President Cruz's first day in office: Bye-bye Iranian sellout
Ted Cruz made a speech at the RedState conference in which he laid out five actions he would take on his first day in office.
During this speech, Cruz laid out five actions that he would take on his first day in office. The Daily Signal reports:
The first action would be to “rescind every illegal executive action taken by Barack Obama,” including his “executive amnesty.”
Next, he would “instruct the Department of Justice to open an
investigation into Planned Parenthood” and to prosecute any criminal
conduct uncovered.
Then he would instruct the Department of Justice and the Internal
Revenue Service to “cease persecuting” individuals seeking to practice
their faith in their workplace.
The Little Sisters of the Poor, he said, “would receive a letter in
the mail that their case has been dismissed.” He said they would also
receive “an invitation to the White House to tell their story to the
world.”
Then he would “end the catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.”
Cruz argued that by lifting economic sanctions on Iran, the Obama
administration had become “the leading global financier of radical
Islamic terrorism.”
Finally, he would “begin the process to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.”
Moving the embassy to Israel’s “eternal capital,” he said, would send “a message to the world that we stand with our allies.”
Unlike promises to stop the oceans from rising and to heal the planet, these promises seem reasonable and in line with Cruz’s campaign message.
Cruz assured the RedState audience, and by extension all of us, that
he’s the one GOP presidential candidate who will keep his word.
I wish he would add to the IRS item that he will order the IRS to cease denying tax exemptions on political grounds.
I also wonder whether he could even find all of Obama's illegal executive orders in just one day.
Justice Department lawyer in Z Street case a potential witness
The Wall Street Journal reports that the lawyer who until recently was representing the Justice Department in the Z Street lawsuit is a potential witness due to his tenure in the IRS working under Lois Lerner.
From
August 2008 until August 2010, Mr. Strelka was a presidential
management fellow assigned to the IRS Exempt Organizations division.
That's the same period that Z Street says it was told by an IRS agent
that its application had been singled out for special scrutiny to see if
it comported with Administration policies. Mr. Strelka was thus both
Justice's lawyer on the case and potentially a witness.
We say "was" because recently Mr.
Strelka was withdrawn as the Justice Department's counsel of record on
the Z Street case. A review of court dockets showed that he has also
withdrawn from two other cases involving tax-exempt groups, including
Judicial Watch's suit against the IRS.
Mr.
Strelka confirmed to us that he was off the Z Street case but said he
couldn't discuss pending litigation. A Justice Department spokesman said
"it is not unusual for attorney assignments to change during the course
of litigation" but declined further comment.
Cleta Mitchell,
who represents conservative groups who saw their applications for
tax-exempt status slow-tracked, says she talked to Mr. Strelka when he
was at the IRS starting in June and July of 2010 about a client whose
tax-exempt application was delayed. After applying for 501(c)(4) status
in October 2009, the client heard nothing until June 2010, when Mr.
Strelka asked to see ads the group had run that were critical of
Administration health-care policy.
This
means Mr. Strelka was directly engaged in the policies at the Exempt
Organizations Unit that led to the lawsuits charging the agency with
viewpoint discrimination. Under the Rules of Professional Conduct,
barring special exceptions, "A lawyer shall not act as advocate at a
trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness."
Z
Street founder
Lori Lowenthal Marcus
says the group intends to depose Mr. Strelka during discovery—if
it ever happens. The IRS recently filed an appeal of a judge's denial of
the agency's motion to dismiss the Z Street case, indefinitely delaying
discovery and running out the clock on this Administration.
If
Mr. Strelka had personal knowledge of the processing of tax-exempt
applications for groups like Z Street while he was assigned to the IRS,
he should have recused himself from handling the case at Justice.
Judicial
Watch President
Tom Fitton
says there is "nothing usual about the way Justice handled this
and if the goal [of Mr. Strelka's recent withdrawal] was to inspire
confidence in the process, it is likely to have the opposite effect." We
look forward to learning what Mr. Strelka knows.
It's a pity that so much of this administration's corruption is likely to remain repressed until long after Hussein Obama retires to become a full-time golfer.
I have discussed Z Street and how it was denied tax exempt status by Obama's IRS many times on this blog. Now, it turns out that Z Street may yet be the key to the IRS scandal.
