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tv   Red Eye  FOX News  June 1, 2013 12:00am-1:01am PDT

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reb rebarbaytive. the spin stops right here. we're definitely looking out for you. welcome to this special studio audience edition of hannity. most americans have been unfairly targeted by the irs because of their association with various conservative organizations. now, coming up, you will hear their stories about what they have gone through and also you are going to hear from the attorneys that are representing their respective groups. one of the most fascinating things has been the ever changing time line of who knew what, when and whereabout the irs scandal. at first nobody seemed to know anything about. it but as the days go by, well that seems to be evolving quite a bit. watch this. >> can you give us assurances that the irs is not targeting particular groups based on political leanings? >> yes. i can give you assurances.
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there is absolutely no targeting. >> they added the name tea party and patriot to the list of cases that should be centralized in this group. >> i first learned about it in the news reports most people learned about this. i think it was on friday. i have reviewed the treasury department watchdog's report and the misconduct that it covered is inexcusable. >> i'm sorry, sir, i cannot answer. >> i don't know the details. >> i frankly was unaware. >> i don't know the precise date. >> i don't remember. >> it is not my area. i don't know. >> i personally don't remember. >> i will not answer any questions or testify about the subject matter of this committee's meeting. >> we had to wait proat interpretly until -- appropriately until the report was publicized or published for the president to be able to review it and respond as he did quickly. >> someone would talk about the council's office? >> kathy rumler was identified on april 24th. >> who else besides -- who
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else was told about this? >> other members of senior staff. >> who? >> i don't have a list. >> you were asking about white house officials being aware. you just mentioned the council's office. you never mentioned the chief of staff and others were -- >> well, i think i said the white house council knew. i am getting this information to you now. >> it doesn't answer why the president wasn't told. >> the counsel made the decision that this is not the kind of thing you notify the president of an investigation that is not complete. >> well, the president doesn't know about everything going on in every agency of government. should he have known this is his neighboring district in cinncinati where the irs office is. i don't think you can hold him accountable. >> i can't account for every conversation.
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>> let me start with a time line here. lois first knew about this in june of 2011. is that right? >> that's correct. that's when she was first notified of the actual targeting that was taking place. >> but after consulting the treasury consulting with the white house, we didn't hear about it through her in a set up question in the aba until may 10th of 2013. >> right. and also initter veining in that -- intervening in that period of time she came up with another criteria to have it used for tax exemption that made it worse. in fact, some of the groups sitting in the audience with you today got put in this dragnet because of lois learner basically broadening
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to other conservative organizations and not just tea party groups to be in this dragnet of irs special review. she basically is responsible for doing that. >> and in march of 2013, doug shulman and the head of the irs assured the american people in congress this was not happening, correct? >> yes, in fact he did that a year ago in response to questions -- >> that's right, march 2012. that's correct. >> 2012. that's right. >> i want to ask you both the same question that is puzzling to me. shulman met -- shulman went to the white house 157 times. his answer was well i was there for an easter egg hunt. nobody as i checked the records records -- the to be cabinet memberss were not there 157 times. >> there was sure an awful lot of conversation -- well, number one it is
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inexplicable. how do you explain 159 visits by the irs to the white house. they can't be talking about that much tax policy. there were not that many changes to the internal revenue code. you wonder what was going on here. you asked the right questions about this, it it is who knew what and when. until we do our discovery in this litigation we are involved in that we will really get an answer to that. >> what is it specifically that matters? in my mind this is about intimidating people because of their freedom of association and free -- freedom of speech. what are the issues at stake here in your mind? >> the most important thing for all of us to remember is that we always talk about america being a nation of laws and not of men. what the irs has done here is essentially abandoned and abdocated the rule of law where there is a certain set procedure for gertz to apply for a tax exempt status.
