By Tim Newton
Most Americans believe that we have come to the point with the IRS that a special prosecutor is needed to investigate and uncover the full truth of the targeting and harassment of conservative groups by the IRS according to a new poll. the Quinnipiac University national poll stated that 76% of those who were interviewed said they believed it was necessary.
Much has been happening in the IRS scandal, and we know this for sure from hearings in the house and senate continuing the investigation beyond the report from the IRS. We know that the criteria used to sort through non profit groups for extra scrutiny did include ones with the names "Tea Party," "Patriots," and those seeking to teach about the constitution. Overall from what we have learned, nearly 500 conservative groups were targeted, including 5 pro-Israel groups, groups promoting the constitution,groups that criticized Obama administration, at least two pro-life groups a Texas voting-rights group and several conservative activists and businesses were targeted for additional scrutiny from the IRS after requesting to receive non profit status. It seems that the right to freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly can be added to the list of the Obama administration's attack on the first amendment, adding to it's previous attacks on the press and religious freedom of the people. It seems that the very cornerstones of our free society are edging away as the administration continues to make their attacks on one provision of the Bill of Rights after another.
The scandal has continued and the cover-up is being unraveled. Consequences are coming and coming fast. We recently learned that Lois Lerner has been placed on administrative leave, and is receiving increased heat from republicans for pleading the fifth after reading a written statement and making a claim that she was innocent. It is not a surprise she is pleading the fifth, since last year she was asked to testify about whether the standards had changed for determining which groups would receive extra scrutiny and she said the standards had not changed. We do know now that the standards had changed before, and once the investigation began they changed again. There are also some barely legal things that were done like attempting to impose a gift tax on individuals who made donations to conservative groups.
Also we have learned that the wife of previous IRS head Douglas Shulman is an executive for a liberal group whose primary aim is to remove private interest groups from having political influence in government, while also being heavily funded by labor groups.
With an independent investigator more ability to be free of the administration's control would give an opportunity to not only investigate the targeting of individuals but the continued harassment of these groups that applied for tax exempt status.Hopefully with such an investigation this targeting and harassment will stop.Some have asked well shouldn't we give political groups more scrutiny anyways? My answer is this, the point of tax exempt status is not to have the government or the people pay for a groups existence by not taxing them, but to recognize that they are not out to make a profit, and therefore the moneys they bring in are not in the same category as a business. If you are going to however say we need more scrutiny for political groups, then apply it equally, and don't single out conservative groups alone, many liberal groups were asking for the same status and very very few were given the same scrutiny.
On the other hand, the bigger issue to me is the continued harassment, some groups being told they couldn't picket planned parenthood, some groups being told they needed to detail the content of prayers that might be prayed at group meetings, some of the questions singled out specific individuals without explanation for why, even when that individual was not a politician, and had no reason why they were involved in the questioning. They were also asked to detail all of their donors and the amount of donation, which is illegal. When that wasn't enough, some of these groups members were also audited, as were their businesses and families, and they had had not previous contact or issues with the IRS before starting these groups.
Check out our previous posts on this issue:
IRS Scandal: Why does it matter? Read more here
IRS Scandal goes deeper: Read more here
Watch several videos from the Ways and Means Committee Meeting on the IRS Scandal here
A week of scandals, overview of IRS, AP and more. Read more here
