U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

87–094 PDF 2014

THE IRS TARGETING INVESTIGATION: WHAT IS 

THE ADMINISTRATION DOING? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 6, 2014 

Serial No. 113–85 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on February 6, 2013 ......................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Ms. Catherine Engelbrecht, Founder, King Street Patriots 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 6 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

Ms. Cleta Mitchell, Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18 

Ms. Becky Gerritson, Founder and President, Wetumpka Tea Party, Inc. 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 65 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 67 

Mr. Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 71 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 72 

APPENDIX 

Rep. Cartwright submitted for the record responses from Prof. Green and 

Prof. Richman ....................................................................................................... 120 

Chairman Jordan submitted for the record, Dept. of Justice CFR 45.2 ............. 126 

Chairman Jordan submitted for the record a letter to IRS Commissioner 

Koskinen ............................................................................................................... 127 

Rep. Connolly submitted for the record an OSHA Inspection report .................. 143 

Rep. Duckworth submitted for the record a letter from the Dept of Justice 

to Chairman Issa and Jordan ............................................................................. 161 

Rep. Duckworth submitted for the record, correspondence from Rep. 

Cummings ............................................................................................................. 165 

Rep. Poe submitted for the record a letter to U.S. Atty. General Holder ........... 190 

Rep. Turner, Statement for the record .................................................................. 193 

Rep. Paul Gosar, Opening Statement .................................................................... 195 

(1) 

THE IRS TARGETING INVESTIGATION: WHAT 

IS THE ADMINISTRATION DOING? 

Thursday, February 6, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, JOB CREATION, AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:36 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Jordan [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Jordan, DeSantis, Gosar, DesJarlais, 

Meadows, Bentivolio, Cartwright, Duckworth, Connolly, Horsford, 

and Cummings. 

Also Present: Representatives Gowdy and Poe. 

Staff Present: Will L. Boyington, Deputy Press Secretary; Molly 

Boyl, Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; Lawrence J. 

Brady, Staff Director; David Brewer, Senior Counsel; Drew 

Colliatie, Professional Staff Member; John Cuaderes, Deputy Staff 

Director; Adam P. Fromm, Director of Member Services and Committee Operations; Linda Good, Chief Clerk; Tyler Grimm, Senior 

Professional Staff Member; Christopher Hixon, Chief Counsel for 

Oversight; Michael R. Kiko, Legislative Assistant; Mark D. Marin, 

Deputy Staff Director for Oversight; Katy Rother, Counsel; Laura 

L. Rush, Deputy Chief Clerk; Sarah Vance, Assistant Clerk; Rebecca Watkins, Communications Director; Meghan Berroya, Minority Counsel; Aryele Bradford, Minority Press Secretary; Jennifer 

Hoffman, Minority Communications Director; Adam Koshkin, Minority Research Assistant; Elisa LaNier, Minority Director of Operations; Juan McCullum, Minority Clerk; Dave Rapallo, Minority 

Staff Director; Daniel Roberts, Minority Staff Assistant/Legislative 

Correspondent; and Donald Sherman, Minority Counsel. 

Mr. JORDAN. The committee will come to order. 

I want to welcome our witnesses today. You have to put up with 

a couple of opening statements from myself, Mr. Cartwright, maybe 

Mr. Cummings, and some other members. But then we will swear 

you in and get to your testimony. We want to hear from you just 

as quickly as we can. 

May 10th last year, Lois Lerner, with a planted question at a 

meeting here in town, disclosed that targeting of conservative 

groups took place. She disclosed that even before the Inspector 

General’s report was released. She did that after consulting with 

the chief of staff at the Treasury Department, put him on notice 

that they were going to do it this way, get out in front of this story. 

2 

And she said this. I just want to read from Ms. Lerner’s comments. She disclosed that systematic targeting of Tea Party groups, 

conservative groups had taken place, and she said, ‘‘They used 

names like Tea Party or Patriots, and they selected cases simply 

because the applications had those names in the title. That was 

wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, insensitive, inappropriate. 

This additional scrutiny not only delayed the processing of their applications for a period of years, but also resulted in intrusive questions from the IRS that were far beyond the scope of legitimate inquiry.’’ 

That’s Lois Lerner’s statement. She admitted right when this 

thing first broke that people were targeted based on their conservative beliefs and delayed for years in getting their tax-exempt status. 

