If you had read The BRAD BLOG when the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s report on the pretend IRS “scandal” came out, you’d already know just about all of this. We tried to tell ya way back then. You see, unlike the rest of the media, it seems, we bothered to actually read that report before reporting on it. For anybody who did the same, the scam should have been pretty clear.
Now we learn that IRS flagged progressive groups for additional targeted scrutiny when applying for tax-exempt status — just as they did for “Tea Party” groups. But, in the case of progressives, they continued doing so until this month, even after they had stopped flagging “Tea Party”-related groups, according to documents[PDF] released by Democrats on the U.S. House Ways and Means committee on Monday.
That, of course, is why we also described the pretend “scandal”, in a subsequent report, as “nearly as phony as the Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones and ACORN ‘scandals'”.
As the New York Times describes the newly released documents…
…
But the practice appeared to go much farther than that. One such “be on the lookout” list included medical marijuana groups, organizations that were promoting President Obama’s health care law, and applications that dealt “with disputed territories in the Middle East.”
…
Such lists were in use as recently as this month, when [Acting I.R.S. Commissioner Daniel] Werfel took over the agency, far longer than initially thought. I.R.S. officials said Monday that the more recent lists did not include the terms aimed at conservative groups.
…
The new I.R.S. documents raise questions about how the controversy has been portrayed. They confirm that the applications of “various local organizations in the Tea Party movement” were given special scrutiny. But so were “progressives.”
“Common thread is the word ‘progressive,'” a lookout list instructs. “Activities appear to lean toward a new political party. Activities are partisan and appear as anti-Republican.”
That syncs up with much of what we explained, in our very first report on the IG’s report, which, we explained at the time, was flawed.
As we detailed in that story (which was also cross-published by Salon) on what we have long been calling a “fake scandal”, the IG was specifically tasked by Congress with two things: Republicans, such as Rep. Darrel Issa, requested the IG examine whether “Tea Party”-related groups (and only “Tea Party”-related groups) were specifically scrutinized during the IRS process to determine whether or not they met the legal criteria for 501(c) tax-exempt status. Democrats requested the IG look at the entire tax-exempt 501(c) system to determine whether the law was being followed in granting status to groups carrying out political work, in violation of the law, under that special, tax-payer subsidized status.
The IG’s report [PDF] noted that, yes, the vast minority (about one-third) of the political groups flagged for scrutiny by the IRS were “Tea Party”-related groups. The report did not reveal what type of groups comprised the other two-thirds of the groups that were flagged by the IRS.
Moreover, the IG did not carry out the second report requested by Congress at all, noting in a footnote on page 4 0f the report [page 10 in the PDF] that “A future audit is being considered to assess how the EO [Exempt Organizations] function monitors I.R.C. §§ 501(c)(4)-(6) organizations to ensure that political campaign intervention does not constitute their primary activity.”
Of course, since the report’s misleading release, Republicans have opportunistically used it to hoax their followers into believing it represented evidence of a Nixonian White House plot to cripple Republican organizations, even though the report offers no evidence whatsoever that Obama or anybody in his Administration or among his political operatives had anything to do with the IRS attempt to get a handle on the tsunami of such groups applying for tax-exempt status after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the infamous Citizens United case.
For his part, President Obama, as usual, began tossing people under the bus, instead of investigating what had really happened. Just after the release of the misleading report, Obama gave a speech describing “outrageous misconduct” at the IRS. What misconduct, we asked then, and again now? So far, no such misconduct related to this affair has been found, certainly no illegalities or political machinations, no matter how much Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the U.S. House Oversight Committee has tried to pretend there has been some.
In fact, it was Issa who tasked the IG, specifically, with investigating whether or not the IRS was targeting Republican-leaning groups.
“An Inspector General spokesman responded that he focused on conservatives because that’s what the Republican led committee asked him to do,” reported CNN’s Dana Bash this week. NPR finally asked, “So why did the IG release a 50-page audit with no mention of progressives being targeted too? A spokeswoman for the inspector general says that’s outside of the scope of the audit, which was originally requested by Issa. … The spokeswoman says the IG was asked to look at the targeting and treatment of tea party groups and that’s exactly what the audit did and not much more.” And Politico has also finally noticed what The BRAD BLOG reported over a month ago: “‘Our audit report answered the questions it was asked to address. Other questions that are now being raised are the subject of additional review,’ a TIGTA spokeswoman said.”
