Obama’s IRS wants you to confess your thoughts to them

The Internal Revenue Service asked tea party groups to see donor rolls.

It asked for printouts of Facebook posts.

And it asked what books people were reading.

A POLITICO review of documents from 11 tea party and conservative groups that the IRS scrutinized in 2012 shows the agency wanted to know everything — in some cases, it even seemed curious what members were thinking. The review included interviews with groups or their representatives from Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere.

The long-awaited Treasury Department inspector general report released Tuesday says the agency itself decided some of its questions to conservative groups were way over the line — especially the one about donors.

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Some were asked about any connection to Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit group backed by the Koch brothers that ironically never underwent the same level of IRS scrutiny.

And then they asked whether one group knew Justin Binik-Thomas.

Never heard of him? He’s a former leader of the Cincinnati Tea Party, and clearly someone in the Cincinnati IRS office knew who he was.

So when the Liberty Township Tea Party applied for tax-exempt status, the IRS threw this question into its March 2011 letter to the group: “Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas.” (They didn’t know him well enough to spell his name right.)

Read the whole thing at Politico