This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A member of Congress has called out the Internal Revenue Service for its apparent agenda to regulate speech – allowing only what it deems appropriate – in America.
The blast from U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., came during an appearance on the “Just the News, No Noise,” television show.
“I view this as a form of government surveillance of the American people,” the member of Congress who sits on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees said.
He said the IRS is to perform ministerial functions, like receiving taxes.
Just the News reported Biggs accused the IRS of running “government surveillance” on Americans.
It stemmed from the IRS’ attack on an organization that had applied for a tax-exempt status to operate.
The IRS has a long record of such stunts.
Back in the days of Barack Obama’s White House, the IRS schemed to deprive Christians and conservatives of their constitutional rights.
Their organization applications, submitted to the IRS for approval so they could operate heading into the 2012 election, were ignored, delayed, lost and more.
Further, the IRS grilled these organizations about the content of their prayers, their membership and more – all of which was beyond what it was allowed to ask.
Directing it all was Lois Lerner, an IRS official who pled the Fifth before Congress and when found in contempt, was given a free pass by Obama’s Department of Justice.
The latest dispute stemmed from a decision by the IRS to subject “an elections nonprofit to a battery of prying questions about its policy positions, language choices and methodology for arriving at correct opinions and conclusions prior to peremptorily rejecting its application for tax-exempt status without appeal,” a report explained.
The Washington establishment’s attack is on an election education nonprofit called Adams, Baldwin, and Covey Foundation.
Founder Phill Kline charged the IRS has demanded answers to questions like, “Have you held [a] particular position or view on certain issues or topics? If you do, please detail the position or views of your organization,” and “Do you have any policy/policies or guidance in place to avoid unsupported opinions or conclusions and inflammatory language in the activities?”
Kline noted, in the Just the News report, “The Biden administration believes it has the authority to license thought and speech, and it doesn’t.”
Biggs was equally blunt, “There is no authority for the IRS to regulate speech.”
He continued, “They’re doing ministerial functions, receiving your taxes, receiving your tax returns, that’s their job. Their job is not to regulate speech or to adjudicate whether you have provided misinformation or not. That is a clear violation of their authority, even if you give the most broad interpretation of the 16th Amendment. And so, we’re going to have to attack it through the Oversight Committee, in my opinion.”
That committee now has requested the IRS provide documents regarding the dispute.
“This is nothing less than the weaponization — we saw it under Obama with Lois Lerner and the attack against conservative 501(c)(3)s and nonprofits. You’re seeing it again, already, and that doesn’t surprise me, but you’re going to see this going all over in a broad spectrum,” he warned.
