The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted conservative groups who used “anti-Obama” rhetoric in their literature, according to internal IRS documents from 2011.
Washington-based IRS lawyers sent the scandal-ridden agency’s Cincinnati office a “political advocacy case list” on November 16, 2011 listing 162 groups to be scrutinized. More than 80 percent of those groups were conservative organizations.
Five different groups were specifically included on the list by virtue of the “anti-Obama” rhetoric in their print or online literature.
The IRS noted that the group Patriots of Charleston had “negative Obama commentary” on its website.
“We did not endorse candidates,” a Patriots of Charleston spokesperson told USA Today in response to her group’s “negative Obama commentary,” maintaining that Patriots of Charleston obeyed the law and that her group’s website is “really a blog.”
Other groups were identified as engaging in “propaganda.”