The IRS's political agenda isn't just about the Tea Party
In the ongoing imbroglio over the Internal Revenue Service, it's the IRS's treatment of the Tea Party that has grabbed most of the headlines. But I have shown in the past, as have others, that the IRS also discriminated against organizations that opposed President Hussein Obama's Middle East policies. The most blatant case where that happened was the denial of tax exempt status to Z Street, an organization based in Philadelphia that seeks to help Jews in Judea and Samaria. The IRS claims that conservative organizations like Z Street were 'stuck' in the bureaucracy, and that's why their applications took so long to process. But the Wall Street Journal reports this morning that emails from the IRS (at least those that were not erased) show that the dragged out process that Z Street (specifically) faced was deliberate.
In
2009 the Pennsylvania group Z Street applied for tax-exempt status for
its mission of educating people about Israel-related issues. In 2010 an
IRS agent told Z Street that its application was delayed because the tax
agency's Washington, D.C. office was giving special scrutiny to groups
whose missions might conflict with Administration policies. The IRS's
"Be On the Lookout" list that November also included red flags for
groups referring to "disputed territories."
Z
Street sued in August 2010 for viewpoint discrimination and its case is
headed for discovery in federal court. Now emails uncovered by the
House Ways and Means Committee show that the IRS and State Department
were conferring in 2009 about pro-Israel groups like Z Street and
considering arguments to deny their tax-exempt applications.
In
an April 16, 2009 email, Treasury attache to the U.S. Embassy in
Jerusalem Katherine Bauer sent IRS and Treasury colleagues a 1997 JTA
News article sent to her by State Department foreign service officer
Breeann McCusker. The subject was whether 501(c) groups buying land in
Israel's disputed territories were engaged in "possible violations of
U.S. tax laws." The article chronicles the controversy and whether
"ideological activity" can "legally be financed with the help of U.S.
[tax] dollars."
"Thought
you might find the below article of interest—looks like we've been down
this road before," Ms. Bauer wrote. "Although I believe you've said you
can't speak to on-going investigations, I thought it was worth flagging
the 1997 investigation mentioned below for you if it can be of any use
internally when looking for precedence [sic] for the current cases." A
Treasury spokesman declined comment on Ms. Bauer's behalf.
The
"current cases" would have been applications like Z Street's in which
Israel-related activity was apparently being scrutinized for its
ideological and policy content. The government says Z Street got special
scrutiny because it was focused in a region with a higher risk of
terrorism, which is hard to believe and in any case doesn't explain all
of the IRS's behavior.
It
doesn't cover, for instance, why one questionnaire we've seen from the
IRS to another Jewish group applying for tax-exempt status asked, "Does
your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?" and
"Describe your organization's religious belief system toward the land of
Israel." No matter the answers, they should not affect the processing
of an application for 501(c) status. The State-IRS emails reveal a
political motivation for IRS scrutiny that gives Z Street powerful
evidence for its suit charging IRS bias.
On Monday
the IRS filed an appeal of the judge's decision denying its motion to
dismiss Z Street's case. The government says the action stops all
discovery while the appeal is pending, a process that could take months
or even years. By filing the appeal on the last possible day, the
Justice Department is running out the clock on discovery during the
remainder of the Administration.
It's a pity that by the time this case is decided, it may no longer be possible to sanction the Obama administration. If I were representing Z Street, I would do everything I could to expedite a decision.
Trust: 71% believe Obama's IRS destroyed emails to hide guilt
What do you call a country where the public believes the taxman plays politics? The United States of America. A Rasmussen poll finds that 71% of the American public believes that the IRS destroyed its emails to hide its guilt in targeting pro-Israel and tea party groups (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Most voters think it’s likely the IRS deliberately destroyed e-mails
about its investigations of Tea Party and other conservative groups to
hide its criminal behavior. Two-out-of-three now believe IRS employees
involved in these investigations should be jailed or fired, and most
suspect the agency of targeting other political opponents of the Obama
administration.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 53% of
Likely U.S. Voters believe that the Internal Revenue Service broke the
law when it targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups. That’s up
from 49% earlier this year
and back to the level seen last September.
Little changed from the early surveys are the 22% who think the IRS did
not break the law. Slightly more (25%) are not sure. (To see survey
question wording, click here.)
