Washington Examiner - Tea Party Groups Sue IRS, Claim Targeting Was Widespread

By Susan Ferrechio, WashingtonExaminer.com

About two dozen Tea Party groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday that they said will prove the Internal Revenue Service's practice of targeting conservative groups was cleared by top IRS officials in Washington and was not the work of low-level rogue agents in Ohio.

The federal lawsuit includes 15 letters sent to the Tea Party groups by the IRS asking detailed, often invasive questions about their operations after the groups applied for tax-exempt status. The letters were signed by Lois Lerner, head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, who insists there was no political motivation for singling out groups with "Tea Party," "Patriot" or "9/12" in their names. . . .

"The paper trail from the IRS director of exempt organizations clearly shows that this targeting scheme was not confined to one office in Ohio or originated with a couple of rogue IRS employees as the tax agency contends," Jay Sekulow, the attorney representing the groups, told The Washington Examiner. . . .

You can read the entire story here.