Republican Senators Demand IRS Investigation of Non-Profits Supporting Students for Justice in Palestine
“It is clear these organizations should not receive any favors from our government to do Iran-backed Hamas’s bidding on our own shores”
If there was ever an appropriate time to do this, it’s now.
Campus Reform reports:
Republican senators demand IRS investigation of Students for Justice in Palestine sponsor
16 Republican senators sent a letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Daniel Werfel demanding that the agency investigate nonprofits financially supporting the National Students for Justice in Palestine organization.
The letter, dated May 9, asked the agency to investigate whether nonprofits are supporting terrorism by giving money to National Students for Justice in Palestine, according to The Times of Israel.
“We should not need to remind you of the heinous support NSJP chapters across the country have voiced for Hamas, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the Republican senators wrote in the letter. “That support has exploded at NSJP chapter-led demonstrations in recent weeks.”
Signatories of the letter include Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Lindsey Graham (R-NC), Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Ernst said in a statement: “The antisemitism that has popped up on college campuses coast to coast is fundamentally un-American.”
“It is clear these organizations should not receive any favors from our government to do Iran-backed Hamas’s bidding on our own shores,” Ernst added.
The letter notes that “Many of [Students for Justice in Palestine’s] campus chapters explicitly endorsed the actions of Hamas.”
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Comments
Don’t hold your breath waiting on the IRS. They don’t investigate leftists.
Republicans: Investigate the Hamas supporters.
IRS: No.
The End.
That’s crazy talk! It’s not like the Hamas lovers are members of the Tea Party!
The fact that Hamas is a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization is irrelevant, so long as they’re not giving it material support. If you had even a shred of evidence that it was doing that, you wouldn’t be calling for the IRS to investigate its donors, you’d be calling the FBI to investigate and shut it down. And the FBI would do so; it has never shown any reluctance to enforce the law in that regard. So it follows that you have no such evidence, in which case the fact that Hamas is indeed a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization is irrelevant.
Voicing support for it has the exact same legal status as voicing support for motherhood and apple pie, and must be treated by the government exactly the same. And therefore those who donate to an organization that heinously voices such support are immune from government retaliation, just as those who donate to white supremacist organizations.
I hate when I agree with you. Sadly, it’s been happening more and more often lately thanks to the crazy finally coming out on the “right” side of the aisle.
Lately, despite my dislike of the outcome (yes, I can be happy that the lawprocess was followed, but still hate the results), you’ve been right more often than you’re wrong.
As Ron DeSantis said back in October shutting down certain groups, he claimed that pro-Palestinian groups on state campuses had “themselves said in the aftermath of the Hamas attack that they don’t just stand in solidarity, that they are part of this Hamas movement”.
It’s not just a free speech issue in a vacuum.
DeSantis was wrong, and if it ever comes to court on that he will lose. Expressing solidarity with Hamas doesn’t make them responsible for its crimes. If he had evidence that they’d actually given it material support he would have made that evidence public, and then publicly passed it on to the FBI with a demand to see arrests. And he’d have been right to do so. Donating so much as a penny to Hamas is a federal crime; shouting that “We are all Hamas” is not.
If you declare yourself to be a terrorist then expect to be treated as a terrorist.
Zero tolerance!
That’s not the law. You can declare yourself to be the president, but they still won’t let you live in the White House.
“Hamas is a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization is irrelevant, so long as they’re not giving it material support.”
Tell that to J6 and Trump staff and supporters. If they can be hung, then we should be able to figure out a way to reign in Muhammad cultists.
CAIR is another worthy of a takedown.
No supporter of J6 who has not committed any offense has been “hung”. The treatment of the J6 protesters has been outrageous, and the next president should pardon even those who crossed the line into violence, so long as they were not FBI plants, but nobody’s been arrested simply for expressing an opinion. Otherwise many LI commenters would have been rounded up by now.
In any event, even if the government has violated the first amendment in investigating J6 protesters, that is no excuse for us violating it too.
As for CAIR, the fact that it was not indicted in the Holy Land Foundation case means that the FBI was unable to find any evidence against it, so it was unethical to reveal that the FBI considered it part of the conspiracy. However if a shred of evidence ever develops against it, the FBI should it it hard. Without evidence it’s in the same boat as the American Nazi Party, or the CPUSA; evil but legal.
Yeah, just like support for motherhood.
In fact, the government MAY treat it differently. It is a matter of discretion.
