from the hypocrisy-as-a-service dept
Remember the Lois Lerner scandal? For years, it was the Republican party’s Exhibit A of Obama administration overreach — proof that Democrats were weaponizing the IRS to target conservative groups. The outrage was endless. The GOP-led congressional investigations were relentless. The rhetoric about threats to democracy was breathless.
Funny thing about that: it turned out the IRS was actually investigating both conservative AND progressive groups equally. But never mind that — the principle was clear. Using the IRS to target organizations based on their viewpoints was an unconscionable abuse of power that undermined the very foundations of our system.
It should never, ever be allowed to happen.
Unless, apparently, you’re Donald Trump and you just… declare you’re going to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status. Because you feel like it.
There’s some history here: if you want to set up a non-profit to help sick puppies, you set up a 501(c)(3) and you need to file detailed public reports and reveal all your donors. But if you want to set up a “social welfare” group that funnels unlimited dark money into political campaigns? Well, that’s what 501(c)(4)s are for. Sure, there are theoretical limits on their political activities. But in practice, after Citizens United, these groups became a favorite tool for moving vast sums of money through the political system while keeping donors anonymous. This isn’t all (c)(4)s, mind you, but after Citizens United, the market got flooded with new (c)(4)s whose purpose was almost certainly dark money laundering.
Thus, the IRS had a legitimate question on its hands: were these actually “social welfare” organizations, or just vehicles for campaign finance?
They began investigating whether or not they violated the laws that required them to (1) be for “social welfare” and (2) not engaged in excessive political activity. In dealing with the flood of new applications, some lower level employees started looking for keywords in reviewing applications. Some of those keywords were certainly coded to be about right-leaning organizations.
In the end, though, a non-partisan investigation found that the IRS equally targeted conservative and progressive startup non-profits during this time. It’s just that the GOP (as it’s been known to do) only talked about and focused on the searches that impacted conservative groups. There was a criminal investigation by the DOJ into Lerner, which closed with no charges being filed.
You would think that the Republicans who raised such a shitstorm about all that for years on end might have something to say about Donald Trump doing the same thing but actually doing it, and doing it out loud while making it entirely clear that it’s to punish organizations that are pushing back on his dictatorial authoritarianism?
And it’s not just Harvard: he’s repeatedly suggested that he’s going to remove the tax-exempt status of other groups that oppose him as well.
President Donald Trump on Thursday ramped up his threats to scrutinize the tax-exempt status of groups and colleges he disagrees with, calling out a prominent organization that’s fighting some of his actions in court.
Trump told reporters “we’re looking at” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit watchdog group that has launched litigation against his executive actions and conducted investigations into what it alleges are his conflicts of interest.
“The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things,” Trump said.
Again, federal law prohibits this (in theory). 26 USC 7217 says that the executive branch cannot influence IRS investigations. One problem, though, is that thanks to the Supreme Court’s ridiculous ruling in Trump v. United States, that law does not apply to Donald Trump as President, so long as he can make some claim to having done these things as part of his official responsibilities. It might not protect others within the administration, though.
Let’s parse this carefully:
- The IRS under Obama looked for keywords to identify potentially illegal political activity
- Republicans called this an unprecedented abuse of power
- Trump is now explicitly saying he’ll strip tax-exempt status from groups that criticize him (not for actually violating the law)
- And thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States, the law prohibiting presidential interference with the IRS doesn’t even apply to him
So to recap: What the GOP spent years claiming Obama did (but didn’t actually do) is exactly what Trump is proudly announcing he’ll do. Except, unlike in the Obama administration which was cleared of any wrong doing, Trump appears to be actually quite directly violating the law. But, also unlike Obama, Trump actually has legal cover to do it thanks to John Roberts.
The truly wild thing here isn’t just the hypocrisy — though that’s breathtaking enough. It’s the complete inversion of reality: Some questionable keyword filtering by low-level IRS employees (applied to both conservative and progressive groups) triggered years of congressional investigations and demands for criminal prosecution. But when Trump explicitly announces plans to weaponize the IRS against his critics? Just another Thursday.
We’ve moved beyond simple double standards into a world where the same people who claimed that imperfect bureaucratic procedures were an existential threat to democracy are now actively cheering as their leader promises to do what they falsely accused Obama’s IRS of doing — but this time with explicit political targeting and presidential blessing.
Yes, that’s true of so much these days, but we should at least document these examples, for when this fog of bullshit and nonsense finally lifts and people ask “how did we get here?”
Filed Under: donald trump, irs, lois lerner, non-profits, tax exempt status, weaponization of government
Companies: harvard
