Sympathetic media outlets ran headlines proclaiming, based upon statements made in a conference call given by Danny Werfel, the new Acting IRS Commissioner, with select members of the media, that the IRS had not only used the words “Tea Party” as a search term to target organizations for additional scrutiny, but that it had also targeted “progressives,” “Israel” and “Occupy.” …But a laborious review of the IRS documents released by Levin, as well as a lengthy response by the Inspector General to Levin’s scathing letter, revealed that those documents did not prove what Levin and others hoped was being proved…. the Service was looking at certain “Israel connected” organizations and making a distinction based upon the organization’s political/ideological viewpoint. While the term “progressives” was found as a category on several of the documents, just a few minutes’ review revealed that nothing was done with the organizations with that term in their title. The 14 IRS documents released by the House Ways and Means Committee contained a category, created by IRS employees, entitled “Occupied Territory Advocacy.” the notice to IRS inspectors to “Be on the Look Out” for groups under this category was sent on August 10, 2010, just days after Z STREET’s file was reviewedhere is a site that has some more information from Z Street:
lorilowenthalmarcus@gmail.com 610.664.1184
