Rangel Asks Bush to stop IRS probe of NAACP

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) has asked President Bush to "call off the dogs at the IRS" by terminating the tax agency's probe of the NAACP.  Rangel co-signed an Oct. 29 letter to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson accusing the IRS of launching the audit "to intimidate members of the NAACP ... in their get-out-the-vote effort nationwide."  The letter, also signed by Reps. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.), added, "The chilling effect of the IRS' attack on the NAACP will be felt by the tax-exempt community at large and cannot go unchallenged."  Everson sent the NAACP a letter Oct. 8 informing it of the investigation. He cited NAACP Board Chairman Julian Bond's keynote speech to the group's August convention in Philadelphia in which Bond blasted Bush and the Republican's racist "southern strategy."  Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), wrote to Everson Nov. 2, saying that the attack on the NAACP is reminiscent of Richard Nixon's use of IRS audits as a weapon against groups on his "enemies list," a key element of the Watergate conspiracy. "LCCR believes that it is antithetical to our country's principles of free speech and democracy," Henderson wrote, "to use the tax code to silence those with opposing views."  Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way (PFAW), said, "The people running this administration are bullies. But I know Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume. They aren't going to be bullied."  [more]

• The IRS vs. the NAACP [more]