POLITICIZED IRS OPENS INVESTIGATION INTO AMERICAN ACCOUNTABILITY FOUNDATION AFTER EXPOSING BIDEN NOMINEES
The American Accountability Foundation, which exposed IRS abuse, now the target of it.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Accountability Foundation (AAF) has recently been informed that its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status is being examined by the IRS. The documents requested by the IRS include nearly all of AAF’s external communications on all activities.
“This sudden request by the IRS is not random. The IRS is demanding ‘[c]orrespondence files, emails and information posted on a website that relates to current public elected officials’ – clearly a sign that they are targeting our research and education activities,” said AAF president Tom Jones. “It’s a deliberate attempt to punish and suppress AAF’s activities. It is surely no coincidence that AAF—the very organization that exposed the weaponization of the IRS—is now the target of it.”
In November 2022, AAF exposed an effort by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse to pressure the IRS to conduct investigations on conservative nonprofits. Sen. Whitehouse “called for revoking a tax exemption for a conservative group for not masking up and socially distancing during the pandemic, insisted on a slew of investigations of other conservative groups, and pressed for the Internal Revenue Service to expand its reach. A total of 176 pages of correspondence from and to Whitehouse was obtained from the IRS by the conservative watchdog group American Accountability Foundation through the Freedom of Information Act.”
“As the attorney for many conservative, tea party groups targeted and harassed by the Obama IRS a decade ago, this certainly smacks of the exact same tactics used by the IRS then….and apparently being used again now against AAF,” said Cleta Mitchell, attorney for multiple groups who suffered abuse at the hands of the Obama – Lois Lerner IRS. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) investigated and reported that groups affiliated with the tea party movement and other conservative groups had been singled out for mistreatment by the IRS.
“Before the IRS starts down this road again, it would be worth remembering the scorn heaped upon it the last time it allowed itself to be used as a pawn by a liberal in the White House. Ultimately, the federal government had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to dozens of groups to settle a lawsuit against the IRS resulting from the targeting. Surely, the IRS doesn’t want to go down that road again,” concluded Mitchell.
Ever since its founding, the American Accountability Foundation has relentlessly pursued its mission to educate the American people regarding the actions of public leaders and institutions. They have researched leaders of every ideological persuasion, including many of President Joe Biden’s nominees. As a result of information AAF uncovered, several of Biden’s nominations were withdrawn, including three just this year – Phil Washington, Gigi Sohn, and Ann Carlson. As a result of AAF’s research, officials including Pamela Karlan, Eric Lander, and Andrew Lorenzen-Strait resigned.
Journalist Jane Mayer, a favorite collaborator of Sen. Whitehouse in their shared war on anonymous philanthropy to conservative causes, has specifically named AAF in a number of articles and interviews, accusing AAF of being a “dark-money” group, and implying that it deserved to have its tax-exempt status revoked.
Mayer also makes the vague claim that “American Accountability Foundation is an offshoot of another bigger group called the Conservative Partnership Institute.” It must be noted that the Conservative Partnership Institute was specifically mentioned by Sen. Whitehouse in his letters to the IRS, demanding an examination of their tax-exempt status.
Jones elaborated, “While the abuse of law enforcement agencies to punish political opponents is more reminiscent of the Soviet Union than the United States, we have seen this before. Americans have not forgotten the weaponization of the IRS against conservative groups under the Obama administration. This abuse has been widely documented, and the IRS confessed to the outrageous conduct.”
The Biden administration has also weaponized other government agencies against political opponents: in October, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued his infamous memo to federal law enforcement, instructing the FBI to keep a watch on parents’ protesting leftist school policies; in January 2023, an FBI memo discussed ways to spy on socially conservative Catholics; and most recently, the FBI is reportedly gearing up to track conservatives in the run-up to 2024.
“We demand that this abuse is put to an end at once,” said Jones. “The Biden administration is acting as the gangster arm of the Left. Our Constitution and Declaration of Independence guarantee our God-given right to speak the truth about the powerful without being punished and harassed. We will do everything in our power to keep America free.”
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