In what if being called the most egregious abuse of federal power since Watergate, the Internal Revenue Service is under extreme scrutiny for delaying non-profit paperwork, retaliatory audits and inappropriately questioning political conservative, religious and pro-life organizations. As one example Fox News reports,
“When a small anti-abortion group in Iowa sought nonprofit status, the Internal Revenue Service asked its board to promise not to organize protests outside Planned Parenthood and demanded to know how its prayer meetings and protest signs were educational. An IRS employee identifying herself as “Ms. Richards” from the Cincinnati office responded in April 2009 that she needed more information about its events, including all “advertisements, schedules, syllabuses, handouts, a summary of each person’s speech” and more, records show.”
Over the last few days, Congress has been holding special hearings on the IRS abuses and relieving testimony from former and current IRS officials. One IRS administrator handling the non-profit division, Lois Lerner, was called to testify and evoked the 5th amendment to avoid testimony. Here are some excerpts from the hearings:
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