In light of the recent revelations that the IRS has been unfairly targeting conservative groups, President Obama’s half-brother "got a sweetheart deal" from the IRS.
According to the Daily Caller, Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.
Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing.
The Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) is linked to top Sudanese officials.
In this photo, from the Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) website, which is headed by Malik, Omar al-Bashir can be seen dressed in black, to the right, and another man to take notice of is seated directly to the right of Bashir; his name is Suwar Al Dahab.
Omar Al-Bashir is a controversial figure both in Sudan and worldwide. In July 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), accused al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. The court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Field Marshal Abdel Rahman Suwar al-Dahab (otherwise known as Suwar al-Dahab or al-Dahab; born 1934) was the President of Sudan from April 6, 1985 to May 6, 1986.
He became a prominent figure when former president Gaafar Nimeiry appointed him Chief of Staff, and then Minister of Defence and general commander of the armed forces in 1984.
In 1985 he launched a coup ousting President Gaafar Nimeiry which led to him becoming the Chairman of the Transitional Military Council.
Barack Obama’s Jihadist Connection
October 21st, 2008
NBC reported just a few days ago that Mouha Husaini who is the Obama campaign’s Muslim outreach coordinator, met last month with her predecessor Mazen Asbahi who was forced to resign this summer because of his connections with radical Islam.
They met in area known as the “Wahhabi Corridor” which is in one of Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs and what is perhaps even more disturbing was the presence of two prominent Muslim Brotherhood operatives, Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society (MAS) and Nihad Awad of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The same Internal Revenue Service office that singled out Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny also singled out Israel-related organizations.
And at least one donor has filed suit over the agency’s handling of its application for tax-exempt status.
Z Street
A leader of one of the organizations involved, Lori Lowenthal Marcus of Z Street, said Monday that she was convinced the added attention her group got was no accident.
"I can’t believe it was just about Z Street, because it’s a tiny organization",
Lowenthal Marcus said of the group, which has been critical of President Barack Obama for being too cozy with left-leaning Jewish groups like J Street and with pro-Palestinian entities.
Z Street filed a lawsuit against the IRS in 2010 alleging that one of its attorneys were told its application for tax exemption was delayed and sent to
"a special unit to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies".
The suit was filed in federal court in Pennsylvania and later transferred to DC. A judge in Washington has set a hearing on the case for July 2, 2013
Z Street had applied for the 501 (c) (3) status applied to most charities, allowing for tax deductible donations.
Tea Party Groups
Most of the tea party groups known to have come under scrutiny applied for 501 (c) (4) status, which allows advocacy groups to avoid federal taxes on their operations but doesn’t render donations to the groups tax deductible.
Both kinds of applications are processed in the same Cincinnati office.
Who Is This Special Unit?
Legal filings show that the problems for Z Street, and apparently for other Israel-related groups, stemmed from an obscure unit in the Cincinnati IRS office:
the "Touch and Go Group".
And one of the so-called TAG Group’s duties was to weed out applications that might be coming from organizations which might be used to fund terrorism.
But The IRS Went Too Far!
In response to Z Street’s lawsuit, an IRS manager acknowledged that applications mentioning Israel were getting special attention.
"Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a higher risk of terrorism",
wrote Jon Waddell, manager of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Determinations Group.
"A referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of terrorism".
However, Z Street and other groups reported getting unusual inquiries from the IRS. A Z Street lawyer was contacted by a Jewish religious group, which detailed inquiries from the IRS that the group’s leaders thought had trodden too far.
"Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel? Describe your organization’s religious belief system towards the land of Israel?",
the IRS asked in a letter sent to the religious group, which asked not to be named.
"If they’re asking that of that group, what else are they asking?",
Lowenthal Marcus asked.
She said basing the review for terrorism on where an organization did business was strange and ineffective.
"If their policy was to look at any organization that had anything to do with a country where terrorism exists, I don’t see how that limits anything. There’s been terrorism in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Canada, in Malaysia….and in Boston. Is that now going to be on the list?".
Lowenthal Marcus said.
The IRS Denials And Backtracks
A spokesman for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration declined to say Monday, May 27, whether that office had reviewed the issue of scrutiny of Israel-related groups as part of the review of how the IRS handled political groups, or separately.
"I don’t have any information for you one way or the other on that",
said the spokesman, David Barnes.
In court papers, the IRS denied that its personnel ever told Z Street that there was a special review for groups that might be at odds with Obama administration policy. The tax agency contended that the issue was whether the groups might violate "public policy" which implies the notion that the government shouldn’t bestow a benefit on an individual or organization engaged in illegal activity like terrorism, or in an officially disfavored activity such as racial discrimination.
"The application was not transferred to TAG because of an ‘Israel special policy’ or because Z Street’s views on Israel contradict the Obama administration’s views on Israel",
the Justice Department wrote in a brief seeking dismissal of Z Street’s lawsuit.
