The co-founder of Tea Party Patriots said on Fox this morning that the questions the IRS asked in their quest for 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status were “ridiculous” and an apology from the agency isn’t enough.
Jenny Beth Martin said her group still hasn’t heard back on their application.
“The IRS has asked questions of us like, they wanted to know every single post on Facebook, every comment that every person who is a fan of ours on Facebook, had ever made. All the congressmen and senators that are supporters, ever spoke to. Very intrusive questions,” Martin said.
She said they’re looking into whether they’ll demand that the IRS pay back the money that the Tea Party group spent on lawyers for the process.
“And we’ve also had to help other groups around the country to — to do what we can to help them as they’ve had the same — same kind of questions from the IRS,” Martin continued. “A simple apology on a conference call is not enough by a long shot. Congress needs to investigate this, and find out how many more lies the IRS is telling.”
She said she understood in the application process “that when you’re dealing with the IRS and you’re making an application for a tax exempt status, that you’ve got to — you’ve got to make sure that you’re following all the rules, and all the laws.”
“But the questions about the Facebook posts, what are supporters are saying, who they’re talking to on Capitol Hill, the list of all of our donors, when donations are supposed to be — supposed to be confidential? Absolutely ridiculous,” Martin said.
“I don’t know whether it came from the top or not. What I know is that there’s no way it was just a couple of low-level employees out of Cincinnati, Ohio who had this much influence, and could affect so many groups across the country. Literally it was from coast to coast. From California to South Carolina, in every state — not every state in between, but many, many states in between who were filing for these applications.”
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