The Internal Revenue Service scandal involving the apparently unjustified targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups has also hit home with the Hispanic community.
George Rodriguez, former president of the San Antonio Tea Party, said that when the organization applied for non-profit status, leaders were intimidated by IRS workers with excessive paperwork and meddling questions.
“They asked us all sorts of things that were out of the norm,” Rodriguez, now head of the conservative South Texas Alliance, told Fox News Latino. “We knew these questions were not the norm and we had our suspicions about them.”
Rodriguez said the group received a questionnaire from the IRS with “well over 50 questions,” including inquiries into who the group met with, where they held their meetings, who was in attendance and what the subject of their internal emails were.
“They should have been worried about the numbers, not who we were meeting with,” he added. “It was flat-out dirty politics.”
The complaint from the San Antonio group is one of many nationwide leveled against the embattled federal agency, in the escalating case that surfaced last week when Lois G. Lerner, director of the IRS’ exempt-organizations division, let slip that low-level IRS staffers had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups with words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their names.
Republicans have pressed the Obama administration for heads to roll. On Wednesday, Obama asked for and received the resignation of the agency’s acting commissioner, Steve Miller.
The scandal sparked a furor among conservative groups and pundits, forcing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to announce that the Justice Department would open a criminal investigation into the matter.
Holder followed the announcement by adding Wednesday that the FBI’s criminal investigation could include charges of civil rights violations, false statements and potential violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in some partisan political activities.
“I can assure you and the American people that we will take a dispassionate view of this,” Holder said. “This will not be about parties, this will not be about ideological persuasions. Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable.”
And by “anybody,” Holder of course means “anybody working within the IRS Determinations Unit who happens to have posted something to YouTube.” Other than that, you’re safe. So stop worrying, Carl Levin, and begin your rigorous investigation dedicated to getting to the bottom of yourself. At which point, John McCain will absolve you of your sins. Because collegiality.
It’s good not being included among the little people, isn’t it?
Sí, se puede
Haven’t we learned that it is okay to hold white Hispanics to a much higher level of scrutiny. It was probably just a mistake by the IRS examiner conflating white with conservative.
Oh, and as a Michigan voter, sorry for both of our senators.
“Collegiality” is their most important product.
That’s for the [R] bunch, the [D]s only don it as a guise.
Same here. At least Carl will be leaving but “Stab-U-Now” will remain to plague the nation.
Invest the taxpayer’s money in the IRS for a greater rate of return.
No, really.
The “morale” of the IRS is put upon and needs immediate bolstering. How about a booster campaign? Just think greater rate of return.
Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable.
– Which, you know, since no one in this administration knows anything, and anything that happens is just screwups and inefficiencies of low level people, we’ll just throw the underling in the third row at the agency office in Podunk Iowa under the bus and that should take care of it. Because Shutup!
If you hear screaming, it’s me losing it after hearing one more person characterize all these scandals as “outrageous”.
Then, fucking act OUTRAGED, you morons. Simply stating that you are “outrage” while yawning into your hand, isn’t cutting it.
Notice how the “Tea Party” groups designation is used to elide the conservative groups identification, i.e. imply that progressive groups were targeted right along with any manner of political conservatism? These fucks are slick.
Barack Milhous Omerta.
Pat Toomey hardest hit
WS: IRS Commissioner: Activity ‘Absolutely Not Illegal’
WS: Report: IRS Deliberately Chose Not to Fess Up to Scandal Before Election
Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable.
And as Mr. Exiting IRS Director Person pointed out this morning, under repeated “answer the freakin’ question” pummeling from some Republican, “whatever low-level apparatchiks did the ‘bad thing’ are merely guilty of using ‘inappropriate criteria’. Not illegal per se, as they were only in violation of IRS regulations, not, you know, actual laws passed by the Congress or anything.”
He said, paraphrasing.
…after 30 years.