After three years and a lawsuit against the IRS, True the Vote has finally received its tax-exempt status, but the war against the agency's targeting of conservative groups wages on, the organization's founder and president, Katherine Engelbrecht, told Newsmax TV.
"In the judgment of the administration, we represented a threat — and that threat needed to be silenced, needed to be intimidated," Engelbrecht said at the annual Restoration Weekend conference in Palm Beach, Fla. "They did their level best and failed."
True the Vote was among many conservative, tea party, and religious groups that a Treasury Department inspector general revealed had been targeted for special screening of their applications for tax-exempt status.
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The screenings occurred between 2010 and last year's presidential election.
Then, True the Vote sued the IRS, receiving its tax-exempt status in September, though the legal action is pending. The 501(c)(4) status allows the organization to keep its donors private.
Another lawsuit has been filed in federal district court by an organization representing 25 tea party and conservative groups in 15 states that were targeted by the IRS.
The Obama administration "is not playing nicely," Engelbrecht told Newsmax. "The committees in Congress are requesting documents. They're coming back redacted, or they're not coming back at all. It's leaving a lot to try and bring this to conclusion.
"It's certainly our hope and if Congress can't do it — and Congress has some restrictions that we don't have in our lawsuit — we are very hopeful to use the discovery process to get to the bottom of things," she added. "We know it's going to be a multi-year thing, but we're committed."
True the Vote is a Texas-based organization set up to stop voter fraud. It pushes for stronger voter ID laws.
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