PoliGraph: Republican claims on Franken and the IRS go too far

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Sen. Al Franken is running for re-election this year, making him a top target for the state’s Republicans.

Many of them, including Franken’s potential opponents, are focusing on the Democrat’s apparent involvement in asking the Internal Revenue Service to give extra scrutiny to conservative political groups that masquerade as non-profits.

Here’s a sampling of some recent barbs:

“As a driving force behind the IRS Scandal, he denied First Amendment rights to Conservatives. It's unacceptable that he directed a powerful government agency to intimidate and harass people based on their personal beliefs.” – GOP Senate hopeful Mike McFadden in a fundraising letter.

“Will you ask @alfranken why he signed a letter urging the IRS to go after conservative groups? – Republican Party of Minnesota Secretary Chris Fields in a tweet.

Franken stayed “shamefully silent in the face of IRS targeting.” – GOP Senate hopeful Julianne Ortman in a fundraising email sent Feb. 25, 2014.

PoliGraph looked at all these claims and found them to be overblown at best.

The Evidence

This all started in early 2012, when Franken joined six other Democratic Senators in asking the IRS to pay closer attention to groups organized as 501(c)4s – or “social welfare” groups. These tax-exempt organizations don’t have to reveal their donors so long as politics isn't their primary activity, but quite often their efforts seem overtly political.

Groups on both the left and the right take advantage of these rules.

In one letter, the Senators asked the IRS to impose a clear, strict cap on how much money the groups could spend on political activities.

In another, the Senators encouraged the IRS to prevent social welfare organizations from abusing the tax code.

GOP Secretary Chris Fields sent PoliGraph these letters as a source to back up his claim that Franken “signed a letter urging the IRS to go after conservative groups," as did Mike McFadden's campaign to back up his claim.

Franken signed those letters, but neither asked the IRS to investigate conservative organizations, or named specific organizations for that matter.

However, a subsequent investigation by the IRS Inspector General found that the IRS had inappropriately targeted some groups affiliated with the Tea Party. Here’s what the May 2013 report said:

“The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention.”

The report also states that the targeting began in 2010 – two years before Franken signed the letter. (There’s evidence that it was Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana who prompted the IRS to start looking at these groups more closely.)

Franken didn’t stay silent on the issue after the IRS report came out, as Ortman said.

On CNN, he said that the IRS was right to give groups applying for tax-exempt status extra scrutiny. But he also said that “what is in what no way legitimate is that this be biased in any way, and the people responsible for this should be held accountable.”

Franken made similar comments to other news outlets as well.

Ortman said her statement reflects her opinion and that Franken should have called for a special inquiry after the IRS report came out.

“That’s what I would say is shameful silence,” she said.

Ortman also pointed to a press release about the letters that named GOP operative Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS as an example of a social welfare group that’s involved in political activities. But that press release was issued by Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, not Franken. 

The Verdict

These Republican statements imply that Franken asked IRS employees to give extra scrutiny to conservative groups.

But that’s not true. While Franken signed a letter asking the agency to make sure that groups that are engaging in political activities aren't violating their tax exempt status, that letter did not single out conservative organizations or encourage the IRS to “intimidate and harass people based on their personal beliefs,” as McFadden said.

In fact, those letters were signed two years after the IRS’s own Inspector General found that the agency’s employees started using inappropriate criteria to single out social welfare groups.

And Franken wasn’t silent when the IRS scandal broke. He condemned the IRS’s actions on several major television outlets.

That makes these claims misleading to the point of being false.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

The Star Tribune, 2012 Franken letters asked IRS to investigate all social welfare groups engaged in "substantial" campaign activity, by Corey Mitchell

Fox Business News, How Political Pressure on the IRS Began, by Elizabeth MacDonald

The National Journal, A guide to the IRS scandal - What happened and when did it happen?, By Michael Catalini

Tom Erikson, spokesperson, Mike McFadden for Senate

Alexandra Fetissoff, spokesperson, Al Franken for Senate

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