In fact, to date, the only “misconduct” discovered seems to be by Issa himself. As it turns out, he has been hiding the complete transcript of interviews he conducted with IRS officials since the story came out. But, in the great tradition of Republican hoaxsters such as Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe, Issa selectively edited which parts of the transcript would be released. Last week, Rep. Elijah Cummings, Issa’s Democrat counterpart on the House Oversight Committee, finally released the complete transcripts.
What does the full, unedited transcript actually show? It was a self-identified “conservative Republican” in the IRS’ Cincinnati office who first approved the criteria used to identify “Tea Party”-related and other political groups for closer scrutiny.
So, to review: A “conservative Republican” IRS worker, working under the Bush-appointed IRS commissioner, helped create a way to try and identify political groups applying for tax-exempt status in order to try and make certain they were following the law which bars political work by such groups. A minority of those groups identified for scrutiny were Right-leaning groups, the rest were Progressive and other groups. The IG didn’t bother to tell us about the other groups, because he was not directed to do so by Issa, the man who has since pretended that he has uncovered a massive political conspiracy that goes all the way up to the White House (there is no evidence to support that whatsoever.) Issa then selectively released only certain portions of the interview transcripts with IRS workers in order to keep the charade going. The IG has yet to complete, or even start, the audit requested of him by Congressional Democrats. And the mainstream media, who could have figured all of this out from Day 1, just as we did, by simply bothering to read the IG report, didn’t do so.
“At this point in the investigation,” Cummings wrote in his letter to Issa explaining why he was releasing the full interview transcripts after Issa had refused to, “not one witness who has appeared before the Committee has identified any involvement by any White House officials in the identification or screening of Tea Party applicants for tax exempt status, and the Committee has obtained no documents indicating any such involvement.”
Whodathunkit? Oh, yeah, we did. From the jump. As usual. Back when everyone was enjoying the birth of yet another pretend Obama “scandal”.
ADDENDUM: For the record, here are the specific bullet points we included in our very first report on this, wherein we scolded the President for jumping the gun to declare there had been “inexcusable misconduct” at the IRS, when there was no evidence, then or now, of any such wrong-doing in the IG’s report…
- Any evidence that “Tea Party” related groups were identified during this process for nefarious reasons;
- Any type of identification, political or otherwise, for the groups whose applications were similarly flagged and delayed (“Tea Party” related groups made up only a minority, approximately 1/3 of the groups whose applications were delayed and held for further examination);
- Any indication or evidence whatsoever that the White House, or anybody outside of the IRS units handling these cases, had anything to do with what happened;
- Any response to the other question the IG’s office was tasked by Congress to investigate, namely: “whether existing social welfare organizations are improperly engaged in a substantial, or even predominant, amount of campaign activity.”
A month and a half later, all of those bullet points above still stand. Read The BRAD BLOG. It’s good for you.
Why is there no accounting of Issa and the false use of American tax money in highly partisan witch hunts? No Accountability for the Gopers?…
Steve Snyder,
I’d like you to weigh on this. The POSSIBILITY that there was absolutely no IRS scandal, which Brad has now detailed as FACT, was brought to your attention time and again. You failed to acknowledge/denied it was a possibility again and again.
You got some ‘splainin’ to do.
Sorry–should be–“weigh in on this”.
Just scanned through the fifty something page PDF document of his findings (I don’t have time to read it all) which “proves” that they applied equally the increased scrutiny. I saw a lot of references to conservative type groups and not too much on progressive type groups. This guy may be just applying David’s standards, in David’s list of 4-5 progressive groups (May) which somehow justifies the 275 or so conservative groups.
Sorry if I don’t just accept the explanations of Obama’s hand picked damage control guy.
Steve,
Either you(again)didn’t read Brad’s post before commenting or you(again)fail reading comprehension. Or both.
David, you have to try to think outside your box. Brad, from day one has been calling this a pretend scandal. Every piece he has written, every comment he has made about this, was made to support what he wants to be true.
He reports that the IG didn’t look into increased scrutiny of progressive groups, only “tea party” groups because that was beyond the scope of what they were asked to do according to an IG spokesperson. Somehow, over 200 non-tea party groups were included in their assessment. According to the Washington Examiner that includes six progressive groups. None of whom, according to Ways and Means Chairman Camp, had classified documents leaked to partisan “news” websites, none of whom were asked “inappropriate and intrusive†questions.
I don’t accept Brad poo poo’ing of the subject any more than I accept the explanations of the Obama hand picked damage control guy.