Attorney General Holder said this was outrageous and unacceptable. The President said, we will not tolerate this kind of behavior 

in any agency. But 1 month after that, in a hearing in front of the 

Judiciary Committee, then FBI Director Mueller was asked a few 

questions. In fact, I asked him three questions. I said, ‘‘Director 

Mueller, can you tell me who the lead agent is in the case? Can 

you tell me how many agents you have assigned to the case? And 

can you tell me if you have interviewed any of the victims?’’ 

His answer to those three questions: I don’t know. I don’t know. 

I don’t know. Not exactly inspiring much confidence in the type of 

investigation the FBI and the Justice Department were engaged in. 

Just recently, we learned that the person heading the investiga- tion, Barbara Bosserman, gave $6,750 to the Obama campaign and 

to the Democrat National Committee. She is the person heading 

the investigation. Again, we learned this not because the FBI told 

us, not because the Justice Department told us. Current and 

former IRS employees who have been interviewed in the course of 

the administration’s investigation told us that she was the one 

leading the investigation and asking the questions. 

A lady with a financial stake in a specific outcome is heading the 

investigation, a lady who has invested in the President’s success is 

heading the investigation and the President could potentially be a 

target of that investigation, and we are supposed to believe this investigation is credible. 

We invited Ms. Bosserman to come today. We wanted her to be 

sitting there with the people who were victimized by the IRS. I 

sent two letters. Mrs. Bosserman didn’t respond back to me. Instead, Mr. Cole, deputy assistant attorney general, did. In fact, he 

sent me two letters within 5 days. Within the last 10 days we got 

those letters. In fact, Mr. Cole was in front of the Judiciary Committee just 2 days ago and I had a chance to question him and ask 

him those same three questions. Can you tell me who the lead 

agent is? You say it is a team, and not Ms. Bosserman, as we understand it to be. Can you tell me who is on the team? Can you 

tell me if you interviewed any of the victims? And his answers were 

the same as Mr. Mueller’s clear back in the summer of 2013. 

In those two letters Mr. Cole said that this was an ongoing investigation. In fact, he said it seven times, ongoing investigation. And 

yet, to my knowledge, no victims have been interviewed by the FBI 

or the Justice Department. Ongoing investigation, and yet the Wall 

3 

Street Journal through leaked sources has reported that no one is 

going to be recommended for prosecution. Ongoing investigation, 

and yet the President of the United States can go on national television on a day when a lot of people watch television, and say, 

‘‘There is not a smidgeon of corruption in the IRS targeting scandal.’’ 

So here we are today. Ms. Bosserman won’t come. The FBI won’t 

answer any questions. The President said it is over. The Wall 

Street Journal reports that it is over. So we thought what we 

would do today is allow people who were victimized by the Internal 

Revenue Service to come tell their story. 

The FBI may not want to interview you, Ms. Engelbrecht and 

Ms. Gerritson, but this committee does. Our witnesses these morning, Catherine Engelbrecht and Becky Gerritson, experienced the 

IRS targeting firsthand in the course of trying to exercise their 

First Amendment rights to make our country a better place for 

their neighbors and friends. They were harassed at the hands of 

their very government. In addition to the IRS, Ms. Engelbrecht was 

scrutinized by the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and OSHA. 

Ms. Engelbrecht and Ms. Gerritson, we recognize and we deeply 

appreciate the courage that it takes for you to come here and testify today. Both Ms. Engelbrecht and Ms. Gerritson have also counsel present with them today, Ms. Cleta Mitchell and Mr. Jay 

Sekulow. These fine attorneys are also experts in the nonprofit 

field and represent dozens of clients that were mistreated by the 

Internal Revenue Service. In this capacity they will be able to shed 

light on the process and the abnormalities of the treatment faced 

by conservative groups. 

Hopefully this morning’s hearing advances the committee’s interest in getting closer to the truth, which is when I am out and about 

Ohio and across the country, I get that question more than anything else. We want to know the truth, and we want people held 

accountable. I get it all the time. Is that going to happen? And I 

tell those people, we are going to do everything we can to get to 

the truth and hold people accountable. 

And here is why it is so important. I will finish here and recognize Mr. Cartwright. When the Founders put together the First 

Amendment and all of the rights that are contained—freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech— 

when they talked about freedom of speech, the most important aspect of freedom of speech is your right to political speech, your 

right to criticize your government. And that is the very thing that 

the IRS attacked. And that is why this hearing and this subject is 

so important, and that’s why I’m pleased to have the witnesses we 

have with us today. 

With that, I would yield to the ranking member, Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I have noted in previous hearings of this committee, I also am 

deeply troubled regarding IRS employees’ improper handling of applications for tax-exempt status, a handling that pervades the 

American political spectrum and includes, obviously, right-wing 

groups and also left-wing groups, and we will talk about that in a 

moment. But since the chairman has just raised it, including alleVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:20 Mar 26, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87094.TXT APRIL
4 

gations about attorney Barbara Bosserman, I want to address that 

right away. 

