In the scandals roiling around the Internal Revenue Service, the case of the National Organization for Marriage is egregious. NOM chairman John Eastman made a powerful presentation of the case before the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this year. In the course of his appearance John also responded to asinine comments of the Democratic members who suggested that the outrage suffered by the group was somehow deserved.
Unlike the several Tea-Party groups whose applications for nonprofit status were stalled by the IRS, NOM has been operating as a nonprofit since 2008. On March 30, 2012, the Human Rights Campaign — NOM’s chief political opponent — published a copy of NOM’s 2008 Form 990 Schedle B, listing the names and addresses of NOM’s major donors.
HRC published NOM’s Schedule B on its site, under the headline “One of NOM’s Top Secret Donors Revealed: Mitt Romney” and gave it to the Huffington Post for publication the same day. The document — which HRC said it had received from “a whistleblower” — subsequently appeared on the sites of outlets including New York, Mother Jones, and the Daily Beast.
Funny thing about that “whistleblower” — if he or she worked for the IRS, he committed a felony. Who will blow the whistle on the whistleblower?
Yesterday came news that NOM has sued the IRS for the illegal disclosure. NOM’s complaint is posted online here. The Free Beacon covers the lawsuit in a good article by C.J. Ciaramella here. The NOM case can and should be solved now that the opportunity exists to call relevant witnesses and place them under oath.
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