daveman
Diamond Member
Eric Holder, IRS officials coached tax-exempt black ministers on how to engage in political activity
Read more: Eric Holder, IRS officials advised black ministers | The Daily Caller
Read more: Eric Holder, IRS officials advised black ministers | The Daily Caller
Attorney General Eric Holder and IRS officials advised black ministers on how to engage in political activity during the 2012 election without violating their tax-exempt status.
Holder, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Peter Lorenzetti, a senior official in the scandal-plagued agencys exempt organizations division, participated in a May 2012 training session for black ministers from the Conference of National Black Churches at the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Holder spoke at the event.
Were going to, first of all, equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they cannot say in the church that would violate their 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, said then-CBC chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri. In fact, were going to have the IRS administrator there. Were going to have Attorney General Eric Holder there the ACLU.
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[The CBC] had the IRS members there specifically to advise them on how far to go campaigning without violating their tax-exempt status, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told The Daily Caller.
I viewed the meeting as highly problematic. Eric Holder heads the agency that prosecutes organizations who give false information to the government. The Justice Department coordinates with the IRS on actions taken against not-for-profits. These ministries are given not-for-profit status on the basis that they are not engaging in any political activities. Here, the Obama administration was clearly encouraging them to maximize their efforts by showing them where the lines were drawn in federal case law, Turley said.
It is a fundamental precept that cabinet members should not engage in political activities. The most important of those cabinet members would be the attorney general of the United States. To have the attorney general actively advising political allies of the president showed remarkably poor judgment on his part, Turley told TheDC.
I believe this session undermined the integrity of the justice department, signaled to other Justice Department officials that the attorney general wants to support these black ministries as much as possible, Turley said.
Professor Turley, I disagree. The Obama Justice Department HAS no integrity.Holder, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Peter Lorenzetti, a senior official in the scandal-plagued agencys exempt organizations division, participated in a May 2012 training session for black ministers from the Conference of National Black Churches at the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Holder spoke at the event.
Were going to, first of all, equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they cannot say in the church that would violate their 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, said then-CBC chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri. In fact, were going to have the IRS administrator there. Were going to have Attorney General Eric Holder there the ACLU.
--
[The CBC] had the IRS members there specifically to advise them on how far to go campaigning without violating their tax-exempt status, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told The Daily Caller.
I viewed the meeting as highly problematic. Eric Holder heads the agency that prosecutes organizations who give false information to the government. The Justice Department coordinates with the IRS on actions taken against not-for-profits. These ministries are given not-for-profit status on the basis that they are not engaging in any political activities. Here, the Obama administration was clearly encouraging them to maximize their efforts by showing them where the lines were drawn in federal case law, Turley said.
It is a fundamental precept that cabinet members should not engage in political activities. The most important of those cabinet members would be the attorney general of the United States. To have the attorney general actively advising political allies of the president showed remarkably poor judgment on his part, Turley told TheDC.
I believe this session undermined the integrity of the justice department, signaled to other Justice Department officials that the attorney general wants to support these black ministries as much as possible, Turley said.