Almost 50 people gathered outside the Internal Revenue Services building in Washington, D.C. to take part in an “IRS Flash Rally” Tuesday to show their outrage at the tax collecting agency’s improper targeting of conservative organizations.
The protestors also demanded that the IRS be audited and be subject to a full, independent investigation that holds everyone responsible for the improper targeting accountable.
Earlier this month, senior officials at the agency admitted that they had applied extra scrutiny to the filings of organizations with words like “Tea Party” and “Patriot” in their documents, and even held up the non-exempt status requests of several groups.
Representatives from multiple tea party organizations were present at the protest, including Tea Party Patriots, Institute of Liberty and the Northern Virginia Tea Party. They held up signs with slogans that read “Audit the IRS!”, “Honest Government” and “Fear the IRS,” while chanting sayings like “The power to tax is the power to destroy!” and “Hey hey! Ho ho! The IRS has got to go!”
“This is a corrupt organization,” Ron Wilcox, the lead organizer for the Northern Virginia Tea Party, told the crowd. “The IRS is corrupt and it is exercising unlawful power under the color of law… Every email needs to be reviewed, every document… as they did to The Heritage Foundation in the 90’s and to Freedom Alliance and to other conservative cause organizations.”
He also advised that beyond being held accountable, the agents involved should be prosecuted.
The Tea Party organizations were not quick to forget the overarching implications of the IRS’s actions beyond their specific targeting of conservative groups, however, and stressed that their actions affect everyone regardless of their political ideology.
“This is not about conservative versus liberal,” Andrew Langer, president of the Institute of Liberty, said at the protest. “This is not about us versus them. If the IRS can ask questions then target organizations based upon political beliefs or their religious beliefs… it matters not if you are conservative or libertarian or communist or socialist or what have you. Everybody’s rights are in danger.”
Daniel Bongino, a former secret service agent and the 2012 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate for Maryland, also echoed Mr. Langer’s remarks.
“This is an attack on liberalism and conservatism because it’s an attack on anybody who stands for anything!” he told supporters. “When the power structure shifts, I got news for you, you’re next!”
Tea Party protestors in cities like Cincinnati, Boston and Cleveland held their own protests against the IRS today as well, while across town the former and outgoing heads of the IRS, Douglas Shulman and Steven Miller, were being grilled by the Senate Finance Committee over what they knew about the scandal before it broke earlier this month.