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there is an application and 60 or 70 questions. before they begin this targeting in 2010 they would ask questions about the application itself. when you have a group of people and an agency who are allowed to just start making it up as they go along, they abandon any legal -- objective legal standard, and it all becomes subjective. tha. the explanation that the irs has been coming out with is preposterous, number one, and it is some low-level employees in cinncinati. i have cases that never went to sips since and they -- went to cinncinati and still have their taxes there after four years. that's the rule of law. >> well, cleta is right. we had this whole situation where the irs was basically saying it is all cinncinati. what is so bizarre about that, sean, is i have letters and cases, two offices in california and one out of
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washington, d.c. and signed by a tax law specialist. this whole low-level rogue agent nonsense narrative they came out with was incorrect. and let me reinforce something cleta said that was critical. they are acting as if, and the inspector general eluded to this, that the agents and themselves and those in the determinations unit had no concept of what the law actually is and how it is applied. but you know what? none of these groups have been denied. what they have done is granted some and put some in what i call terminal limbo here. they are just not doing anything. we had months, six and nine months where there was no response from the irs and that is inexcusable. we now have a much better idea why. that's because washington was dictating the terms of this. the cinncinati office is the largest office for tax exempt processing. when i was with treasury a longtime ago in the office of chief council for the irs and we represented tax exempt and that is not a small division. that's significant. >> i went through that time line and they knew in june of
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2011 that they had finished in may of 2012 they finished their own internal investigation. the ig report we were supposed to get an interim report in september before the election. do you connect this in anyway to the election? preventing these groups from being able to raise money and be active politically in terms of getting out information about issues they care about? do you think it is connected in anyway, cleta? >> i absolutely do. the letters, -- remember jay and i started working together on this in february of last year when all of these groups, hundreds of groups received these incredibly intrusive, expansive questions from the irs which have the absolute impact of intimidating them, frightening them, making them think they might be doing something wrong if they invited candidates to a candidate forum which is completely legitimate for a 501 organization.
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absolutely it had the affect of intimidating them. and i will actually remind everybody these groups still don't have their tax exempt status. and some of my clients received additional letters a month before the election with even more questions. >> unbelievable. thank you both. still ahead tonight, you will hear from these people in our audience. most of whom are average americans who claim they were unfairly targeted by the irs. tonight they are here to tell their story to you. here in studio i will be joined by the reverend frank lynn graham who says he he was harassed by the irs as thiskyoc special edition of hannity special edition of hannity moves on.
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i first learned about it from the same news reports most people learned about this. i think it was on friday. >> what day did you learn? >> the same day the president did. >> from news reports. >> correct. >> so no one in this building told you? >> correct. >> who is responsible? >> i don't have that name. >> i don't remember. >> i don't know what you are asking. >> i am not there to go ask a set of questions of people, what happened, when, who, how. >> that's the first we have heard of it. >> why, i don't know. >> no one else in the white house was aware? >> if it happened on my watch, i do not accept responsible for all of the actions. >> i didn't know all of the details at that time. >> with all due respect, you were there though. >> i was there. >> i have decided to follow my
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counsel's advice and not testify or answer any of the questions today. >> what day did the conversation take place? >> i would have to look back at my notes on that. >> you have notes on that? >> i will have to try to find them. >> do you have notes? >> i don't know. >> i first learned about it from the same news report -- same news report. >> i have not done anything wrong. >> what i can't to believe is ultimately the buck stops with me. i am going to be accountable. >> welcome back to this special edition of "hannity." that was an ad about the irs enemy list scandal. the next guest has been a friend of the show many years. he said two of his charities were targeted by the irs for political reasons and he sent a letter to president obama explaining how deep the damage went. it reads in part, quote, unfortunately while these audits not only wasted taxpayer money, but wasted money contributed by donor for ministry purposes as we had to
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is spend precious resources targeting the irs agents in our offices. i am bringing this to your attention because i believe someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. this is morally wrong and unethical and indeed somebody would call it unamerican. joining me to explain is reverend franklin graping. we -- graham. we welcome him back. this is a pretty hard-hitting letter. what made you write this letter and what happened to the two ministries you refer to in the letter? >> on september 6th of last year, both received letters dated the same day we were going to be audited. the irs has a right to audit, sean. that's not an issue. they came and audited, but we are two separate corporations. we are two different board of directors and two different cities, different 990's.
