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Paul L. Caron
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Monday, June 23, 2014

The IRS Scandal, Day 410

PolitiFact:  Donna Brazile: No Conspiracy Here, IRS Targeted Liberals, Too:

Half True 2The IRS "also investigated liberal groups, groups that had progressive in their name. ... The IRS was basically looking at everybody." Donna Brazile on Sunday, June 22nd, 2014 in comments on CNN's "State of the Union." ...

Brazile is echoing comments Democrats have made for a year. But is she right and the IRS was "basically looking at everybody"?

This question was essentially answered last year by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, who investigated the IRS’s handling of tax exempt requests between 2010 and 2012. ...

The investigation ultimately found the Cincinnati office used inappropriate criteria to single out certain cases. Over the course of two years, 298 total cases were sent to D.C. for greater scrutiny. According to the investigation, 72 of those groups had the name "tea party," 13 had "Patriot" and 11 had "9/12." The other 202 cases were listed as "other." In 160 of these cases, the application remained open between 206 and 1,138 days, while 108 were approved.

Democrats said 202 is a lot of "other." And later it came out that the word "progressive" was also used to flag applications on another IRS "Be on the Lookout" list.

George also noted that while 16 groups with "progressive" in the name showed up among the 298 cases, that represented just 30 percent of all "progressive" applications. That is in stark contrast to groups with "tea party," "patriot," or "9/12" in their name, of which 100 percent saw their applications held up. ...

So some progressive and liberal groups may have been flagged, and others may have ended up getting swept in the searches run by the Cincinnati office because their names had certain buzz words or phrases, but they didn’t get put through the ringer, at least on par with tea party groups.

Our ruling

Brazile, who did not respond to an email, said the IRS was "looking at everybody" including liberal groups and progressive groups. Yes, some progressive groups did have their tax-exempt status applications flagged as the IRS reviewed whether nonprofit groups were engaging in political activities.

But it wasn’t to the same degree as tea party and other conservative groups, nor did it result in the same actions. The list targeting tea party groups resulted in delayed processing that in some cases lasted almost three years and inquiries into their donors. Further, the inspector general found tea party groups were systematically singled out as part of an office-wide effort, while progressive groups were not.

Weighing all of this, we rate Brazile’s comments Half True.

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