The IRS targeted conservative Tea Party groups. It was part of the rather entertaining string of scandals the Obama administration was subjected to last summer.
It’s even been alleged that the agency looked at progressive groups as well. Some liberal commentators noted that this neutralized the scandal aspect of the story, but it only added more names to the butcher’s bill. The latest development on the IRS fiasco centers on the agency giving preferential treatment to black nonprofits during the 2012 election.
Investor’s Business Daily reported on September 6 “at the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats.”
Paul Sperry, who wrote the article, also noted that during 2012, “top officials with both the IRS and Justice Department — including the IRS commissioner and attorney general — met in Washington with several dozen prominent black church ministers representing millions of voters to brief them on how to get their flocks out to vote without breaking federal tax laws.
The ‘summit’ on energizing the black vote in houses of worship was hosted by the Democrat-controlled Congressional Black Caucus inside the U.S. Capitol on May 30, 2012.” Attorney General Holder and IRS Commissioner Douglas Schulman were also in attendance.
The U.S. tax code specifically bars nonprofits and churches from “participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.”
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley described this incident as a “raw display of political favoritism,” and that if former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez organized a similar sit down with evangelical groups – the outrage would be “deafening.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member