax-exempt status to non-profit organizations.
And Wednesday afternoon, CNN cited a congressional source in reporting that the acting IRS Commissioner – whom President Obama fired later in the day –
had identified two 'rogue' employees, both in Cincinnati, whom he
thought were responsible for targeting right-wing organizations with
tactics that were not applied to left-wing or non-political groups.
This letterhead from the IRS headquarters in
Washington, DC, accompanied a probing letter directed at a tea party
group. The IRS Inspector General investigated only similar
communications from the agency's Cincinnati office
Jay Sekulow (L) says his American Center for Law
and Justice will sue the IRS if it doesn't grant tax-exempt status to
27 tea party groups by Friday. Lois Lerner (R) is a civil servant, not a
political appointee, heads the IRS office the handles tax-exempt groups
Steven Miller then the acting IRS Commissioner, described the two employees as being 'off the reservation,' according to the CNN source.
Miller, added CNN, had emphasized that the problem was not confined to just two staffers.
Tuesday's report from the IRS Office of Inspector General, however, focused exclusively on the Cincinnati office.
This
IG's review, according to the report 'was performed at the EO [Exempt
Organizations] function Headquarters office in Washington, D.C., and the
Determinations Unit in Cincinnati, Ohio.'
The
Washington staffers involved, the IG report continues, were in charge
of reviewing materials prepared in Cincinnati. 'As part of this effort,
EO function Headquarters office employees reviewed the additional
information request letters prepared by the team of [Cincinnati]
specialists,' the report reads.
IRS offices in the California towns of El Monte
and Laguna Niguel sent politically motivated letters to tea party
groups, suggesting that the problem reached beyond the Cincinnati office
where the IG report focused
One letter, sent to a northern California
organization, demanded to know about its links with the Redding (Calif.)
Tea Party Patriots. 'Tea party' was one phrase that reportedly
triggered a 'Be On The Lookout' notice among IRS employees looking for
politically conservative applicants for tax-exempt statuses
Nothing in the report describes letters sent by IRS employees in California or the District of Columbia.
Yet an April 21, 2010 letter to
the Albuquerque Tea Party organization, containing a preliminary list
of 10 questions, came from the IRS's Tax Exempt and Government Entities
Division in Washington, D.C. The group responded on June 10.
Seventeen months passed before the IRS responded on November 16, 2011. That letter, similar
in scope and tone to other intrusive IRS letters that have drawn
national attention, also came from the Washington, D.C. IRS office. It
included an additional 28 questions.
A separate letter came
to Patriots Educating Concerned Americans Now (PECAN), a Redding,
California conservative group, from an IRS office in the Orange County,
California town of Laguna Niguel.
That
letter, dated January 31, 2012, asked 55 questions, including a demand
for 'complete copies of the organization's website that is accessible to
members only.'
It also
asked a series of pointed questions about PECAN's relationship to the
Redding Tea Party Patriots, an overtly political organization.
Under mounting pressure, President Barack Obama
announced Wednesday in the East ROom of the White House that acting IRS
Commissioner Steven Miller would be stepping down
Steven Miller, shown here in a CBS report, is
the highest-profile official to resign under pressure from the Obama
administration. Miller informed IRS employees in a face-saving email
that he would be leaving weeks from now, 'as my acting assignment ends
in early June'
A third IRS letter to
a group called Oklahoma City Patriots In Action, or the OKC PIA
Association, came from an IRS office in El Monte, California, an eastern
suburb of Los Angeles, on February 9, 2012.
It
included 59 questions, including a demand for a list showing the time,
date, place and 'content schedule' for every 'public rally or
exhibition' the group had ever conducted.'for or against any public
policies, legislations [sic], public officers, political candidates, or
like kinds.'
'Please state
whether you provide any advocacy training to your members and to the
general public,' another question read. 'If yes, describe in detail your
advocacy training and provide copies of any publications concerning
such training.'
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which represents all three groups, provided MailOnline with a letter from the IRS
in Washington, D.C. in which the agency said it still had not decided
whether to award the Albuquerque Tea Party tax-exempt status.
That letter was dated April 16, 2013, more than three years since the group filed its initial application.
Jay
Sekulow, the ACLJ's chief counsel, scoffed at the idea of the IRS
scapegoating a pair of its Cincinnati employees, given the letters he
has seen from offices three time zones apart.
