Victory! IRS forced to apologize, pay settlements to targeted conservatives

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday handed a long-awaited win to Tea Party groups targeted by the Internal Revenue Service during the Obama administration. Sessions slammed the IRS, saying there was “no excuse” for the agency’s conduct and ordering it to pay millions in claims to affected conservative organizations.

The suit was initially filed by the NorCal  Tea Party group in 2013 when the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed that the IRS placed additional scrutiny on tax-exemption applications filed by organizations  with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names,  delaying applications and sometimes denying them outright.

The NorCal suit eventually turned into a class action involving more than 400 American Tea Party organizations. Though the Obama Justice Department was forced to investigate claims against the tax agency, DoJ officials announced in 2015 that they could find only that the IRS mishandled the applications and refused to charge any officials with obstruction of justice stemming from the targeting.

Sessions’ angered some conservatives earlier this year when he announced that the new administration’s Justice Department did not plan to reopen the criminal investigation involving the IRS or Louis Lerner, who headed the tax department where the targeting occurred.

But the AG said in a statement that Thursday’s settlement ought to serve as a warning to any tax officials thinking of initiating similar targeting schemes in the future.

“Hundreds of organizations were affected by these actions, and they deserve an apology from the IRS,” he said. “We hope that today’s settlement makes clear that this abuse of power will not be tolerated.”

As part of the settlement reached this week, the IRS was forced to apologize to conservatives for its attack on free speech.

“The IRS admits that its treatment of Plaintiffs during the tax-exempt determination process, including screening their applications based on their names or policy positions, subjecting those applications to heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays, and demanding some Plaintiffs’ information that TIGTA determined was unnecessary to the agency’s determination of their tax-exempt status, was wrong,” the IRS stated in court documents. “For such treatment, the IRS expresses its sincere apology.”

Lawyers for the conservative groups called the settlement a “great day for the First Amendment,” according to reports. Still, lead counsel Eddie Greim noted that the targeted organizations remain disappointed that criminal charges weren’t filed against employees involved in the scandal.

“Like Lois Lerner’s stated apology back in 2013, any recent so-called ‘apology’ by the IRS has little value,” he told reporters. “That is because the Service continues to suggest that its targeting was really just ‘mismanagement.’”

Pending final approval from federal district court judges, each of the conservative groups involved in the class action will receive thousands of dollars in settlement payments from the IRS.

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