{"id":2736,"date":"2012-04-17T17:57:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T21:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/?p=2736"},"modified":"2012-04-23T17:38:30","modified_gmt":"2012-04-23T21:38:30","slug":"jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html","title":{"rendered":"Jay Sekulow: More Congressional Pressure Facing IRS over Tea Party Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Congressional concern continues to grow over tactics used by the IRS to target Tea Party groups across the country – tactics that can only be described as an effort to intimidate and silence these organizations in this election year.<\/p>\n

We first reported on this last month, after it came to our attention that the IRS information and demands sent to local Tea Party groups around the country included probing questions that violate the free speech and freedom of association rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. As you recall, we quickly mobilized and contacted the IRS<\/a> on behalf of nearly 20 Tea Party organizations nationwide demanding answers from the IRS.<\/p>\n

It’s clear from the probing questions submitted to these groups by the IRS, some of which are posted here<\/a>, the IRS launched what can only be described a campaign to intimidate. The IRS information demands sent to the Tea Party groups are not in response to complaints of wrongdoing, but instead in response to applications by the organizations for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status.<\/p>\n

Now, more well-deserved criticism against the IRS from Capitol Hill. In a floor speech in the House, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) asked his House colleagues to investigate what he said was the IRS’s harassment of a Tea Party group in his district.<\/p>\n

His comments about the IRS intimidation tactics are right on the mark, as reported by The Hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I bring these facts to the attention of the House today and ask that they be rigorously investigated, and, if found accurate, that those officials responsible be exposed, disgraced, dismissed, and be barred from any position of trust or power within our government,” he said on the floor. He called the demands “intimidation and harassment,” and compared them to the tactics used against civil-rights groups during the 1950s.<\/p>\n

“Ironically, the same tactics you now see used by the IRS against Tea Parties were once used by the most abusive of the Southern states in the 1950s to intimidate civil-rights groups like the NAACP,” he said.<\/p>\n

This outcry from Congress is well deserved and continues to expand. Not long ago, our Director of Government Affairs, Nathanael Bennett, reported that members of the Senate <\/a>began to engage this issue as well. Two top leaders in the Senate sent a letter<\/a> on behalf of a dozen Senators to the IRS Commissioner demanding answers about the IRS tactics.<\/p>\n

In the House<\/a>, pressure from the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform raising serious questions about the IRS actions. Further, we are aware of a large number of additional House members who will be formally engaging this issue soon.<\/p>\n

The fact is Congress is moving swiftly to find out what is going on – to get answers from the IRS.<\/p>\n

We will continue to keep you posted on developments as they unfold. You can make a difference as well. Join the more than 40,000 Americans who have signed on to our petition<\/a>\u00a0calling on Congress to use its investigative powers to get to the bottom of this troubling assault on Tea Party groups.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:\u00a0 April 23, 2012<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A total of 63 members of the U.S. House of Representatives today sent a letter to the Commissioner of the IRS expressing concern about the tactics used against Tea Party groups across the country.<\/p>\n

The letter is very direct and clear: “These recent inquiries appear to constitute disparate treatment for no apparent reason other than the political persuasion of applicants. Such practices chill these groups’ Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to civic participation, freedom of association and free speech and are better left to despotic regimes than a revenue-collection agency in a free country.”<\/p>\n

The letter, posted here<\/a>, calls on the IRS to explain how its treatment of the Tea Party groups is “consistent with precedent and supported by law.” The House members also request that the IRS “refrain from any additional unwarranted and excess information demands and other dilatory tactics.”<\/p>\n