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and for us to both be notified by a letter dated the same day to me is a little suspicious. >> that's more than suspicious. what has happened to this country if we are -- i can see auditing you, but your father i can't see auditing. i'm sorry. i'm kidding. seriously, we are going to audit the reverend billy graham? >> there were two issues, sean. one was the billy graham evangelist association is a minnesota corporation. we closed our offices in minneapolis and moved to charlotte, north carolina. we decided two years ago to file for a new organization and incorporate in the state of north carolina and then as for tax exempt status. we applied last year for that tax exempt status and it took 14 months for that application to be approved. normally applications like this at the most, four to six months for something like that. but it was delayed for 14 months until after the election. for the billy graham
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association when we were audited, the guys were nice. i want to say something about the irs, the agent. a nice guy. i don't have an issue with the agent. they were professional, good person. >> did they find anything wrong? >> no. >> nothing? >> nothing. there was -- there was a no change letter. they accepted the 990s with no changes and we appreciate that. sean, we are audited every year by exter national auditors and we have internal auditors that go through our policies, especially our programs continually. we make our audited statement public, and anybody can have that if they want it. having the irs come in wasn't a concern to me. what was concerning was are we targeted because of our religious beliefs? in north carolina last april there was an amendment put forth by our state to change the constitution, to define marriage as between a man and a woman. the president came out against
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amendment 1. my father came out supporting it and we took out some ads supporting this. somebody will say, well, you will get involved in politics. no, this is a moral issue. because the politician takes a moral issue, it doesn't mean it is a political issue and people of faith have to be quiet about it. this is a moral issue. we are going to speak out on moral issues. i think maybe this was an attempt to intimidate us or maybe pay back. we spoke out on a moral esh you, and that moral issue -- we prevailed in north carolina. >> i am not trying to get personal. how much did this cost your ministries? >> i don't know. it is weeks of -- >> weeks? >> oh yes, preparing -- the documentation they wanted to see, it took a forly large staff weeks to prepare the documentation and be ready for them when they came in. >> because we are good friends i was able to kid with you earlier about auditing you and not your dad. i have donated and support
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them. i have been out on the road with you. i know the good that you do. the same with your father. when i heard this and heard it was the same day and in light of everything when you hear that groups with the name tea party and patriot and constitution, that they were specifically targeted, and they have admitted to it and they acknowledge it, what do you think? >> it makes you think was it broader than tea party and political groups? taking in the billy graham evangelistic association, and because we oppose the president position on same-sex marriage. these are moral issues again sean. i am a christian. i believe that jesus christ is the way, the truth and the life. i believe he came to die for our since. he was -- for our sins and died for our sins and will forgive our sins if we put our faith in him. this is what i believe. it is obvious that some in the administration do not agree with these moral principals,
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the billy graham advantage list association believe in. are we going to be targeted again because of what we believe? i don't know. that's why i wrote the president a letter. i don't believe, sean, the president himself probably knew anything about this. i wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. i like the president. i think he is a nice person. i disagree with him on many of his policies, but at the same time, i wanted to write him and let him know that we suspect that we were targeted and would he look into it, but i have not heard a replea. >> i want to talk about one thing you didn't say, render unto caesar which is caesar and god which is god's which means caesar gets nothing. just kidding. reverend, thank you for sharing your story. it is an important issue and i know your dad is doing well and we wish him our very best as well. >> thank you. >> sad when we are targeting the reverend billy graham. that's sad. when we come back, you will hear directly from the people in our studio audience. many say they were unfairly
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targeted by the irs because of their political beliefs. they are here to share their outrageous stories. that's next as hannity continues. ♪ ♪
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wrong. i have not broken any laws. i have not violated any irs rules and regulations and i have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee. and while i would very much like to answer the committee's questions today, i have been advised by my counsel to assert my constitutional right not to testify or answer questions related to the subject matter of this hearing. >> all right, that was lois lerner, the director of the tax exempt irs now on leave.