When citizens cannot trust independent agencies to be independent, they are more likely to try to defy the laws that those agencies are meant to enforce. I don't know of anyone famous who said that, but intuitively, it's correct.
Z Street is a pro-Israel organization whose application for a tax exemption was denied in 2009 after it was asked whether it supports the 'occupation.' Z Street sued the IRS (never cross a couple where both spouses are lawyers :-), and now finds itself at the center of a major scandal in the US involving 'lost' IRS emails.
In 2009 a pro-Israel group called Z Street applied to the IRS for
tax-exempt status. When the process was delayed, an IRS agent told the
group that its application was undergoing special review because "these
cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine
whether the organization's activities contradict the Administration's
public policies." In August 2010 Z Street sued the IRS on grounds that
this selective processing of its application amounted to viewpoint
discrimination.
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
and legal precedent, once the suit was filed the IRS was required to
preserve all evidence relevant to the viewpoint-discrimination charge.
That means that no matter what dog ate Lois Lerner's hard drive or what
the IRS habit was of recycling the tapes used to back up its email
records of taxpayer information, it had a legal duty not to destroy the
evidence in ongoing litigation.
In
private white-collar cases, companies facing a lawsuit routinely operate
under what is known as a "litigation hold," instructing employees to
affirmatively retain all documents related to the potential litigation. A
failure to do that and any resulting document loss amounts to what is
called "willful spoliation," or deliberate destruction of evidence if
any of the destroyed documents were potentially relevant to the
litigation.
At the IRS, that requirement
applied to all correspondence regarding Z Street, as well as to
information related to the vetting of conservative groups whose
applications for tax-exempt status were delayed during an election
season. Instead, and incredibly, the IRS cancelled its contract with
email-archiving firm Sonasoft shortly after Ms. Lerner's computer
"crash" in June 2011.
In the federal
District of Columbia circuit where Z Street's case is now pending, the
operating legal obligation is that "negligent or reckless spoliation of
evidence is an independent and actionable tort." In a 2011 case a D.C.
district court also noted that "Once a party reasonably anticipates
litigation, it must suspend its routine document retention/destruction
policy and put in place a 'litigation hold' to ensure the preservation
of relevant documents."
The
government's duty is equally pressing. "When the United States comes
into court as a party in a civil suit, it is subject to the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure as any other litigant," the Court of Federal
Claims ruled in 2007. The responsibility to preserve evidence should
have been a topic of conversation between the IRS chief counsel's office
and the Justice Department lawyers assigned to handle the Z Street
case.
As it happens, the IRS also had a
duty to notify Congress if it learned that discoverable evidence had
been lost or destroyed. We now know that the IRS has been aware of Lois
Lerner's lost emails since at least February, but IRS Commissioner
John Koskinen
failed to mention this in his congressional testimony on March
26, saying instead that the IRS was fully cooperating with congressional
requests.
...
Attorney General
Eric Holder
won't name a special prosecutor, but there's still plenty of room
for the judge in the Z Street case to force the IRS to explain and
answer for its "willful spoliation" of email evidence.
Oh my.... Here's betting that if they're prosecuted and convicted before January 2017, Obama will pardon them.
From time to time over the past four years, I have covered the IRS's refusal to grant tax-exempt status to Z Street, a pro-Israel organization. This week there was a breakthrough and the IRS will be forced to answer the charges against it.
On Tuesday, Federal Judge Ketanje Brown Jackson issued the first
substantive ruling in any suit that challenged the IRS’s pose of
political neutrality under the Obama administration. The case concerns Z
Street, a Philadelphia area-based pro-Israel organization that filed
for tax-exempt status in December 2009 because of its role in educating
the public about Israel and the Middle East conflict. The group’s
founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus wrote in the Jewish Press this week about what followed:
On July 19, 2010, when counsel for Z STREET spoke with the IRS agent
to whom the organization’s application had been assigned, that agent
said that a determination on Z STREET’s application may be further
delayed because the IRS gave “special scrutiny” to organizations
connected to Israel and especially to those whose views “contradict
those of the administration’s.”
