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IRS got marching orders from at least two Democrat senators

by Dan Calabrese

By DAN CALABRESE - Not to mention any names . . . Baucus and Schumer!

If you think back, some of you might even remember this. Far from the claim that this was merely two rogue employees in the Cincinnati office gone off the rails, top Democrats on Capitol Hill made it very clear when the Tea Party was on the rise that they wanted the IRS to dog the conservative groups on the premise that they might be "abusing" the system.

Max Baucus of Montana is first up, via CNS News:

On September 29, 2010, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D- Montana) wrote a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calling for an investigation into the political activities of tax-exempt groups.

In the letter sent to then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, Baucus wrote:

"The Senate Finance Committee has jurisdiction over revenue matters, and the Committee is responsible for conducting oversight of the administration of the federal tax system, including matters involving tax-exempt organizations. The Committee has focused extensively over the past decade on whether tax-exempt groups have been used for lobbying or other financial or political gain."

Baucus will claim, of course, that this was nonpartisan in nature, but Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and John Kyl thought at the time that it smelled fishy in a partisan sort of way, and said so as the story notes. And in practice, as we now know, the IRS did indeed focus its efforts on conservative groups.

So what did Chuck Schumer do?

In a letter still posted on his web site, and also signed by six other Democrat senators, Schumer called on the IRS to "prevent abuse of the tax code by political groups focused on federal election activities." Now, to be sure, the letter did not specifically mention the Tea Party, nor did it mention targeting conservatives in general. But I don't think it needed to do so in order to get its point across. In the aftermath of the Citizens United ruling, Democrats were up in arms about right-wing groups that might accept corporate donations. The letter even cites a New York Times story that prattled on about the same so-called outrage.

Schumer and these six other Democrat senators didn't have to hire skywriters to let the IRS know who they were concerned about.

But if you still want to believe the targeting of conservatives was not systematic, ask Drew Ryun about that. He knew exactly how to get the IRS to approve tax-exempt status for his conservative group. Make it sound like it was a liberal one:

Eight months passed without word from the agency about the group's application, Ryun said. In February 2012, Ryun's attorney contacted the IRS to ask if it needed more information to secure its nonprofit status as a 501(c)3 organization. According to Ryun, the IRS told him that the application was being processed by the agency's office in Cincinnati, Ohio—the same one currently facing scrutiny for targeting conservative groups—and to check back in two months.

As directed, Ryun followed up with the IRS in April 2012, and was told that Media Trackers' application was still under review.

When September 2012 arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone nonprofit status, and he tried a new approach: He applied for permanent nonprofit status for a separate group called Greenhouse Solutions, a pre-existing organization that was reaching the end of its determination period.

The IRS approved Greenhouse Solutions' request for permanent nonprofit status in three weeks.

Clever.

What Ryun clearly understood was that a culture exists, within the IRS and within Washington in general, that saw Tea Party groups and other conservative groups as the enemy. No one had to send an official memo directing the IRS what to do. It was perfectly clear to IRS higher-ups what their bosses wanted, as these very public missives from the likes of Baucus and Schumer demonstrate.

I have no idea if we'll ever find a smoking gun in the form of a directive from the White House to pull this kind of crap. But we don't need it. The IRS was shamelessly using its power to harass political opponents of the Democratic Party, and those in charge of the Executive Branch are responsible for this. And it is also true that they and their political allies did a great deal rhetorically to encourage it. They are completely responsible for everything the IRS has done wrong.

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IRS got marching orders from at least two Democrat senators
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John Hames