The point I was trying to make in paragraph two which I didn’t complete was: Somehow the IG went beyond, by a wide margin, the “scope” of what they were asked to do. Otherwise there wouldn’t be the other 200+ non-tea party groups on their assessment. So the “we didn’t look for progressive groups because we weren’t asked to” excuse is garbage…
Steve,
You go right ahead and see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe. Your opinions and worldview make little sense to me. Not much more to say, really.
Steve Snyder said @ 6 & 7:
Actually, that was according to the IG report itself. But, in any case…
Washington Examiner? Really? Okay. In any case, you didn’t link to the source of your assertions, so please do. Taking them at face value, however, are you asserting that Obama sought to leak this information to news sites? And, as I recall (sorry, must make this fast cuz have to get into recording studio), some of the progressive groups identified were in fact, asked detailed questions.
Don’t know what “Obama hand picked damage control guy” you are talking about. Was it the self-identified “conservative Republican” interviewed by Darrell Issa who first approved the list of words? You know, the guy whose transcript Issa refused to release, so Cummings eventually had to? Or was it the Bush-appoined Commissioner of the IRS? Or someone else? Feel free to let us know.
Um, no. They looked at which groups were identified for additional scrutiny, and then counted the number of them that were “Tea Party”-related, and reported that. Not sure how that is beyond the scope of what the IG was tasked to do, unless you’ve got an incredibly furtile imagination (which you have demonstrated for a long time, in any event.)
But, let’s try to get on the same page here:
What evidence exists to demonstrate that Obama, or any of his official aides or political operatives had anything whatsoever to do with any of the criteria (used wrongly or rightly) at the IRS? Please list all of the actual evidence that you are aware of, if you don’t mind, since you have been telling us for a month and a half that somehow this is a scandal in which Obama (or his people?) are somehow implicated. And please try to make that question one that you don’t simply ignore, as is the usual case when I ask you something here in comments that you don’t care to answer. Thanks in advance!
Steve Snyder –
Not surprised you have failed to answer the question I asked you to, but I’m sure you’re busy and will get to that. I look forward to it.
In the meantime, now I see where you got your Washington Examiner cite above (the one which you didn’t link to) but which was linked, with the same headline, at RW dis-info sites like Breitbart, Newsmax, AmericanThinker and Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air.
I see why you didn’t link to it, when you wrote @ 6:
Too bad you’re not as skeptical about the shit you read at RW sites as you are to the stories here. The headline for that story was: “Treasury: IRS targeted 292 Tea Party groups, just 6 progressive groups.”
But, the problem with that headline, and that story is that, as TPM details today, “It’s flat wrong.”
I’ll let you go read the story yourself, if you’re interested in information, versus bullshit. But, in short, there were not “292” Tea Party groups “targeted by” the IRS. There were 96 Right-leaning groups (about 1/3) of 298 groups total. Of those, what we know to date, is that “just 17 had the terms Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names”, as TPM explained. At the same time, “between May 2010 and May 2012, 14 groups with” either “progress” or “progressive” in their name had been put into the political groups.
Prior to that, in your comment @ 4, you had asserted that there were “275 or so conservative groups” that were targeted. Short of your citing a source for that, it’s complete bullshit. That number is contrary to the IG’s report, and misreported at the Wingnut sites you frequent and in which you choose to believe (despite the fact that they are demonstrably and continuously playing you for a fool.)
It’s still unclear about the full numbers that make up the 292 groups examined by the IG during that period, and it’s still unclear as to the type of treatment they each received, but there were only 91, not “275”, identified as Right leaning. We don’t know who make up the other 200 or so.
But where you also stated above that, of the non-Wingnut groups identified, “none…were asked ‘inappropriate and intrusive’ questions,” you also appear to be flat out wrong on that to. Surprised? Care?
This is from AP yesterday, for example, in an article describing some of the delays and intrusive questioning faced by progressive groups, who, unlike the RWers, didn’t bother to wine about it and pretend it was a White House scandal to destroy them!:
“This is kind of what you expect. You expect it to take a year or more to get your status because that’s just what the IRS goes through to do it,†said Maryann Martindale, executive director of Alliance for a Better Utah, a small non-profit that advocates for progressive causes. “So I don’t know that we feel particularly targeted.â€
…
On Monday, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee released 15 BOLO lists, which changed over time and were dated between August 2010 and April 2013. The lists included the terms “Progressive,†â€Medical Marijuana,†â€Occupied Territory Advocacy,†â€Healthcare legislation,†â€Newspaper Entities†and “Paying National Debt.â€
The revelation that such a wide array of groups may have received extra scrutiny is threatening to undercut the narrative of some Republican lawmakers that the IRS targeted enemies of the president during last year’s presidential election.