Z Street subsequently sued the government and rightly argued that its
constitutional rights had been violated because of the “viewpoint
discrimination” that the IRS agent had openly displayed. Now after years
of delays, Judge Jackson has ruled that by asserting that Z Street had
no right to sue, the government had tried to “transform a lawsuit that
clearly challenges the constitutionality of the process … into a dispute
over tax liability.” She similarly dismissed the government’s claims of
sovereign immunity.
What has this got to do with the Tea Party and its complaints? Plenty.
This ruling will force the IRS to open its books on the procedures it
used and decisions it made reviewing Z Street’s tax-exempt application,
procedures it has tried to keep shrouded. As the case proceeds, Z
Street’s attorneys can seek depositions from many who have been part of
the larger attempt to sit on similar applications by other conservative
groups.
In other words, this case may be the straw that breaks the camel’s
back of the IRS’s politically prejudicial policies. If an IRS agent can
reject or stall a pro-Israel group’s application on the grounds that
“these cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to
determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the
Administration’s public policies,” then no group, no matter what its
political orientation or cause is safe from being subjected to a
political litmus test designed by any administration of either political
party.
Bring it on. Too bad it's taken so long to reach trial that Obama's term will likely be over before we know what happened.
A reminder to those of you in the New York area to please show up at the demonstration against allowing BDS groups to march in the Salute to Israel parade from 4:00 to 7:00 pm on Tuesday. More details here.
A chance to make history in New York City on Tuesday, April 8
On April
1, 1933, 81 years ago ,
the Nazis
carried out their first nationwide, coordinated action against the Jews: a
boycott of Jewish businesses.
On
April 1, 2014, JEWISH organizations are supporting the Arab boycott
of Jewish businesses and products made in the Land of Israel.
Incredibly, the
UJA-Federation and JCRC have given their permission for these organizations to
march in the Salute to Israel Parade!
JOIN US TO
TELL UJA-FEDERATION:
DO NOT
PERMIT BDS SUPPORTERS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PARADE
Rally Tuesday, April 8th, 2014
We will
gather 4 PM to distribute flyers, speakers at 5:30-7 PM.
UJA-Federation Building,
130 East 59 St., bet. Lexington & Park Avenues.
BRING
SIGNS, PLEASE and spread the word!
Sponsored
by JCC Watch, AFSI, Z Street, National Conference on Jewish Affairs, Endowment
for Middle East Truth, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, Ha-Emet, and other
organizations. For more information, or if you would like your
organization signed on as an endorser: StopBDSNow@gmail.com
For those of
you who are UJA-Federation and/or JCRC supporters, please use the contact
information below to let them know of your disgust over this issue. Please
seriously reconsider which pro-Israel groups you support – we all have to
allocate our resources and I hope you all reconsider whether UJA-Federation and
JCRC are groups to which you wish to allocate yours if they do not change course
here.
Lois Lerner takes the 5th and what it has to do with Israel
For those of you who think that this story has nothing to do with Israel, please keep in mind that we know of at least one pro-Israel organization that was denied tax-exempt status because it opposed the 'two-state solution.' And the IRS admitted it.
The second revelation was one made by Bloomberg News.
That media agency obtained IRS documents revealing that, in addition to
the terms Tea Party and 9/12, other terms were used in flagging
organizations seeking tax exempt status for additional scrutiny. While
the headline of the article, and what was the object of most media
attention, was that terms that suggested not just conservative groups,
but also liberal or progressive groups were given the IRS evil eye –
words such as “occupy” and “progressive” were allegedly triggers, as was
the word “Israel.”
But far down in a long article the Bloomberg reporter explains that, “Disputed Territories” was considered problematic. To wit:
‘Disputed Territories”
The November, 2010 [BOLO - Be On the Look Out] list also has terms
that could be related to Israel, looking for applications that ‘deal
with disputed territories in the Middle East’ and ‘may be inflammatory.’
Well, golly! What kind of a group calls a particular area of land
“disputed territories,” which the vast majority of people, either for
ideological or simply conformity refer to as the “West Bank?” Yes, that
would be strong Zionist groups such as Z STREET.