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what do average americans think of her refusal to answer questions about the targeting of conservatives and conservative groups? joining me now to answer that question are some of the people who say they were unfairly targeted by the irs. give yourselves a big hand and good to see y'all. [applause]. >> just a show of hands. how many think lois lerner was envoking the fifth to hide something? anybody disagree? nobody. name of yo are organization. vie through the vote. >> lynch pins of liberty. >> tea party patriots. >> kitchen table patriot. >> patriot. >> tea party express. >> tea party. >> north cal tea party. >> citizens for self-governing. >> national organization for marriage. >> oh one of those conservative groups. okay. >> the texas public policy foundation. >> the dallas tea party. >> fox radio.
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>> oh todd is here. >> tea party news network and the tea party . net. >> greenwich tea party patriots of south jersey. >> interesting. all of the names we are not supposed to have in our groups and you are targeted. how many, a show of hands, were all unfairly you believe targeted by the irs? show of hands? >> i think that my situation is more of the beurocracy. i have a c4. i have a story to tell though. >> we will get to you. catherine, i will start with you. it wasn't only the irs for you. it was osha. it was a bunch of government agencies. tell your story. >> we filed our nonprofit application in july of 2010. up until that time i never had any government agency be involved with anything i have had to do except filing your normal yearly tax returns. after filing that application and until as recently as a month ago we have had 18 different points of contact from the fbi, from the
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department of labors osha, from the department of justices irs -- excuse me justices batis-atf. >> did they find anything wrong? >> no. >> and so far how long has this been going on? >> almost three years. >> three years? >> almost three years. >> and all of these different government agencies are not a one found anything wrong? >> no. >> wow. that's pretty amazing. kevin, your story? >> lynch pins of liberty and we are a 501c3 so a little different from the other applicants. our motto is to challenge the imagination of the rising generation. we teachers and high school and college students political and philosophical policies. a lot are minors and so they asked to identify the students we are teachers anding to provide details about what we were teaching, and then during this who will whole process on may 6th we get a third letter saying we need to know
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the location of where you are conducting these teachings. >> wow. amazing. jenni beth martin, known you for awhile. >> i'm with tea party patriots and we filed for our 501c3 and our 501c4 in december of 2010. we heard nothing from the irs, even though we made inquiries, no response back until early in 2012. >> so two years later? >> a year and a half later. we got questions like so many of these other groups. >> what were some of the outrageous questions you got? >> they wanted to know every congressman and senator any of our people spoke to and the communications with them including copies of written communication. >> isn't that none of their blank business? >> we didn't give them. >> seriously, right? does anybody think that is their base? does that have to do with your taxes ? >> if you can't communicate with your own elected -- the person who is supposed to
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represent you without being targeted by the irs there is a problem. >> a lot of constitutional issues here, freedom of speech, association and in the case of going after james rosen in the ap, freedom of the press. >> congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. >> reverend graham. >> prohibiting the free exercise there of bridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people to peace blee assemble which is what we were all trying to do. >> we are about to get bothered. >> the government for for redress of grievances. they broke every bit of it. >> all of your stories we are trying to put this together for all of you at home. when we come back, we will have more with our studio audience as we investigate the irs' unprecedented efforts to target conservatives and intimidate them. by the way, did it help the president win back the white house? we will examine that important question when we return. by the way, we always want to hear from you.
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log on to our site, hannity live. to follow the live show share your thoughts. hannity live . fox news or fox news.com or on twitter it is at sean hannity. this is a fox news alert from los angeles. i am anita vogel. *9 oklahoma city area in the path of deadly tornadoes again late friday. the twisters killing at least five people. two of the victims a woman and her baby found near their vehicle outside union city. another person was killed in elgreno, but it is unclear where the other two deaths took place. the twisters injuring about 50 people, five said to be in critical condition. new video from elreno, oklahoma shows severe damage to homes and several flipped over cars. scores of people have been trapped in their vehicles after trying to make it home ahead of the massive storm system. and will rogers world airport
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southwest of oklahoma city, passengers were ushered into underground tunnels and flights were canceled. violent weather is also moving through the st. louis area. a twister there ripping the roof off a saw suburban casino and caused some severe damage at an office supply company. >> one of the tractor-trailer blues over and rolled over the car. there was about four or five trucks damaged. most the doors were blown in. we have some furniture that was stacked up in there for sale and it blew over. the dividing wall between the two buildings, chunks are just gone. i think the roof must have lifted up and then the wall itself just collapsed. and then went back down. >> the governor of missouri declaring a state of emergency, but so far there are no confirmed reports of deaths or injuries in the state. the storm system has calmed down in the last few hours. a tornado watch is still in affect for southern missouri.
