Kimberley Strassel posted an article today in the Wall Street Journal about the timeline of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal. She points out that the political climate in Washington at the time conservative groups were discriminated against was such that anyone who was paying attention would put the blame on Washington.
Below are some of the dates and statements made during this time:
Aug. 9, 2010: In Texas, President Obama for the first time publicly names a group he is obsessed with—Americans for Prosperity (founded by the Koch Brothers)—and warns about conservative groups.
Aug. 11: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sends out a fundraising email warning about “Karl Rove-inspired shadow groups.”
Aug. 21: Mr. Obama devotes his weekly radio address to the threat of “attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names. We don’t know who’s behind these ads and we don’t know who’s paying for them. . . .
Week of Aug. 23: The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer authors a hit piece on the Koch brothers, entitled “Covert Operations,” in which she accuses them of funding “political front groups.”
Aug. 27: White House economist Austan Goolsbee, in a background briefing with reporters, accuses Koch industries of being a pass-through entity that does “not pay corporate income tax.” The Treasury inspector general investigates how it is that Mr. Goolsbee might have confidential tax information. The report has never been released.
Week of Aug 27: the Democratic Party files a complaint with the IRS claiming the Americans for Prosperity Foundation is violating its tax-exempt status.
Please follow the link above to see the entire list of dates and events. Part of the scandal is how the conservative groups were treated by the IRS, but another part of the scandal is the ignorance of American voters which resulted in a fairly effective public relations campaign against conservatives and tea party members. Both things are a threat to our republic, but the latter is actually a more serious long term threat.
