I don’t know how we’ll ever be able to trust the IRS again after this. The more this stuff comes out, the bigger this scandal gets and the less trust I have in my government. And when you are one of the people, like Drew Ryun, struggling under the mighty thumb of big government, there’s no higher authority that can help you. Fortunately for him he figured it out after a while and was able to use their rules against them.
This is exactly why government needs to be smaller and less powerful, so that when you have thugs like this in the ranks, there’s less damage they can do.
YAHOO NEWS BLOG – In May 2011, Drew Ryun, a conservative activist and former Republican National Committee staffer, began filling out the Internal Revenue Service application to achieve non-profit status for a new conservative watchdog group.
He submitted the paperwork to the IRS in July 2011 for a news site called Media Trackers, which calls itself a “non-partisan investigative watchdog dedicated to promoting accountability in the media and government.” Although the site has investigated Republicans like Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the site’s organizers are unapologetically conservative.
“One thing we don’t hide is: ‘Yeah, we’re conservative—free-market, free-enterprise, full-spectrum conservative,'” Ryun told Mother Jones magazine last year.
Eight months passed without word from the agency about the group’s application, Ryun said. In February 2012, Ryun’s attorney contacted the IRS to ask if it needed more information to secure its non-profit status as a 501(c)3 organization. According to Ryun, the IRS told him that the application was being processed by the agency’s office in Cincinnati, Ohio—the same one currently facing scrutiny for targeting conservative groups—and to check back in two months.
As directed, Ryun followed up with the IRS in April 2012, and was told that Media Trackers’ application was still under review.
When September 2012 arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone non-profit status, and he tried a new approach: Starting over. He applied for permanent non-profit status for a separate group called Greenhouse Solutions, a pre-existing organization that was reaching the end of its determination period.
The IRS approved Greenhouse Solutions’ request for non-profit status in three weeks.
And if you don’t think the White House was involved in this, READ THIS.