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once again, several large twisters hitting oklahoma and missouri late friday. so far we know that at least five people are dead and another 50 are injured. now let's go back to hannity.
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are you sure you didn't talk to anybody at the white house about this issue? >> about singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny? >> well that's what we are talking about, sbt it? -- isn't it? >> i am absolutely sure. >> it didn't come up in casual conversation after 132 members of congress contacted you? you didn't bring it up with anybody at the white house? >> not to my memory. >> that was former irs commissioner doug shulman claiming he never spoke to anyone in the white house about the tax agency's targeting of conservatives, but is that the truth? do average americans believe him? do you believe him? >> no. >> nobody believes him. actually it is 157 times we learned.
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anyone think he was there for coffee, tea and crumpets? >> easter egg rolls. >> yes, that's what he said. bill, tell your story. >> i am the founder of the west jersey tea party and in 2010, august of 2010 we filed for 501c4 status. and it wasn't until january of 2012 we received our letter. like many of the people in this audience, we had the same intrusive questions being asked of us. such as the communications between our members -- members of congress, our representatives at the state house as well as the qualifications of the people we brought in, whether or not they could speak on the topic that we had chosen for them to speak on. it was just an intrusive development and really intimidating. in fact, we saw membership losses occur right after we put the vote to all of our members. do you want to cooperate with the irs?
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every one of them said no, we don't want to cooperate. our membership began to fall off presipitously after that. >> they all felt they would -- >> they felt they would be audited. they thought their association with us as a tea party was going to cause audits for them. >> you have a different story? >> yes, in 2009 we opened up a bank account. we were getting checks and donations and we created an ein number. through 2010 i started getting letters from the irs and i got really scared and contacted an attorney who walked us through the process and got as you established as a c4. in our case we got established before this all started. but the problem is every three months i get these letters from the irs saying i am not in compliance which means i have to use up a day on the phone with the irs. you never get an e-mail. you never get the same person. it is a 1-800 number, and there is no -- you send the same letter off to a po box, and you never know what
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happens. my whole thing, is it really worth it as a tea party organization that is a mom and pop organization to go through this nightmare -- i mean my last letter was may 5th. >> this is a great point. how many believe the timing of this was such that they wanted to put you guys back on your heels, distract you for the election? show of hands. todd, you are not allowed to vote. all of you? you think it was connected to the election? >> sean, you know how it is citizens united? >> yes. >> you know what happened 48 hours before citizens united? scott brown in massachusetts. a few weeks later all of this started. >> interesting. >> amy kramer. we first met in april of 2009. >> 2009, right. tea party express -- >> 20 some odd people came out to an event. it was a pretty big event. >> huge, april 15th.
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this is just symptomatic of a bigger problem. it is like with a disease. you cannot continue to treat the symptoms and get rid of the disease. you have to eradicate the disease. this is exactly what the tea party movement is about, big government. when you look at the irs there are so many layers. it is like pealing back an onion. we can't get to the bottom. it did have something to do with the election. look at benghazi. it is the same thing. nobody can answer who is running the white house. where are the adults? these people work for us. every single american should be concerned about this. it is not just about tea party or conservative. next time the shoe could be on the other foot, and we could have a republican president and use a beurocracy to target somebody that is opposing his agenda. or her agenda. every single american needs to look at this, and that is why you are seeing the polling where they want a special prosecutor or investigation into this issue. >> 70 picks% -- 76%.
