In an interview with SNBC’s Chris Matthews on Thursday, President Barack Obama dismissed the notion that the IRS ever targeted pro-life groups or conservatives. The IRS scandal flared this summer as pro-life groups learned they had been targeted and seen their applications for nonprofit status delayed.
The IRS has been found to be targeting pro-life and conservative groups because of their positions and, this summer, a tape was released showing a disturbing phone call the Internal Revenue Service placed to a non-profit organization telling it to keep its Christian faith and views on abortion to itself.
The Daily Caller has the transcript of Obama’s comments, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to the pro-life movement given his administration’s lengthy pro-abortion record and its targeting of pro-life advocates expressing their First Amendment rights outside abortion clinics to talk to women considering abortions.
OBAMA: That’s not — that’s not something that’s reported about. If, on the other hand, you’ve got an office in Cincinnati, in the IRS office that — I think, for bureaucratic reasons, is trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret about whether a nonprofit is actually a political organization
deserves a tax exempt agency. And they’ve got a list, and suddenly everybody’s outraged.
MATTHEWS: 501(c)(4) is tricky to begin with, how to define it.
OBAMA: To begin with.
The president even appeared annoyed that liberal commentators once dared to challenge him on the point:
OBAMA: And by the way, Chris, I’ll point out that there are some so-called progressives and, you know, perceived to be liberal commentators who during that week were just as outraged at the possibility that these folks, you know, had — had been, you know, at the direction of — the Democratic Party, in some way — discriminated against these folks.
IRS officials knew as early as 2010 that pro-life and conservative groups were being targeted by the Internal Revenue Service.
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James Dobson, the pro-life family advocate, disclosed that he was a victim of IRS discrimination because he spoke out against pro-abortion President Barack Obama.
In one case LifeNews has profiled, a pro-life group was told it had to promote abortion and it eventually appeared before a Congressional committee to explain how.
