The American Center for Law and Justice Wednesday accused the Obama administration of fudging the facts about when the Internal Revenue Service stopped targeting conservatives.
According to ACLJ, White House spokesman Jay Carney’s assertion Monday that the targeting of conservative groups ended in May 2012 is incorrect.
“It’s apparent this White House continues to try and create a narrative that simply does not square with the facts,” Jay Sekulow, ACLJ’s chief counsel said in a statement. “Without question the IRS misconduct of harassing and abusing our clients was still in high gear from May 2012 through May of this year.
“The intrusive and unconstitutional questions continued – with the IRS demanding donor lists and even requesting lists of what reading materials that organizations used. To suggest this tactic ended a year ago is not only offensive, but it is simply inaccurate as well,” he said.
ACLJ represents 27 tea party organizations that the IRS targeted. According to the firm, in the one year period Carney claimed that there was no targeting, 26 letters were sent to 18 of their clients — 25 of the letters came from the IRS office in Cincinnati and one from Washington, D.C.
The law firm highlighted an organization in Tennessee’s struggles with the IRS as an example. For the Linchpins of Liberty, the IRS probed the group with “intrusive questions” receiving their most recent letter four days prior to Lois Lerner’s apology for the targeting.
The Linchpins of Liberty still has not received approval for tax-exempt status after waiting for two and a half years.
The ACLJ has announced that it intends to file a lawsuit on behalf of a number of their clients the IRS targeted.