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>> that's huge. >> and 2-1 democrats, over 60% of democrats. jenni? >> well, we applied for our 501c4 in july of -- i mean in march of twenty 10. we got our first letter back requesting 34 additional pieces of information. i gave the -- >> did they ask for what prayers you gave? >> they asked what books we read. the first wasn't as intrusive as the second one. i filled that out and sent them a box. and then the second letter didn't come. i sent them that box in july of 2010. i did not hear from them until january of 2012 in spite of numerous letters, phone calls, e-mails, nothing from them. finally i get a letter asking for 97 additional pieces of information. >> what was the most outrageous? >> well, they wanted the handouts that we had ever handed out at any meeting or event and what was this little teddy bear and i sent one and
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put the exhibit number on there. and we also pass out constitutions. i sent that. i sent a box this big and it cost well over $200 to send it. i didn't send them the names of our donors. i did to the send -- >> even though they asked for it? >> no, i didn't send those. it didn't apply to a c4. i didn't hear from them four months later and i contacted my congressman, congressman tom mcclinton, a true blue guy -- >> from california. >> yes, believe it or not. and he sent a scathing letter to the irs. he had an impassioned speech on the floor of the house of representatives on behalf of norcal. three weeks later i got a phone call from them and they gave us our letter. >> nobody should have to go through that. >> here is the crazy thing is that so many people have said, you know what, jenni, i can't donate anymore. i can't come to your anymore because i am so afraid that the irs is gonna come after me. that's tierney. >> i have always told my
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accountant because i am in the public eye, just pay it. liberals would like nothing more than me handcuffed and perp walked and put in prison. with a liberal. we have to take a break. we will come back and we will continue. don't go anywhere. more with our studio audience, the majority of which say they were personally targeted by your irs as we continue on hannity.
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am i missing something here? has anybody mentioned the director who left and therefore now we have an acting director was a bush uh -- appointee? and these are not obama appointees.
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>> bush appointee that donated to the democrats. that was house minority leader nancy pelosi doing what she does best and the democrats do best which is blame george bush. do average americans think the former president is to blame for the irs scandal? here to respond is our studio audience. mark, do you have an interesting story? >> i am the founder of an organization called citizens for self-governing. we come from the tea party movement. i meat with tea partiers so i have been hearing these stories for years including jenni my local tea party founder. we decided to do something about it. we wanted to fight back. what we did was went out and found the toughers attorney we could find. we filed the first lawsuit, class action lawsuit in ohio at the heart of the matter. we have this prosecutor and we are going after these people. we put up a website which is interesting called sue the irs.com. it is being trolled now by the irs and the doj and defense intelligence agencies. we are seeing these hits. we have people all over the
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country and all different kinds of organizations joining this class action litigation. we have the pro israel groups that have been targeted and the religious freedom groups. >> interesting. under this white house if you put in a radical name you might survive. you would not withstand scrutiny. >> there are groups who tested that theory and changed their application name and approved in a short period of time. we have absolute proof that it depends on your name, and your name obviously exhibits your personal philosophy, political philosophy. >> we are from the tea party in alabama and october of 2010. we did not hear one word for 17 months. in february of the election year i get a letter saying they can't get an answer until i filled out the answer tots questions. they wanted a copy of every speech we have ever given. oh one that was interesting was they wanted to know if our members or volunteers or board
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members would run for office in the way down the road and they wanted to know what office they were going to run for. so was it opposition research maybe? >> that's bizarre. brian, hi. >> my story is slightly different. we had our 501 c4 and then in march in 2012 we found our political opponents had gotten a list of our donors from the irs. the document, the 990 which is not supposed to be public, there was an attempt to make it look like it didn't come from the irs. we were able to unmask it and find that it had printing on it that makes it very clear that it was from the irs. we didn't even have this document. this is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. this comes out of the watergate scandal, one of the articles of impeachment for richard nixon was he used private tax information to go after people. therefore congress made this a felony. we have been fighting and we
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have been talking about this. we know that the treasury inspector general's office has asked a number of questions and it has been going on for a year. 11 u.s. senators, mitch mcconnell and oren hatch has demanded answers. why was our 990 given to our political opponents, the head of which, the head of the human rights campaign is the co chair of obama's re-election campaign? >> there has been a lot of this. a lot of information has been leaked. >> they are inappropriate. >> there was clearly an attempt to harass and intimidate our donors. we saw this after the passage of prop 8 in california. even as franklin said, we work together in passage of the marriage amendment in north carolina. i tell you one thing though, our donors will not be intimidated and we will fight this. we will sue the irs and fight this. this should not -- i don't care whether you are on the right or left of the political spectrum. we need a nation of laws, and if they can do this to us, they can do it to anyone.