Jay Sekulow<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressional concern continues to grow over tactics used by the IRS to target Tea Party groups across the country – tactics that can only be described as an effort to intimidate and silence these organizations in this election year. We first reported on this last month, after it came to our attention that the IRS…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[288,597,635],"tags":[766,645,776,200,598,801,789,802],"class_list":["post-2736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-elections","category-internal-revenue-service","category-tea-party","tag-congress","tag-election","tag-first-amendment","tag-free-speech","tag-irs","tag-tea-party","tag-u-s-house-of-representatives","tag-u-s-senate"],"yoast_head":"\nJay Sekulow: More Congressional Pressure Facing IRS over Tea Party Questions - Faith & Justice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jay Sekulow: More Congressional Pressure Facing IRS over Tea Party Questions - Faith & Justice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Congressional concern continues to grow over tactics used by the IRS to target Tea Party groups across the country – tactics that can only be described as an effort to intimidate and silence these organizations in this election year. We first reported on this last month, after it came to our attention that the IRS…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith & Justice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-17T21:57:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-23T21:38:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/07\/shutterstock_79024480-202x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jay Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jay Sekulow: More Congressional Pressure Facing IRS over Tea Party Questions - Faith & Justice","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jay Sekulow: More Congressional Pressure Facing IRS over Tea Party Questions - Faith & Justice","og_description":"Congressional concern continues to grow over tactics used by the IRS to target Tea Party groups across the country – tactics that can only be described as an effort to intimidate and silence these organizations in this election year. We first reported on this last month, after it came to our attention that the IRS…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html","og_site_name":"Faith & Justice","article_published_time":"2012-04-17T21:57:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-04-23T21:38:30+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/07\/shutterstock_79024480-202x300.jpg"}],"author":"Jay Sekulow","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html","name":"Jay Sekulow: More Congressional Pressure Facing IRS over Tea Party Questions - Faith & Justice","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/07\/shutterstock_79024480-202x300.jpg","datePublished":"2012-04-17T21:57:30+00:00","dateModified":"2012-04-23T21:38:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#\/schema\/person\/fd4c384af0620d4b82ae09cf1d77bdb4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/07\/shutterstock_79024480-202x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/07\/shutterstock_79024480-202x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/04\/jay-sekulow-more-congressional-pressure-facing-irs-over-tea-party.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jay Sekulow: More Congressional Pressure Facing IRS over Tea Party Questions"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/","name":"Faith & Justice","description":"Jay Sekulow - ACLJ","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#\/schema\/person\/fd4c384af0620d4b82ae09cf1d77bdb4","name":"Jay Sekulow","description":"Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a law firm and educational organization that focuses on constitutional law. He is also Chief Counsel of the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ). Jay Sekulow is one of the leading defenders of constitutional rights and religious liberties in the United States. Over the past 25 years, Jay Sekulow has amassed an unparalleled record of accomplishment, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court on 12 occasions. His aggressive litigation strategy before the Supreme Court has led to many landmark First Amendment victories. In his first case before the Supreme Court, Jews for Jesus, Jay Sekulow secured the right of religious groups to pass out tracks in airports. In Mergens, Jay Sekulow successfully protected the right of students to form Bible clubs and prayer groups on public school campuses. In Lamb\u2019s Chapel, Jay Sekulow cleared the way for churches to have equal access to public facilities in the same way that other groups are permitted to utilize those facilities. In the Bray and Operation Rescue cases, Jay Sekulow protected the free speech rights of pro-life advocates to be free from criminal prosecution for conveying their pro-life message. In McConnell v. FEC, Jay Sekulow protected the right of young people to engage in the political process by donating to the campaign of their choice. In Pleasant Grove, Jay Sekulow paved the way for governments to be able to display Ten Commandments monuments, and other monuments of their choosing, in public parks. Through the ACLJ, Jay Sekulow engages the political, legal, and cultural battles facing America today. He routinely works with Members of Congress, advising them on proposed legislation and representing them in critical legal matters. Jay Sekulow has also testified before Congress on the constitutionality of proposed legislation. Also, in addition to being a successful Supreme Court advocate, Jay Sekulow is a highly respected broadcaster. Jay Sekulow is the host of Jay Sekulow Live! which airs each weekday on over 850 radio stations nationwide, in addition Sirius and XM satellite radio. He brings insight and education to listeners daily through this national call-in radio program. He is also the host of the ACLJ This Week, the ACLJ\u2019s weekly television program. Jay Sekulow regularly appears on major media outlets, including FOX News, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC, where he is sought out for his vast experience in constitutional law and his unique insight into many of the pressing legal and political issues facing America today. He is frequently quoted in the nation's leading newspapers and often contributes opinion editorials to national publications. Jay Sekulow has also published numerous law review and other scholarly articles. Jay Sekulow has received numerous honors for his groundbreaking legal work in the area of free speech and religious liberties. The Legal Times has named Sekulow one of \u201cThe 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years\u201d and the National Law Journal has twice named Sekulow one of the \u201c100 Most Influential Lawyers\u201d in the United States. In addition, TIME Magazine listed Jay Sekulow as one of the \"25 Most Influential Evangelicals\" in America. Jay Sekulow\u2019s legal work in defense of religious liberties and human rights extends beyond the United States, having founded the ECLJ in Strasbourg, France, which maintains consultative status with the United Nations. He has also opened offices in Pakistan, Africa, and Jerusalem, Israel. Jay Sekulow is a staunch defender of Israel, presenting arguments before the International Criminal Court at the Hague. His efforts in support of Israel\u2019s right to defend itself from terrorist attacks have been commended by Israeli government officials, one official stating, \"Jay was instrumentally-involved in projects that the President of Israel and the Prime Minister put on our national agenda.\" Jay Sekulow also has a passion for educating the next generation of religious liberty advocates. He is a member of the Regent University Law School Faculty as a Distinguished Professor of Law and routinely teaches courses on constitutional law and presents guest lectures. Jay Sekulow has also started educational programs in international human rights law in Strasbourg, France and at Handong University in South Korea. Jay Sekulow is a graduate of Mercer University, earning both a bachelor\u2019s degree and doctor of jurisprudence. Sekulow served on the editorial staff of the Mercer Law Review and graduated cum laude. He later earned a Ph.D. from Regent University, writing his dissertation on American Legal History. Jay Sekulow also serves on the Board of Trustees for The Supreme Court Historical Society in Washington, D.C. Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Chief Counsels full biography and video. Jay Sekulow on Facebook. Jay Sekulow on Twitter. Jay Sekulow on YouTube.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/author\/jay_sekulow"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2736"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2795,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2736\/revisions\/2795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}