This insistence by the IRS that Z STREET had a remedy for its legal
claim: it could be assured that the court would provide it with a
constitutionally valid process and given an up or down decision pursuant
to a Section 7824 ruling, ultimately brought the judge to ask the
Justice Department lawyer a critical question. She asked whether, in
the opinion of the IRS, there is any way for Z STREET to obtain the
relief that it – not the IRS’s mischaracterization of its claim - has
repeatedly stated in every court filing it wants. In other words, can Z
STREET find out whether the IRS violated its constitutional rights by
treating its application differently on the basis of its viewpoint.
No, according to the IRS, it can’t.
In other words, the IRS says you can get the little ticket that comes
out of the black box called “IRS Tax Exempt Determinations,” which will
say either “approved” or “denied,” but you cannot, no way, no how, lift
the lid off that black box and look inside.
But looking inside that black box is precisely what Z STREET wants.
It is the only way to determine whether the IRS violated the
constitutional rights of Z STREET and of any other organization which
complains, at any time, of a discriminatory process employed by the IRS
in making its determinations.
Judge Brown asked Z STREET’s lawyer, Jerome M. Marcus, whether the
organization could use the Freedom of Information Act to get at the
information it is seeking in its lawsuit.
Marcus pointed out that route would not be productive. There are
numerous FOIA exceptions which the IRS would certainly use as a shield
to prevent the black box from being opened. FOIA is not an option.
Nope, it’s either a court which will allow citizens who believe their
constitutional rights have been violated by the IRS to provide the
mechanism to find out, or the IRS will be, as so many Americans already
believe it to be, a rogue agency able to act with impunity, and able to
invoke immunity from prying eyes.
So it comes down to this: Z STREET has alleged that the IRS employed a
constitutionally tainted process to evaluate certain applicants for tax
exempt status, while the IRS’s position is that there is no way for any
complainant to inquire about that process.
IRS First Post-Scandal Appearance in Court Reveals Effort to Run From Justice
The IRS has learned nothing from all its travails in Congress. It continues to behave as Obama's Gestapo.
As you might recall, Z Street is a Jewish organization that was set up in part to counter the pro-'Palestinian' J Street. Z Street sought exempt organization status as a 501(c)(3) corporation, but has not yet been able to get it because it is pro-Israel (or possibly because it disagrees with the Obama administration's position on Judea and Samaria). In other words, Z Street is the foreign policy alter-ego of the Tea Party organizations that have grabbed most of the headlines in the IRS scandal.
In 2010, Z Street sued the IRS. On Tuesday, the IRS sought (again) to dismiss that lawsuit. This press release was put out by Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the President of Z Street, in response.
IRS First Post-Scandal Appearance in Court Reveals Effort to Run From Justice
Yesterday
marked a new entry in an ongoing pattern of changing stories and
defenses to prevent the light of day from exposing egregiously
unconstitutional behavior by one of the most dreaded limbs of
government: the Internal Revenue Service.
“It is no surprise
that the IRS is desperately fighting to prevent anyone from learning
exactly how the IRS decided to categorize organizations on the basis of
their political, religious or other viewpoints, an issue from which the
government entity has been reeling for weeks, and with good reason,”
said Lori Lowenthal Marcus, president of Z STREET.
Represented by
the Justice Department, the IRS filed a brief seeking to dismiss the
lawsuit against it brought by Z STREET, a staunchly pro-Israel
organization, which was filed in August, 2010.
That lawsuit was
the first public utterance that the IRS was discriminating against
certain organizations because of their viewpoints, rather than because
of a failure to follow the required guidelines of eligibility.
In
May, the admission - after years of denials - by the IRS itself that it
had engaged in categorizing politically conservative groups for
differing treatment touched off a flurry of congressional and media
attention. Most of the attention was focused on the treatment of “Tea
Party” and other politically or socially conservative groups.
Z
STREET brought its lawsuit nearly three years ago, after being told by
the IRS agent to whom its file had been assigned that the IRS had to
“give special scrutiny to organizations connected to Israel,” and that
the files of some of those “organizations were sent to a special unit in
Washington, D.C. to determine whether the activities of the
organization contradicted the public policies of the administration.”
Such treatment by the IRS constitutes bald-faced viewpoint
discrimination and is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The
IRS has defended itself in the lawsuit on several different grounds,
including the absurd notion that the government is immune from such a
lawsuit. (In fact, of course the Bill of Rights -- which begins with the
First Amendment, securing the right to free speech -- was created
specifically to protect citizens from unconstitutional behavior by the
government).