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>> that's tierney. i promise we have a whole row to get to as we continue. thank you for sharing that story. we will come back. coming up, more with the studio audience when we return on this special edition of hannity.
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welcome back to this special edition of "hannity." we are joined by our studio audience and all believe they are targeted by the irs. brooke, texas. >> i am the head of an organization called the texas public policy foundation, and we have been around for 25 years. our story is also a little different. in the summer of one year ago our donor list was disclosed. they say inadvertently by the irs. >> how do they do that inadvertently? >> they forgot to redact it. it was an interesting turn of events. in texas, we believe, it is standing up to washington, d.c. as the an at this time that -- antithesis of what we
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are doing. junior senator ted cruz worked for our amendment writing amicus briefs. we believe we are at the heart of really what is wrong -- what is right about this country. and we were targeted by the federal government because we are standing up and saying no more. >> governor rick perry made me an honorary texan. i wish i pay your income taxes. >> which is 0 and you are more than welcome to move. we have thousands move here. love to have you. >> dallas tea party in the heart of texas and we are one of the largest -- if thought the largest. >> you are friends? >> we are all friends. >> i go down to texas and i went to a place and they said y'all come back and i said huh? it doesn't happen in new york. >> we are nice in texas. southern hospitality for you. we have one of the largest if not the largest local organization in the country. we have several hundred members who are local
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organizers. these members were targeted and individually audited. this scares people. what the american public needs to understand is they call us tea party organizations, but they are just people. they are families. when you are living on a fixed income and you know any moment the irs can freeze your bank account and assets it is very, very scary. >> they can do it without a court order. a lot of people don't know that. >> absolutely. >> ron, we will start with you and end up with todd? >> i am with the patriots of south jersey. we filed in april of 2011. we heard nothing at all from the irs. then in february of 2012, we finally got a letter from the irs and that's when they came out with all of the different questionnaires that they wanted that were just outrageous. some of them being as many here have said about wanting our donors and wanting to know who the guests were and wanting to know whatever
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literature we passed out. and the list goes on and on and on. we didn't agree with that. fortunately for us at about the same time this took place, they were starting to talk about the irs targeting the tea party and fortunately for us we heard that and the founder of our organization, she got uh hold of jay -- >> and you are part of the lawsuit. >> and we are part of the lawsuit. that's correct. we haven't got our c4, but we are part of the lawsuit and we are going forward with this. >> scotty, good to see you? >> real simple. this is another opportunity that the obama administration has targeted its own people. this is why we don't trust the government. what is really scary is maybe some of the large e -- larger tea party organizations we knew not to disclose the 5,000 it had given. the average tea party donor is $45. these small organizations that didn't have the resources of an attorney and a lawyer
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saying don't give those lists, i'm afraid they did and i wonder if we compare the number of conservatives audited versus those who are democrat independents we would probably have a higher percentage. >> i wonder how this will turn out. this will be interesting and e-mails and electronic devices. it is hard to cover up the lies. it will be interesting. we will close tonight with our good friend from fox news radio. >> sean, it is not just the tea party. religious groups are coming under fire, and these people are absolutely terrified. we know a state baptist newspaper in north carolina which ran that ad franklin graham was talking about has been around since pre civil war days and they were audited as a result of running this ad. >> you have been great. i know i speak for everybody else. i am glad you are all fighting for what's right. if you can be what's right. because if you can be intimidated, everybody that's watching tonight can be intimidated. and the fact that you're standing up to this is helping a
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lot of other people. so give yourself as big, good hand. and thank you for being with us. that is all the time we have left. as always, thank you for being with us. let not your heart be troubled. we'll be back soon for another edition of hannity. drip, drip, drip. every day there's something new. >> they testified about matters of congressional interest. it's a broad question, but the answer is yes. >> in this white house is that the lights are on, but there doesn't seem to be anybody at home. >> none of the principals in any of these scandacascandals know about what's going on. >> if the president actually knew something, then cl

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