Conservative groups bitterly attacked the proposed rules, charging that they represented yet another attack on free speech by the Obama White House.
“This is a feeble attempt by the Obama administration to justify its own wrongdoing with the IRS targeting of conservative and tea party groups,” Jay Sekulow, a lawyer representing more than three dozen of the groups in a federal lawsuit against the tax agency, told The New York Times.
The lawsuit stemmed from the IRS’ monitoring of tea party, conservative, and religious groups for extra scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status. A Treasury Department inspector general disclosed in May that the agency was doing the special screenings for those groups seeking 501(c)(4) status.
The status allows such organizations to keep their donors private.
The IRS screening had occurred between 2010 and through the 2012 presidential election. During the period, IRS agents had placed groups with words like “tea party and “patriot” in their names on a “be on the lookout” — or BOLO — list for additional screening of its applications for the tax-exempt status.
“Unfortunately, it appears that the same bureaucrats that attempted to suppress the speech of conservative groups in recent years has now put together new rules that apply to (c)4 groups but do not apply to liberal groups like labor unions,” Nick Ryan, founder of the American Future Fund, told the Times.