From the letter:
“It is long-established precedent that when 501(c)(3) organizations have “planned activities that violate laws” or engage in activities designed “to induce the commission of a crime or if the accomplishment of the purpose is otherwise against public policy,” the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has grounds to revoke their tax-exempt status. In fact, the IRS has set the precedent that “organizations have been held not to qualify for IRC 501(c)(3) on grounds that the activities of the organizations in question contravened public policy even though the organizations did not violate any federal statutes or state or local laws.”
Internal Revenue Service, 1985 Exempt Organizations Continuing Professional Education Text: J. Activities that Are Illegal or Contrary to Public Policy, 1985 EO CPE (1985), https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopicj85.pdf.
Not to mention the activities discriminate against and violate the civil rights of Jewish students.
The letter also cites a recent lawsuit that claims NSJP collaborated with Hamas and has promoted its messaging in the months since the October 7 attack, including release of a “toolkit” lauding the October 7 invasion and massacre.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/republican-senators-demand-irs-investigate-sponsor-of-students-for-justice-in-palestine/
They crossed the line.
Those regulations themselves are subject to the first amendment. If they’re ever applied in a manner that isn’t viewpoint-neutral then that application will be unconstitutional .
Stating the obvious does not change the fact that the government has the legal authority to exercise discreion on a case by case basis. There’s a big difference between motherhood, apple pie, and supporting Hamas.
Not to mention they crossed the line by collaborating, as indicated, which shoots the indirect defense of the Jew haters right out the window.
It can exercise discretion, but it can’t do so on the basis of viewpoint. How is this hard to understand?
It’s like grants. The government doesn’t have to give any individual a grant, but it can’t deny him one on the basis of the viewpoint he expresses. And if he can prove that was the basis then the courts will order the government to give it to him.
Maybe too hard for you to understand with your black and white, absolutist approach to this and most issues,
Pretending to be authority does not make it so.
You’re the one who’s inexplicably finding it hard to understand that the first amendment overrides all discretionary government decisions; any time a government has discretion, it is subject to not violating the first amendment, by penalizing people for expressing a viewpoint the government doesn’t like.
Another example, in the private sector: In most states you can fire an employee for any reason you like, or for none at all — but not for reasons prohibited by law, such as race, sex, etc. Those laws override your discretion. In exactly the same way the first amendment overrides all government discretion. It can’t deny someone any benefit, no matter how discretionary it is, for the wrong reason.
As always. Leave it Milhouse to try to remind us that our legal system grants our enemies the ability to make our Constitution a suicide pact.
We have met the enemy, and it is us.
As always, AF and a few other people here show how deeply corrupt their characters are, that they think it’s just fine to take positions based on whose ox is gored. How can any adult not understand how evil that is?
Yep. Plenty of organizations with very non mainstream viewpoints/beliefs have applied for and received designations as charitable entities. Until Congress demonstrates the political will to alter the criteria or better yet eliminate the category altogether then organizations with unsavory beliefs will continue to receive and use their tax free status to advance their agenda.
So I agree they have free speech and the material support for a terrorist org means more than speaking in their favor. But what if the terrorist org is financing the demonstrations? paying for signs, tents, flags, those rags around their neck. Isn’t accepting material support from a terrorist org in order to advocate for them illegal?
No, giving terrorists material support is illegal; receiving material support from terrorists isn’t. After all, the result is that the terrorists have less money, not more!
In any case, I can’t see Hamas giving money to rich Americans for any reason; money is supposed to flow to them, not from them!
I don’t think the problem with the NSJP is the speech. I think it is the organized tactics of occupation and intimidation. There is a network and funding support that has clear goals that are not limited to voicing opinions in obnoxious fashion. Material support for these activities is meaningful and is not intended merely for the engagement of speech. Threats, coercion, and de-stabilization appear to be the plan.
These Senators may not be pushing on the right thread, but they may be pushing on the one that’s available to them. These groups clearly should be investigated, as they are intentionally engaging in tactics meant to deprive other citizens of their own rights of speech, movement, and enjoyment of services for which they have paid rather substantially. I do not share your confidence in the FBI. The FBI has not demonstrated itself to be a good faith actor in recent years, and I’m not convinced that the goals of its leadership don’t align with the de-stabilization these encampments are there to promote. We’ve seen far too many cases recently of their releasing of, and covering for, dangerous actors.
Republicans corrupt the IRS. There are too many morons on the right thanks to the crazies on the left, clickbait and virtue signalling.
Milhouse- this is not about forensic accounting; this is election year politics.
Even if the IRS were to immediately and efficiently start an investigation nothing could be accomplished between now and November, and as you point out it’s quite likely nothing actually could or would be discovered. Everyone (who matters) understands that. The hope however is that the IRS will be dumb enough to say “That would take us at least six months and it’s a stupid idea since we probably wouldn’t find anything illegal.”
