Attorney Cleta Mitchell, who represents several conservative organizations abused by the IRS, told attendees at the Institute's 2013 summer DC Intern Seminar:
I'm not surprised that the agents in the IRS decided it was completely appropriate to single out and target, terrorize, and harass conservative organizations. I think we will learn — because I've had enough conversations with conservative and tea party leaders around the country who were visited by the FBI ... I think it will come out at some point that the FBI classified the tea party groups as domestic terrorists, or at least were investigating them to see if they were domestic terrorists.
Yesterday, in an article titled
IRS Targeting, Round Two, Kim Strassel @ Wall Street Journal wrote that the Obama "Treasury and IRS are back at it — this time in broad daylight."
In the media blackout of Thanksgiving week, the Treasury Department dumped a new proposal to govern the political activity of 501(c)(4) groups. The administration claims this rule is needed to clarify confusing tax laws. Hardly. The rule is the IRS's new targeting program—only this time systematic, more effective, and with the force of law.
That this rule was meant to crack down on the White House's political opponents was never in doubt. What is new is the growing concern by House Ways and Means Committee investigators that the regulation was reverse-engineered—designed to isolate and shut down the same tea party groups victimized in the first targeting round. Treasury appears to have combed through those tea party applications, compiled all the groups' main activities, and then restricted those activities in the new rule.
