The Abuse of Power By the IRS

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you to my colleague for hosting this.

Mr. Speaker, about 3 1/2 years ago, Americans started getting more and more frustrated. It is really a product of several years of building, this sense of helplessness as they struggled and watched their Nation--I don't even know how to begin to describe the emotions that really welled up about 4 years ago when Americans watched their health care beginning to slip away. This absolute divide that happened as a Nation between Republicans and Democrats--and they used to try to work together to try to resolve things--went out the window on a pure partisan vote to push through a health care change that not a single Republican voted for. And Democrats, in a skittish way, pushed it with glee while others stepped back and said, I hope this works the way it is being advertised.

As we know now, it is not working. It is working exactly as many Republicans said it would work. And the impulse of the Federal Government to take over more and more would actually cause serious problems in the process.

At the same time, the United States Government began to overspend more than it ever had in the history of the United States. Mr. Speaker, $1.45 trillion of overspending in a single year led millions of Americans to stop and to gather--many of them for the first time--gather in small groups and say, Our government is really struggling. This is not going, as a Nation, how we thought it would go. And they gathered together in small groups, which were spontaneously called these Tea Party groups, groups of patriots and individuals, housewives, moms, business leaders, and guys that owned locksmith shops, and all of these different places that were around just started gathering together to say, What can we do? Just normal Americans.

As they began to form and to meet in groups of five, 10, 20, 25--sometimes they would meet with huge rallies of 100 or 200 people. But most of the time, it is at somebody's house. Most of the time it is at a VFW meeting place or some other spot. They determined, Well, we need to get organized, and we need to be able to pass out materials and do some things. And to do that in our governmental system, they have got to try to find some way to be able to organize that money together, which means they need to contact the Internal Revenue Service and be able to access and get a revenue number. Well, they started that.

One of those groups was in Oklahoma, a group called Oklahoma City Patriots in Action. This group of individuals are just normal Oklahoma great folks. They got together, submitted their application, and went through the process they needed to do. And then they get a letter back with 21 questions, some of them having up to nine subquestions to it. Sixty-five total requests came back to this group of individuals saying, We will give you your number if you will tell us all of this information. And to accentuate it, the letter begins with first them needing to sign this statement:

Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined this information, including accompanying documents, and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the information contains all the relevant facts relating to the request for the information, and such facts are true, correct, and complete.

And then they go on to make 65 different data requests, many of them incredibly long.

There is no question this letter is intended to intimidate people; but I can tell you from knowing these Oklahomans, they tried to intimidate the wrong people with this.

So let me just give you an example of some of the things they began to ask for in this long list of questions. They asked things like:

Do you directly or indirectly communicate with members of legislative bodies? If so, provide copies of the written communications and contents of other forms of communications.

In other words, if you redress grievances to your elected officials, as our Constitution allows you to do, please provide us a copy of everything you said when you went to your government for a redress of grievances.

How about this:

Give detailed examples on how you will educate the public concerning key legislation and the positions of political candidates and elected officials on that legislation.

Please explain how you obtain the current legislative information, both State and Federal, and the turnaround time to post on your Web site.

Why in the world does it matter what their turnaround time is--whether they post it in a day or 10 days--for your IRS application?

How about this:

Please provide copies of your current Web pages from your Web site.

Wouldn't it be easier just to ask for the Web site name and then go search it themselves? They wouldn't have to print out copies of every page.

And here are two sets of my favorites, of this long list. I could go on and on with it. This asks:

Have you conducted or will you conduct rallies or exhibitions for or against any public policies, legislation, public officers, political candidates, or like kinds? If yes, please explain and provide the following: State the time, location, and content schedule of each rally or exhibition. Provide copies of handouts you provided or will provide to the public. The names of persons from your organization and the amount of time they have spent or will spend on the event.

One last piece--and again, I could go on and on with this. This is the one that, when I read through this, it continued just to make my blood boil:

Have any candidates running for public office spoken or will they speak at a function of your organization? If so, provide the names of the candidates, the functions at which they spoke, any materials distributed or published with regard to their appearance and the event, any video or audio recordings of the event, and a transcript of any speeches given by the candidates.

Now, these are a gatherings of 20 people sitting around in someone's house. They are not transcribing every part of everything that is said. These are normal Americans getting together to discuss what is going on in their government. And the IRS said, If you want to continue to do this and be organized, we need to get a transcript of every speech that was done around your kitchen table.

And to add insult to injury, remember what I said at the beginning, Under penalties of perjury, if you don't provide completely everything in this, you are not eligible.

What is this intended to do? This is intended to silence. This is intended to tell good, hardworking Americans, Be quiet, sit around your dining room table, don't organize, don't keep moving.

Now when our committee asked about this, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which I serve on, when we asked about this initially and began pushing forward to get more information--because as the folks in Oklahoma City know, this is not an isolated event. Letters like this, with other questions, went to other places all over the country, to everyone who had the name ``Tea Party,'' had the word ``liberty,'' or had the word ``patriot'' in their name. They were assigned to a specific group in Cincinnati, and they dead-ended all in that one group.

Now, initially, when we asked individuals about it, we were told this was just a crazy group of folks in Cincinnati that went rogue, as if they all worked for WKRP, and they were out there just being crazy in Cincinnati.

When we asked those quote-unquote ``rogue'' agents in Cincinnati to come before our committee and to tell us about it, what we were told was very clear. They were following the instructions they got from Washington, D.C., on what to do with these applications. And a special group was set up that all they did was take in applications that had ``Tea Party,'' ``liberty,'' or ``patriot'' in it. And when they arrived at that location, they were to sit there and wait for instructions from Washington, D.C.

So we asked the Cincinnati folks, Who gave you those instructions in Washington, D.C.? Those individuals were then called before our committee. And we asked those individuals, Did you give instructions to the Cincinnati office? Yes. Why did you do that? Here was their statement:

Because we were told by the IRS counsel to wait on their instructions.

We are now in the process of doing interviews with the IRS counsel to say, Why was the decision made to say, people with certain names, send them letters like this with no intention of ever answering them? That they would get 65 detailed requests like this, each providing a very long response needed? And that then when it was finally collected, they would dead-end in Cincinnati. Why? We are still trying to get that answer.

Why does that matter? Because Americans, whether they be liberal, conservative, anything in between should have a government that serves them, rather than intimidates them. It is right that we continue to walk through this process. It is right that good, hardworking Americans are not intimidated by their government.

This is something that needs to be resolved and will be resolved, and though the headlines have faded away on it, we have not forgotten these individuals. And we will continue to work through the process to be held to account and to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone again in the days ahead.

I thank the gentleman for hosting this time so that these folks in Oklahoma City and around the country are not forgotten.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source