In particular, the government has repeatedly
denounced Z STREET for failing to wait the requisite number of days
before complaining and going to court for not receiving tax exempt
status. And as Z STREET explained in every single one of its own court
filings, the lawsuit was not brought because it had not been given (or
denied) tax exempt status within a particular time frame. The lawsuit
was brought because Z STREET believes, based upon what the IRS agent
herself said, that the IRS engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint
behavior. There is no requirement to wait a set period of time before
making such a claim.
However, in yesterday’s filing, the IRS
claimed - for the first time, not surprisingly, as it completely
contradicts every other court filing by the IRS in this case - that Z
STREET’s lawsuit should be dismissed because it failed to make out the
very claim the IRS had repeatedly insisted Z STREET was making - that it
qualifies for, and should have already been given, tax exempt status.
It bears noting that yesterday another set of significant documents was released by the IRS, via
the House Ways and Means Committee. These, in an apparent attempt to
prove that the IRS was not just engaging in viewpoint discrimination
against politically conservative groups, showed that the IRS had created
a category for review it labeled “progressive,” as if that made
everything kosher. But also included in the documents released was a
category labeled “occupied territory advocacy.” In other words, the IRS
was indeed singling out applications for tax exempt status on the basis
of a particular political viewpoint which is inconsistent with this
administration’s. And that is bald-faced viewpoint discrimination and
is the basis for Z STREET’s lawsuit against the IRS.
The first
hearing in Z STREET’s lawsuit against the IRS will be held on July 19 at
10:00 in Courtroom 17 before Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in the
Federal District Court of the District of Columbia.
And you thought the IRS acted unfairly to the Tea Party....
Two things happened on Monday, June 24, that proved, finally, that Z STREET – and others similarly situated – was correct.
First, the IRS released its 83 page document, “Charting a Path Forward at the IRS,”
in response to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General who found
that the IRS had engaged in inappropriate targeting of certain groups
which had sought tax exempt status from the IRS.
...
The second revelation was one made by Bloomberg News.
That media agency obtained IRS documents revealing that, in addition to
the terms Tea Party and 9/12, other terms were used in flagging
organizations seeking tax exempt status for additional scrutiny. While
the headline of the article, and what was the object of most media
attention, was that terms that suggested not just conservative groups,
but also liberal or progressive groups were given the IRS evil eye –
words such as “occupy” and “progressive” were allegedly triggers, as was
the word “Israel.”
But far down in a long article the Bloomberg reporter explains that, “Disputed Territories” was considered problematic. To wit:
‘Disputed Territories”
The November, 2010 [BOLO - Be On the Look Out] list also has terms
that could be related to Israel, looking for applications that ‘deal
with disputed territories in the Middle East’ and ‘may be inflammatory.’
Well, golly! What kind of a group calls a particular area of land
“disputed territories,” which the vast majority of people, either for
ideological or simply conformity refer to as the “West Bank?” Yes, that
would be strong Zionist groups such as Z STREET.
I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for them to admit that they targeted Americans in Israel because we overwhelmingly support Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria and because we didn't vote for Obama. Maybe that's why so many of us were audited.
The IRS is sickeningly corrupt - no better than the 'tax authorities' of a banana republic. It's time to clean house at the IRS - but to do that, you'd have to start at the White House.
IRS routes pro-Israel groups' tax-exempt status applications to anti-terrorism unit
For an administration that claims to have won the war on terrorism, the Obama administration is certainly paranoid about terrorism. Or maybe they just wanted to give pro-Israel groups who were applying for tax-exempt status a hard time. Either way, a Cincinnati-based IRS agent has testified to Congress that applications for tax-exempt status by pro-Israel groups are 'routinely' routed to an anti-terrorism unit.
Asked whether Jewish or pro-Israel applications are treated
differently from other applications, Gary Muthert told House Oversight
Committee investigators that they are considered “specialty cases” and
that “probably” all are sent to an IRS unit that examines groups for
potential terrorist ties.
Muthert, who served as an application
screener before transferring to the agency’s antiterrorism unit, was
interviewed in connection with the committee’s investigation into the
IRS’s discrimination against conservative groups. As a screener, Muthert
flagged tea-party applications and passed them along to specialists for
further scrutiny.