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James Salt, executive director of the liberal group, Catholics United, said it took a total of seven years for his group to get tax-exempt status under section 501 (c) (3) of the tax code. The designation is more valuable than the one for social welfare groups because donations to these groups are tax-deductible. However, there are greater restrictions on political activity.
Salt said Catholics United first applied in 2005 but eventually withdrew its application after an extensive back-and-forth with the IRS. The group applied again in April 2010 and was approved in July 2011, he said.
Salt said the most onerous question from the IRS was for copies of all information the group planned to disseminate to the public.
“It’s almost impossible to know what we will do,†Salt said. “It didn’t make any sense. How can we answer that?â€
One IRS agent also asked some “weird†questions, he said.
“The nature of her questions were, questioning why Catholics would care about immigration and why Catholics would care about supporting the rights of immigrants,†Salt said. “It almost seemed like there was suspicion that promoting Catholic social teaching as it relates to immigration reform was somehow suspect.â€
Sean Soendker Nicholson, executive director of Progress Missouri, said it took about 14 months for the IRS to approve his group’s tax-exempt status, in December 2012. He said the IRS asked a lot of questions about the group’s activities.
“It took a long time. We didn’t think much of it,†Nicholson said. “What I thought at the time was, there’s a lot of new groups that have popped up in the election cycle and it’s a good thing the IRS is scrutinizing these applications.â€
But, please don’t let any of that information keep you from doubting me, while failing to be skeptical, in the least, about the con-men who operate the media outlets — from Examiner to Breitbart to Malkin — that you have misplaced your faith in.
Also, don’t let any of it keep you from answering the questions I asked you, particularly the one asking you to list the evidence that Obama or the White House or his operatives, had anything whatsoever to do with any of what you have, for the past month, described as an “Obama scandal!!!” As a courtesy, it would be nice, for a change, if you bothered to reply to any of my questions, particularly given all the time I continuously take in answer your questions, in detail.
I look forward to your answers. I suspect they will never come.
Tunga’s got your IRS scandal right here;
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200115515716283&set=a.4154897116366.2141475.1402100826&type=1&theater
“when [Acting I.R.S. Commissioner Daniel] Werfel took over the agency, ” – snip from link above
Errrt! The Secretary of Internal Revenue is Melba Acosta Febo. She is the one who has the power to levy taxes on federal employees.
The Commissioner has the job of informing the Secretary of Congressional intent. He has no power to levy any tax.
Brad, I’ve never said or even attempted to make the case that Obama was behind the IRS leaking of conservative groups classified documentation. I’ve never said or attempted to make the case that Obama was behind the increased scrutiny of conservative groups by the IRS either.
As to your example of progressive groups being harassed or whatever you want to call it: a. Key word in the AP story is progressive groups “may” in regard to progressive groups which may have received increased scrutiny threatening to undercut the conservative dialogue regarding conservative groups which “did” receive increased scrutiny. b. Two progressive groups listed, one predates the current scandal. In the story you cite it also clearly says that while progressive groups were asked detailed questions about their activities the but several stated they were not asked the inappropriate questions listed in the IG report. So while you may say I appear to be flat out wrong, it indeed is you who are flat out wrong. Surprised? Care?
I’ll also point out the FACT that at no time has the IRS publicly stated that they inappropriately singled out progressive groups, and apologized for doing so, as they have for conservative groups. I know, I know… Van Jones Sherrod Acorn. As if that has anything to do with this matter.
And I stand by my assertation that over 200 non-tea party groups were found to be unfairly targeted which disputes your point that only tea party groups were found because that’s all the IG looked for.
Also, I’m quite sure there are conservative sites which grab on to things like the Examiner piece to try and push this story forward. Just as there are left wings sites which blow it off as nothing and desperately hope it goes away.
Steve Snyder @ 13 & 14 said:
Okey doke. So, would you mind explaining to me what the “scandal” is here then? Is the “scandal” that a “conservative Republican”, under a Bush-appointed IRS Commissioner identified “Tea Party”-groups for additional scrutiny, to determine if their activities were “exclusively” for “social welfare” purposes and then approved them all for tax-exemption, despite the clear political work that most of them did (in violation of the law)?
If so, perhaps I fail to see the “scandal”. Thus, I use quotations around the word in this context. If not, perhaps you can explain what the supposed “scandal” actually is. Thanks in advance!
Um, no. We know, just from that one AP article alone that the two groups were asked intrusive questions and had to wait more than a year, in one case, and seven years in another case, to get their approval for tax-exemption from the IRS.