Republicans would love…that.
It’s how the game is played
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/this-hunter-s-thompson-passage-is-particularly-poignant-in-light-of-that-david-cameron-and-the-pig-story-10510787.html
Jordon will roll up his sleeves and write a strongly worded letter
Probably so. We as voters gotta do a better job in selecting what candidates to support. Some CD are tougher to win than others while some of the most ‘Red’ CD and States keep sending Kabuki Conservatives to DC. What TX CD are you in? My own CD is being redrawn to bring my County into a ‘majority/minority’ CD with roughly 57/43 registration advantage for the d/prog. Gonna be tough to bring home the win for the GoP.
The IRS said they ‘d be willing to do this as long as the names of the organizations had the name
donald trump in them
Been saying for a while that all tax free non profits needs to be done away with. They should all have to pay taxes. That would include churches.
Doubt it’ll ever happen, but for the most part they’re just another scam.
Either it’s all political with a thin veneer of adhering to the tax laws, or they’re set up to pay themselves huge salaries and benefits and pay out some fraction of the donations to skirt the line of the irs.
Not-for-profit organizations, by their nature, have no income over the long term. They might have an income in one year, but it will be balanced by a loss in another year. That’s what not-for-profit means. So what sense does it make to tax them?
That by itself doesn’t really distinguish them from for-profit businesses, most of which fail. They do, however, subsist entirely or substantially from freely given donations rather than an exchange of goods.
I actually don’t believe that any organization should be taxed for engaging in speech or advocacy. My position is that this is a de facto violation of free speech. We confer far too much legitimacy to taxing regimes that did not exist before the taxing of first rental income and then wages.
For-profit businesses are expected to have income every year, and in many cases substantial income that is worth taxing. So it makes sense to tax them. Those that don’t meet this expectation don’t pay tax on their non-existent profits. But non-for-profits are expected to more or less break even, so it makes little sense to make them go through a lot of paperwork and expense just to ensure that they don’t have a little left over at the end of the year..
So you’re in favor of giving government the power to destroy churches & religious organizations.
Why would paying taxes destroy anything? Individuals pay taxes, businesses pay taxes and but still exist.
Now if we want to set strict requirements to retain their tax free status I could work with that. Set limits on salary and benefits for those on staff at these ‘non-profits’ and bring their remuneration in line with the PR BS they pump out ‘oh, we just a charitable organization, don’t tax us b/c we are good/righteous’ meanwhile their executives are pulling down six figure salaries.
Set the top compensation limit at the minimum wage and no benefits if they don’t want to be taxed and we will rapidly discover that the folks who pull down six figure salaries won’t be nearly so charitable with their time as they want to be perceived. Some charities are run in a bare bones way by truly committed folks who volunteer their time to make a difference. Others, including some ‘religious’ charities, have very high compensation. Set a requirement to distribute 85% of contributions/income to the goal of the organization and only 15% max to be used for salaries, expenses.
Finally let’s not forget how the woke, leftists have captured our institutions to include many religious denominations. They then use the prior image of the organization as cover for their efforts. See Boy Scouts, Elite Ivy League Univ. Some of these ‘charitable’ religious entities are actively engaged in supporting human trafficking at our borders.
Any entity operating financially on the margins would be destroyed by it. I know my own neighborhood church couldn’t survive it.
The freedom of religion and speech have already been curtailed rather significantly in churches merely by the threat of taxation if they don’t stay within government-approved bounds. It has been demonstrated very clearly that this stricture is not universally applied and certain churches are allowed to even have government officials politick directly from the pulpit.
if they cant survive w/o it as you state
then its not meant to be
its up to the individuals to keep it going
a smaller church etc
You miss the point that if they’re not making a profit there’s nothing to tax in the first place. The tax-free status of not-for-profits just means that they don’t have to break exactly even every year; they’re allowed to run the occasional surplus, and spend it the next year. But in the long run they don’t make a surplus.
As far as I know the main benefit organizations get from being tax-free is not having to pay real estate taxes to their local government, but that’s not up to the IRS, it’s a matter of state (or sometimes local) law.
should be no such thing as a “tax free” organization
religious etc
if they cant survive w/o it as you state
then its not meant to be
its up to the individuals to keep it going
a smaller church etc
“Not meant to be” makes it sound like cosmic fate, rather than the state killing it off. Why exactly do its assets properly belong to the state? Who gets to make that determination? What stops them from using that power to control or eliminate institutions it doesn’t like?