{"id":18033,"date":"2013-05-25T14:20:21","date_gmt":"2013-05-25T18:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=18033"},"modified":"2013-05-25T14:20:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-25T18:20:21","slug":"irs-gave-obama-charity-fast-track-approval-while-tea-party-groups-harassed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/18033\/irs-gave-obama-charity-fast-track-approval-while-tea-party-groups-harassed\/","title":{"rendered":"IRS Gave Obama Charity Fast-Track Approval while Tea Party Groups Harassed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s in a name?<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/the-fix\/wp\/2013\/05\/24\/lois-lerners-worst-week\/ \" target=\"_blank\">Lois Lerner<\/a>, an IRS division head in charge of approving groups for non-profit status, seemingly everything.<\/p>\n<p>By now, just about everyone in America knows that the IRS division tasked with scrutinizing non-profit applications deliberately and consistently targeted groups with the words \u201ctea party\u201d or \u201cpatriot\u201d in their name.<\/p>\n<p>No similar litmus test was used for liberal or progressive groups, indicating a clear and convincing bias by the government against ideological opponents of the White House.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, in at least one case, it looks like the very same IRS agents who persecuted conservative groups fast-tracked approval for an outfit whose name practically screamed for \u2013 and received \u2013 special treatment.<\/p>\n<p>The name of the organization: The Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF). Though not formally affiliated with President Obama, the group is headed by one of his half-brothers, Abon\u2019go Malik Obama, and named for their mutual father.<\/p>\n<p>Organized in 2008, \u201cBHOF operated illegally as a non-profit group and falsely claimed tax-exempt status \u2013 for which it had not yet formally applied,\u201d according to research released by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.discoverthenetworks.org\/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5420&amp;category=79&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fpmdtn+%28FrontPage+Magazine+%C2%BB+Discover+the+Networks%29 \" target=\"_blank\">Discover the Networks<\/a>, an online database that keeps track of the connections between leftwing groups and activists.<\/p>\n<p>But once BHOF did get around to applying for tax-exempt status, the IRS\u2019 penchant for favoritism really showed itself. Per Discover the Networks, \u201cThe foundation finally submitted its 2010 application for non-profit, tax-exempt status on May 23, 2011; seven days later, it submitted its filings for 2008 and 2009. Within just one month of these filings \u2013 on June 26, 2011 \u2013 Lois Lerner, the senior official who headed the IRS\u2019s tax-exempt organizations office, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to BHOF.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the best part. Apparently, \u201cLerner broke with the norms of tax-exemption approval making BHOF\u2019s tax-exempt status retroactive to December 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maybe the next time Lois Lerner appears before the House Oversight Committee the members will ask her to explain how, with the Tea Party and BHOF examples in mind, they can draw any other conclusion about her stewardship at the IRS than that it has been characterized by the most obvious case of unethical \u2013 and potentially illegal \u2013 partisan bias.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s in a name? If you\u2019re Lois Lerner, an IRS division head in charge of approving groups for non-profit status, seemingly everything. By now, just about everyone in America knows that the IRS division tasked with scrutinizing non-profit applications deliberately and consistently targeted groups with the words \u201ctea party\u201d or \u201cpatriot\u201d in their name. No [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,351,1363,735,4153,2502,28],"class_list":["post-18033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-corruption","tag-discover-the-networks","tag-irs","tag-lois-lerner","tag-scandal","tag-tea-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18033"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18043,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18033\/revisions\/18043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}