We know from other articles that similar treatment was given to other progressive groups, and we know that the only one groups actually denied tax-exemption during this period were progressive groups. So, again, I’m left wondering what this outrageous “scandal” is that you’ve been on about for a month and a half.
Huh? “Predates” it how? Was it during the Bush Administration (when many groups, such as the NAACP, and churches who dared feature anti-war speakers were “harassed” by the IRS?) Otherwise, how does it “predate”?
In the story you cite it also clearly says that while progressive groups were asked detailed questions about their activities the but several stated they were not asked the inappropriate questions listed in the IG report. So while you may say I appear to be flat out wrong, it indeed is you who are flat out wrong. Surprised? Care?
Huh? About what? Did every “Tea Party”-related group identified present evidence, or otherwise claim that they were “asked inappropriate questions” about their activity? Did the IG claim that was the case?
Right. Because they were neither pressured to do so, nor was their an IG’s audit identifying the number of progressive groups inappropriately identified by the IG.
That has everything to do with this matter, but only in regard to Obama who — just as with Sherrod, Van Jones, and ACORN — through them each under the bus for having done nothing wrong. Remember my original story here? Where I was highly critical of Obama for having declared the IRS displayed “outrage” “misconduct”? What exactly is that “misconduct”? Are you able to identify any? If so, what is it? I’d love to know! Thanks again in advance!
Um…what?! We have no idea if the majority of groups who were identified for additional scrutiny were “unfairly targeted” or not. All we know, as I reported on Day 1, was that a small minority of the groups identified as requiring additional scrutiny had “Tea Party”-related names. If a list was used to identify some groups, but not others, that might have been unfair (as I noted in my original report). It doesn’t mean they were improperly targeted. In fact, it sounds as if the only impropriety here was that they were not denied tax-exempt status!
By the way, according to Open Secrets, Righwing groups, during the period in question, outspent non-RW groups 34 to 1. Other reporting has suggested similar numbers when it comes to the number of groups applying for tax-exempt status during the period. Wouldn’t the sheer numbers suggest that more RW groups would be scrutinized even if perfectly “fair” criteria were used to identify such groups for additional scrutiny? And yet, so far, “Tea Party” groups make up a minority of those identified. Huh.
In the meantime, we still have no idea what sort of groups make up the vast majority of identified groups, nor the reasons that they were identified for additional scrutiny.
If you are referring to The BRAD BLOG as one of those “left wing sites”, a) there are many who would be quite surprised to hear it described that way b) we hardly “blew it off”, as we did one of the most complete analysis’ of the IG’s report found anywhere at the time it was released c) I don’t have much interest in whether it “goes away” or not (I rather enjoy it, in truth, for a number of reasons, and hope it continues to go on as long as the pretend “Fast and Furious” and “Benghazi” scandals go on!) and d) I’m sure there are some non-RW sites, probably many, in fact, who do exactly as you describe.
Anyway, I look forward to your answers to my several questions above. Thanks again!
Steve,
You misrepresent the post. Then you misrepresent what is said in response to your misrepresentation. Then you misrepresent what YOU said in response to that. It’s a never-ending hall of bullshit mirrors.
But what you ARE really good at, is taking legitimate criticisms of you,(that you’re not reality based, that you misrepresent things) and incorporating them into your faux rebuttals. In this way you present the appearance of adult argument, but that’s all it is–pretense. Cuz the substance of your remarks is invariably some sort of gobblegook nonsense or another. Truly weird.
And when I offer a criticism, like this, you invariably come back with your next line of nonsensical response–I always blindly just agree with Brad and Ernie, thought that, too, is demonstrably false.
What are you really after?
When the most powerful and feared arm of the federal government unfairly subjects organizations to increased scrutiny based on their political views, that’s a scandal.
When they do this in the middle of an election cycle causing who knows what effect on the outcome of the election, that’s a scandal.
When the increased scrutiny is so blatantly unfair that the government feels the need to break the story before it’s published by apologizing for their actions, that’s a scandal.
When the organizations subject to the increased scrutiny are those which the sitting president has referred to as enemies among other derogatory terms, that is a scandal.
I don’t care if you can point to one or two progressive groups out of almost 300 which may or may not have been subject to some type of increased scrutiny.
If this happened to progressive groups during the Bush administration we’d still be hearing about it from you. But that’s fine, put your head back in the sand Brad….
Oh, I almost forgot. When the IRS illegally leaks classified tax documents of folks whom the President refers to as enemies to left wing “news” sites that is a scandal