Part of the premise of this hearing, as I understand it, is that 

Chairman Jordan and the witnesses have concerns about the Department of Justice’s investigation of the IRS for the improper 

treatment of tax-exempt organizations. Chairman Jordan has 

claimed that the investigation has, ‘‘the appearance of a substantial 

and material conflict of interest.’’ Now, he has made that claim because a career prosecutor, who is one of at least 13 DOJ and FBI 

employees involved in the investigation, made political donations to 

the DNC and the President’s campaign. 

But I’m here to tell you, we have consulted with legal experts, 

and they have flatly rejected Chairman Jordan’s interpretation of 

the law. One such expert is Professor Bruce Green of Fordham 

University Law School, who for the last 27 years has taught 

courses relating to legal ethics and criminal law and procedure, including a seminar on ethics in criminal advocacy. Professor Green 

also served as associate counsel in the office of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, who prosecuted individuals during the IranContra affair and later served as an appointee of then New York 

City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. 

Professor Green explained that under the prevailing legal and 

ethical understandings, ‘‘This scenario does not constitute a conflict 

of interest.’’ Professor Green added more pointedly, ‘‘A career prosecutor assigned to investigate a Federal official would not have a 

conflict of interest simply because the prosecutor contributed to one 

or the other party or to one or the other presidential candidate.’’ 

Professor Green furthermore explained, quote, ‘‘Because political 

donations are not a relevant consideration in making assignments, 

that is, case assignments, it would not be appropriate for the Department of Justice leadership to check career prosecutors’ political 

donations before assigning them to an investigation.’’ 

I ask unanimous consent to enter the responses from Professor 

Green, as well as the statement of Columbia University Professor 

Daniel Richman, into the record. 

Mr. JORDAN. Without objection. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And I would remind committee members that 

the Hatch Act is within this committee’s jurisdiction, and that in 

it Congress explicitly states, ‘‘It is the policy of Congress that employees should be encouraged to exercise fully, freely, and without 

fear of penalty or reprisal, and to the extent not expressly prohibited by law, their right to participate or to refrain from participating in the political processes of this Nation.’’ 

Calling this line attorney, not a political appointee, but a career 

civil servant, in to testify in public about an ongoing investigation 

and to accuse her of being politically biased because she was exercising her right to participate in the democratic process of this Nation is unacceptable. 

I will be happy to hear from the appropriate person at the Department of Justice after the investigation is completed. And I 

thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

5 

I would also ask unanimous consent to put into the record 28 

CFR 45.2, Disqualification Arising from Personal or Political Relations from the Department of Justice of Ethical Rules. I will just 

quote before entering it into the record: ‘‘The employee’s participation should not create an appearance of a conflict of interest likely 

to affect the public perception of the integrity of the investigation 

or prosecution.’’ 

I would just remind my friend from Pennsylvania that it says, 

‘‘likely to affect the public perception of the integrity.’’ Significantly 

less than 1 percent of the population contributes that kind of 

money to a political campaign. There are 10,000 employees of the 

Justice Department. You would think they could find someone else, 

and you would think Ms. Bosserman would look at this and say, 

you know what, maybe I should recuse myself and not head up an 

investigation. 

So I would ask that this be entered into the record as well. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Without objection. 

Mr. JORDAN. And would now call on the gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Poe—I need to do another unanimous consent—that our colleague from Texas, Mr. Poe, be allowed to participate in today’s 

hearing. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Without objection. 

Mr. JORDAN. So ordered. And Mr. Poe is recognized. 

Mr. POE. Thank the chairman. 

Catherine Engelbrecht is a friend of mine from Houston, and 

King Street Patriots is in my district. I have come to know her because her and her husband are small business owners. They are 

just trying to make a living in America. 

And she started King Street Patriots, and she also started True 

The Vote because she was very concerned about voter corruption in 

Texas. She found it through the use of public records. And so she 

started those two programs, a citizen active. As soon as she gets 

active in these two programs, primarily True The Vote, trying to 

make our voter process fair, with integrity, she gets harassed by 

the Federal Government of the United States. 

Harassment, what does that mean? First, the FBI came to see 

her; questioned her about some of the people that are attending her 

meetings. And she had numerous meetings with the FBI, including 

the fact that the FBI would sit in the King Street Patriot meetings. 