Asked by investigators whether “all pro-Israel applicants went to the
terrorism unit,” Muthert responded, “Probably . . . foreign activity,
pro-Israel — if it is any type of foreign activity, it will go to the
antiterrorism area.” Screeners like Muthert must consult the list of the
Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Treasury Department office that
enforces economic and trade sanctions, and “the terrorist
list . . . because a lot of organizations will create charities to
funnel the money to terrorist countries.” In further questioning,
Muthert was more categorical, saying that pro-Israel groups get “not so
much additional scrutiny, just more procedures.”
“More review?” an investigator asked.
“Clearly, correct,” Muthert responded.
Now Muthert claims it's not just Israel.
The policy that the applications of pro-Israel groups be examined by
the IRS’s antiterrorism unit was instituted “probably years ago,”
according to Muthert in his testimony. That testimony leaves unclear
whether the news coverage in 2009 and 2010 prompted the scrutiny to
which groups like Z Street say they have been subjected, or
whether every nonprofit group whose application indicates it may engage
in foreign activity, regardless of the country, is put under the
microscope.
According to Muthert, it’s the latter, and he denies
that pro-Israel applications are treated differently from those of other
groups that claim they plan to engage with foreign countries. “It has
to do with money laundering and things, because a lot of organizations
will create charities to funnel the money to terrorist countries,” he
explained. “So it is not so much Israel. It is just foreign countries.”
At least five pro-Israel organizations harassed by Obama's IRS
At least five pro-Israel organizations were harassed by Obama's IRS in 2009 and 2010 according to a report in the Washington Free Beacon. Some of them are still afraid to talk about it (Hat Tip: Noah P).
One pro-Israel targets was HaYovel, which was featured prominently in the New York Times article.
Six months after the article was published, the IRS audited the
Nashville-based charity, which sends volunteers to work in vineyards
across the Green Line.
“We bookend that [New York Times] story. We were the first
[group mentioned]. They really kind of focused on us,” said HaYovel’s
founder Tommy Waller. “Then six months later we had an audit.”
Shari Waller, who cofounded HaYovel with her husband, said the couple
received a phone call from the IRS in December 2010. She said she was
not aware of anything in their tax documents that may have prompted the
audit, and added that the additional scrutiny came during the group’s
first five years of existence [deleted comma] when audits tend to be
rare.
“They contacted us the week of Christmas and told us they wanted to
audit us, right now,” she said. “The most unusual thing to me was they
contacted us at a time [that] for most people is a very hectic time, and
we had just returned from Israel. To think about taking calls for an
audit on the telephone—official business is usually conducted through
the mail.”
Tommy Waller said he found the timing of the audit “suspicious” and believes it may have been politically motivated.
“We 100-percent support Judea and Samaria, and Jewish sovereignty in
that area, and the current administration is 100 percent opposed to
Jewish sovereignty in that area of Israel,” he said. “That’s why we
suspected that we would have to deal with [an audit].”
Two other organizations—the American arm of an educational
institution that operates across the Green Line and the American arm of a
well-known Israeli charity that was mentioned in the New York Times article—say they were also audited.
Another organization that was criticized in multiple articles during
2009 and 2010 was audited last year. The organization, like many of the
groups with whom the Free Beacon spoke, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of political retaliation and concern that exposure would harm fundraising efforts.
Read the whole thing. The last time I heard anything like this was the 1970's....
Rick Richman raises the possibility that exaggerated IRS scrutiny of applications for tax-exempt status by pro-Israel groups may have been undertaken at the behest of the 'Palestinians.' The proof is in the 'Palestine papers' published by al-Jazeera in 2011.
At the June 16 meeting, Erekat said Benjamin Netanyahu’s June 14 Bar-Ilan speech
had sought to put the Palestinians on the defensive. Netanyahu endorsed
a two-state solution and stated that in the meantime, “we have no
intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional
land for existing settlements,” but would “enable the residents to live
normal lives.” He urged the Palestinians to engage in immediate
negotiations, without preconditions. Erekat wanted to respond to the
speech with a letter to the U.S. that would cite the number of
individual housing units under construction. Dr. Mohammed Shtayyed made an additional suggestion to Erekat:
“We should also focus on the government incentives to settlers: loans
without interest, land for free, agricultural subsidies in the Jordan
valley. We can’t stop a pregnant lady from having a baby, but look at
what we can do. We should look at the 501(c)(3) organizations in the
States that make donations to settlers. Let the US administration
investigate this.” [Emphasis added].