The Tea Party Patriots and other conservative
groups provided a powerful rallying force during the 2010 midterm
elections. It was around the same time that the Obama administration's
IRS began targeting such groups that applied for tax-exempt nonprofit
status
Treasury Inspector General for Tax
Administration J. George Russell (L) will testify alongside the
now-former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller before the House Ways
and Means Committee on May 17. Also shown is IRS Deputy Commissioner for
Services and Enforcement Linda Stiff
'The IRS's assertion that this
scheme was launched by a couple of rogue employees in the Cincinnati
office is absurd,' Sekulow said. His organization represents 27 tea
party organizations, all of which were targeted, he said, with partisan
attacks.
'To suggest that a
couple of low-level employees decided to launch this unprecedented
conduct of intimidation does not square with the facts,' he added.
Sekulow said his group plans to sue the IRS if it has not granted all 27 groups their tax-exempt statuses by Friday.
'The
action and conduct of the IRS is not only intolerable and
unconscionable, it is actionable. We continue to move forward with our
plans to file a federal lawsuit which could come as early as next week."
Sekulow showed MailOnline an IRS
letter to his group's tea party client in Wetumpka, Alabama. That letter, which
did originate in Cincinnati, was similar to the Washington, D.C. and California letters, and identical in some places.
The similarities suggest a program of
national scope, tied together with standardized texts and applied from
IRS offices nationwide.
If that's the case, the IRS's explanations to date will be left wanting.
Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman
testified last year that there was no program in his agency targeting
conservative political groups for special screening before tax-exempt
status was conferred. That testimony proved false
Rain or shine: Tea party stalwarts were known
for stubbornly supporting a strict reading of the U.S. Constitution, and
for getting under the skin of political liberals. News that the IRS,
under the Obama administration, singled them out for special screening,
may energize them into another potent force in time for the 2014
election
A timeline included in the
Inspector General's report describes the agency's attempt to retrain its
employees after the politically partisan program was discovered.
'Training was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, on how to process identified potential political cases,' one timeline entry reads.
Two
days later, according to the same timeline, an IRS team 'began
reviewing all potential political cases began [sic] in Cincinnati,
Ohio.'
The report describes nothing about remedial action taken anywhere else.
MailOnline
asked an IRS spokeswoman to comment on whether the IRS or the Office of
Inspector General interviewed employees in its California offices as
part of preparing the report released Tuesday. MailOnline also asked if
the Inspector General's office questioned anyone who worked in the
Washington, D.C. headquarters, including political appointees.
The IRS had no response, despite providing a specific email address for those questions during a phone call.
In
March 2012, Douglas Shulman, then the IRS Commissioner, testified
before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight that the tax
agency did not investigate organizations differently according to their
political ideologies.
'As
you know, we pride ourselves in being non-political, non-partisan
organization,' Shulman said then. 'There is absolutely no political
targeting.'
This chart, from the IRS Inspector General's
report, shows the pecking order at the IRS among people who handle
tax-exempt organizations. Lois Lerner is represented by the small box at
center reading 'Director, EO.' Employees above her pay grade include
some political appointees. At the top is Deputy Commissioner for
Services and Enforcement Linda Stiff, shown above in red
Lois G. Lerner, the woman who leads the IRS division that evaluates and monitors tax-exempt organizations, learned in June 2011 - nine months earlier - that this was not true, according to the Inspector General's report.
Given
that letters originated in Washington, Cincinnati and southern
California, and may have come from other IRS offices as well, it will
become a greater challenge for Shulman to explain why he was mistaken
when he testified on Capitol Hill last year.
Both Lerner and Shulman will testify in a house Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on May 22.
'The
IG report indicts IRS for a colossal management failure, but leaves
many questions unanswered,' said California Rep. Darrel Issa, who chairs
that committee, in a statement.
In a separate hearing on May 17, the House Ways and Means Committee will hear testimony from Steven Miller – now the former Acting IRS Commissioner – and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.
'The
IRS absolutely must be non-partisan in its enforcement of our tax
laws,' said Michigan Republican Rep. Dave Camp, who chairs that
committee, in a statement.
'The
admission by the agency that it targeted American taxpayers based on
politics is both shocking and disappointing. ... We will hold the IRS
accountable for its actions.'
Obama
announced Miller's departure during a brief dinnertime announcement
before news cameras in the East Room of the White House. The IRS, the
president conceded, 'improperly screened conservative groups.'
Referring
to the Inspector General's report, Obama said 'the misconduct that it
uncovered is inexcusable. It's inexcusable and Americans are right to be
angry about it. And I am angry about it.'
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