Congressional Oversight Committee members are asserting in a report released today, that contrary to Democrats insisting that the IRS had also targeted "progressive" (Socialist/Liberal) groups, when the IRS was found to be persecuting Conservative organizations, that contention by Democrats is not true.
The Oversight Committee's media dispatch today disclosed that "...Administration and congressional Democrats have seized upon the notion that the IRS’s targeting was not just limited to conservative applicants...These Democratic claims are flat-out wrong and have no basis in any thorough examination of the facts. Yet, the Administration’s chief defenders continue to make these assertions in a concerted effort to deflect and distract from the truth about the IRS’s targeting of tax-exempt applicants..." Additionally it states that there is "...simply no evidence that any liberal or progressive group received enhanced scrutiny because its application reflected the organization’s political views..."
In early May of 2013, Lois Lerner who headed the IRS's division that oversees tax-exempt groups admitted and apologized for the IRS targeting for "additional" reviews, groups whose titles included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their tax exempt applications.
However, after that admission, Democrats pointed out that the IRS was merely doing its job and that non-conservative groups were also targeted, seeking apparently to dismiss charges that the Democrat Obama administration was using the power of government to persecute Conservatives for their political beliefs.
Listed here are the highlights of the Committee's key findings:
- IRS’s three “test” cases were all conservative organizations: Prescott Tea Party, American Junto, the Albuquerque Tea Party. (pp. 14-18)
- Congressional Democrats made misleading claims about the targeting. Democratic Members of Congress, including Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, Ranking Member Sander Levin, and Representative Gerry Connolly, made misleading claims that the IRS targeted liberal-oriented groups based on documents selectively produced by the IRS. (pp. 7-13)
- IRS selectively released documents supporting the misleading claims. The IRS cited 6103 protections for taxpayer information to withhold details about the targeting from the American public, but reversed its decision in August 2013 to release information helpful to its cause. (pp. 11)
- MYTH: Progressive groups were also targeted.Only seven applications in the IRS backlog contained the word “progressive,” all of which were then approved by the IRS, while Tea Party groups received unprecedented review and experienced years-long delays. While some liberal-oriented groups were singled out for scrutiny, evidence shows it was due to non-political reasons. (pp. 32-35)
- MYTHS: False Democratic claims of political targeting about specific groups exposed: Where the IRS identified liberal-oriented groups for scrutiny, evidence shows that it did so for objective, non-political reasons and not because of the groups’ political beliefs. (p.32)
- ACORN groups – IRS employees testified that former ACORN affiliates were scrutinized out of concern that they were old organizations improperly applying as new ones and not because of their political beliefs. (pp. 40–42)
- Emerge America – IRS employees testified that Emerge Groups were scrutinized after some had already been approved and the IRS became concerned about improper private benefit – not because of their political beliefs. (pp. 42–44)
- Occupy Wall Street – The Committee has found no evidence that the IRS subjected Occupy applicants to burdensome and intrusive information requests or even seen evidence that “Occupy Wall Street” or an affiliate organization applied to the IRS for non-profit status. (pp. 44–45)
The report summary begins by explaining:
"...In the immediate aftermath of Lois Lerner’s public apology for the targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants, President Obama and congressional Democrats quickly denounced the IRS misconduct. But later, some of the same voices that initially decried the targeting changed their tune. Less than a month after the wrongdoing was exposed, prominent Democrats declared the 'case is solved' and, later, the whole incident to be a 'phony scandal.' ... As recently as February 2014, the President explained away the targeting as the result of 'boneheaded' decisions by employees of an IRS 'local office' without 'even a smidgeon of corruption.'... "...Time and again, they have claimed that the IRS targeted liberal- and progressive-oriented groups as well – and that, therefore, there was no political animus to the IRS’s actions. These Democratic claims are flat-out wrong and have no basis in any thorough examination of the facts. Yet, the Administration’s chief defenders continue to make these assertions in a concerted effort to deflect and distract from the truth about the IRS’s targeting of tax-exempt applicants..."The report continues with:
"...A central plank in the Democratic argument is the claim that liberal-leaning groups were identified on versions of the IRS’s “Be on the Look Out” (BOLO) lists....This claim ignores significant differences in the placement of the conservative and liberal entries on the BOLO lists and how the IRS used the BOLO lists in practice. The Democratic claims are further undercut by testimony from IRS employees who told the Committee that liberal groups were not subject to the same systematic scrutiny and delay as conservative organizations...The IRS’s independent watchdog, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), confirms that the IRS treated conservative applicants differently from liberal groups. The inspector general, J. Russell George, wrote that while TIGTA found indications that the IRS had improperly identified Tea Party groups, it “did not find evidence that the criteria [Democrats] identified, labeled ‘Progressives,’ were used by the IRS to select potential political cases during the 2010 to 2012 timeframe we audited.”7 He concluded that TIGTA “found no indication in any of these other materials that ‘Progressives’ was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention..."83 Percent of the back-log were Conservative groups, while only ten percent leaned "Liberal."
"...An analysis performed by the House Committee on Ways and Means buttresses the Committee’s findings of disparate treatment. The Ways and Means Committee’s review of the confidential tax-exempt applications proves that the IRS systematically targeted conservative organizations. Although a small number of progressive and liberal groups were caught up in the application backlog, the Ways and Means Committee’s review shows that the backlog was 83 percent conservative and only 10 percent were liberal-oriented. Moreover, the IRS approved 70 percent of the liberal-leaning groups and only 45 percent of the conservative groups.10 The IRS approved every group with the word “progressive” in its name..."The report details and documents with extensive references, its claims, and concludes:
"...Public and non-public analyses of IRS data show that the IRS routinely approved liberal applications while holding and scrutinizing conservative applications. Even training documents produced by the IRS indicate stark differences between liberal and conservative applications: 'progressive’ applications are not considered 'Tea Parties.'... These facts show one unyielding truth: Tea Party groups were target[ed] because of their political beliefs, liberal groups were not..."
See the Full Report HERE...