Shatayyed was wrong about Israeli government incentives, which had
been terminated by Israel during the Bush administration, as part of a
negotiated arrangement (detailed by Elliott Abrams in Tested by Zion)
allowing new construction only within already built-up areas, which
permitted normal growth without an increase in the Israeli “footprint”
in the territories. Given our evolving knowledge of how the IRS operated
under Obama, however, it seems possible the Palestinians followed
through on Shtayyed’s other suggestion, asking the administration to
investigate pro-Israeli groups.
Obama's half brother close friends with Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, IRS gave their foundation preferential treatment
In this photo, from the Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) website,
headed by Malik, Omar al-Bashir can be seen dressed in black, to the
right. Another man to take notice of is seated directly to the right of
Bashir; his name is Suar Al Dahab.
A foundation headed by President Obama's half brother Malik, and called the Barack H. Obama Foundation received an IRS tax exemption within a month of its application despite having connections to the terrorist Bashir regime in Sudan (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
The Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) is linked to top Sudanese officials, a regime accused of terrorism and genocide. Walid Shoebat reported:
It has been learned that the relationship between President Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik Obama and Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir is much closer than previously thought…
…In 2010, Malik Obama attended the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO)
conference in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. One of the objectives of
the IDO is to spread Wahhabist Islam across the African continent.
Al-Bashir wasn’t just present at the conference; he supervised it.
Krauthammer: Obama Has Been Parsing Words That Makes Clinton Look Unsophisticated
Charles Krauthammer destroys President Hussein Obama on his response to the IRS scandal. "He says I didn't know about
the IG report. Well if he didn't know about any of this, never heard
any complaints, then he would have said I don't know anything about this
at all. The IG is a peculiar answer by a guy who I have now seen for
weeks now, he and his spokesman have been parsing words that make
Clinton look unsophisticated."
The "IG" (Inspector General) is the same person who claimed on Thursday that there was 'no evidence' that the IRS discriminated against pro-Israel groups.
Let's go to the videotape.
To see why Obama is Clintonian rather than Nixonian go here.
US Treasury Inspector General: 'No evidence' IRS discriminated against pro-Israel groups
The United States Treasury's Inspector General is claiming that there is 'no evidence' that the IRS discriminated against pro-Israel organizations.
In the Treasury inspector general's report out this week, there was
no finding that 'pro-Israel' or 'Jewish' were classifications that were
specifically targeted for political purposes. In other words, no
evidence has thus far been discovered that an organization like Z Street
would have been singled out because of its allegiance to Israel or
because of specific Israeli government policies.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told The Jerusalem Post that
he has neither seen nor heard of any evidence to the contrary, though
he admits that, if a group represented by the conference were being
audited, he might not be the first to know.
The Politico piece
cites one sole source from the IRS whose comments indicate the
possibility of a connection to the scandal: Jon Waddell, manager of the
Exempt Organizations Determinations Group at the IRS.
"Israel is
one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a ‘higher risk of
terrorism,’” wrote Waddell concerning legal action from Z Street. “A
referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions
providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of
terrorism."
But a look at the IRS code on tax exemption procedures
clarifies what Waddell means by 'higher risk of terrorism.' Procedure
requires Waddell and his team take into account the activities of an
organization that are deemed to put resources in danger; this includes
activities or grants in foreign countries flagged by the State
Department as having "trends" in terrorism. Those flags automatically
prompt perfectly legal procedures, such as further questioning through
further paperwork.
Whether Israel should still be on that list is a
separate question. But whether the IRS was targeting pro-Israeli groups
to investigate possible conservative ties is, at the moment, pure
speculation.
Sorry. I've been following the Z Street story for three years, and I just don't buy that. I doubt that Z Street President Lori Lowenthal Marcus will buy it either, once the holiday finishes in the US.
If you follow those links you will see that there is a lot more evidence against the IRS than is cited in the JPost article excerpted above.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
