Responses to IRS Targeting Allegation

Public democrats are horrible at responding to Republican charges.

Every time a republican or media figure says "Conservative Groups were targeted", they should be hit with a line of questions designed to make the person define "targeted"

Democrat: "Can you define what you mean by targeted? Do you mean they were killed by the Government?"

Republican: "No they were targeted because of their views"

Democrat: "Oh they were not killed. So were they arrested?"

Republican; "No, it was the IRS"

Democratic: "Ok, they were not killed or arrested. Were they audited or fined by the IRS?"

Republican: "No. I mean they were just targeted".

Democrat: "Ok, they were not killed, arrested, audited or fined? What do you mean they were targeted?"

Eventually, if the Democrat pushes hard, you get to the answer. Some organizations using common political words and identifying themselves as part of a political movement applied for a determination of non-profit status right before an election. These organizations were asked questions to try to determine why they were public service and deserving of a particular non-profit status which would require them to be non political. Note that if political they could use different non-profit status.

Democrat: "So they were not killed, arrested, audited or fined by the IRS, they were asked questions on whether they qualified for 501c4 status versus some other non-profit status by the IRS group in charge of determining 501c4 status. I get it now. So the "targeting must mean that every one of these "Targeted Groups" were rejected for 501c4 status by the IRS'.

Republican: "Er um er um. Well actually none of these groups were rejected by the IRS although some withdrew their application when they must have realized they did not qualify for non political public service tax exempt status."

Democrat; "And you call that "targeting". They were not killed, arrested, audited, fined, or even rejected." Maybe you want to use another word for the IRS treatment. Perhaps you might want to say "The IRS evaluated applications for non-political public service Tax Exempt Status by groups who put political words in their group names."