Judicial Watch released 695 pages of Internal Revenue Service documents it claims include admissions from officials the agency used "inappropriate political labels" to screen the tax-exempt applications of conservative organizations.
The conservative watchdog group obtained the documents as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit targeting the IRS. The group said the papers are part of an additional 6,924 documents located by the IRS
"No wonder the Obama IRS has been hiding these records," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. "The new smoking-gun documents contain admissions by the Obama IRS that it inappropriately targeted conservative groups. But the records also show that the abuse continued — as the Obama IRS tried to force conservative applicants to give up their First Amendment rights in order to finally get their applications granted."
In one letter released by Judicial Watch, Karen Schiller, IRS acting director of Exempt Organizations wrote:
"In recent months, numerous changes have been made to our initial screening process for preliminary categorization and case referrals. I wanted to take a moment to reiterate the current policy and touch on some of our current efforts to continuously improve this process.
"As Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel has said, the IRS has taken decisive action to eliminate the use of inappropriate political labels in the screening of 50 1 (c)(4) applications," she said.
Judicial Watch said other records show the IRS was going to require non-profit groups to cut back political activities in return to "expedited consideration" of their tax-exempt applications.
Judicial Watch posted a form letter with backup documents, which it said confirms those details.
"This optional expedited process is currently available only to applicants for 501(c)(4) status with applications pending for more than 120 days as of May 28, 2013, that indicate the organization may be involved in political campaign intervention," the documents said.
"In this optional process, an organization will represent that it satisfies, and will continue to satisfy, set percentages with respect to the level of its social welfare activities and political campaign intervention activities (as defined in the specific instructions on pages 5-7. These percentage representations are not an interpretation of law but are a safe harbor for those organizations that choose to participate in the optional process.
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