But that wasn’t all. She was visited OSHA. She was visited by the 

EPA, or the Texas equivalent to the EPA doing an investigation. 

She was visited by the ATF, and harassed by the ATF. And of 

course she was harassed by the IRS on numerous occasions. 

All she wanted was what every other organization that is trying 

to exercise the First Amendment wants and deserves, is a tax exempt. And because of that, as the chairman has said, the right to 

exercise the First Amendment is there primarily so that citizens 

can criticize government and not be afraid of government harassing 

them through their use of government administrative bureaucrats. 

All of these things happened to her. FBI, OSHA, EPA, ATF, IRS 

harassed her because of exercising her First Amendment right. 

And I appreciate the fact that the witnesses are here to tell us 

how government oppressed them for exercising that. And I will 

yield back to the chairman. Thank you. 

6 

Mr. JORDAN. Anyone else? All righty, we will move to our witnesses. We have with us today Ms. Catherine Engelbrecht, is the 

founder of the King Street Patriots and True The Vote. Ms. Cleta 

Mitchell is a partner in Foley & Lardner, and Ms. Becky Gerritson, 

is president of the Wetumpka TEA Party, and Mr. Jay Sekulow, 

chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. So will you please stand up, raise your right 

hand? Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help you God? 

Let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

I think you know how this works. You get approximately 5 minutes to make your statement, and we will be a little bit flexible 

with that. But, Ms. Engelbrecht, we will go right down the line. So 

we will start with you, Catherine, and you are recognized. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF CATHERINE ENGELBRECHT 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, members 

of the committee. My name is Catherine Engelbrecht. 

Mr. JORDAN. Catherine, hit the—— 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, 

members of the committee. My name is Catherine Engelbrecht and 

I’m the chairwoman of True The Vote, a nonprofit election integrity 

organization; the founder of King Street Patriots, a citizen-led liberty group; and president of Engelbrecht Manufacturing. Thank 

you for this opportunity to share my story with you today, though 

at the outset it must be said that it is a story with a central theme 

that is shared by countless thousands of other Americans who have 

not yet been heard from, though I pray that they will be. 

It must be made publicly known that across this country citizens 

just like me are being targeted by an administration willing to take 

any action necessary to silence opposition. I am an average American who prior to 2009 had never been active in the processes of 

government, but after volunteering to work in the polls in Texas 

in the 2009 elections, I saw fundamental procedural problems that 

I felt couldn’t go unaddressed. So I started True The Vote, an organization that grew into a national movement to ensure that every 

American voter has an opportunity to participate in elections that 

are free and fair. 

My life before I got involved and spoke out for good government 

stands in stark contrast to the life I now lead. As a wife, a mother, 

a small business woman working with my husband, raising our 

children, and participating in my church and PTA, the government 

collected my taxes and left me and my family in peace. But once 

I helped found True The Vote and King Street Patriots I found myself a target of this Federal Government. 

Shortly after filing IRS forms to establish 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) taxexempt organizations, an assortment of Federal entities, including 

law enforcement agencies and Congressman Cummings, came 

knocking at my door. In nearly two decades of running our small 

business my husband and I never dealt with any government agenVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:20 Mar 26, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87094.TXT APRIL
7 

cy outside of filing our annual tax returns. We had never been audited. We had never been investigated. But all that changed upon 

submitting applications for the nonprofit statuses of True The Vote 

and King Street. 

Since that filling in 2010, my private businesses, my nonprofit 

organizations, my family, and I have been subjected to more than 

15 instances of audit or inquiry by Federal agencies. In 2011 my 

personal and business tax returns were audited by the Internal 

Revenue Service, each audit going back for a number of years. In 

2012, my business was subjected to inspection by OSHA on a select 

occasion when neither my husband or I were present, and though 

the agency wrote that it found nothing serious or significant, it still 

issued fines in excess of $20,000. 

In 2012 and again in 2013, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 

Firearms conducted comprehensive audits at my place of business, 

and beginning in 2010 the FBI contacted my nonprofit organization 

on six separate occasions wanting to cull through membership 

manifests in conjunction with domestic terrorism cases. They eventually dropped all matters and have now redacted nearly all my 

files. 

All of these incursions into my affairs began after filing applications for tax exemption. There is no other remarkable event. There 

is no other reason to explain how for decades I went unnoticed, but 

now find myself on the receiving end of interagency coordination 

into and against all facets of my life, both personal and private. 

Bear in mind, distinguished ladies and gentlemen of this subcommittee, these events were occurring while the IRS was subjecting me to multiple rounds of abusive inquiry with requests to 

provide every Facebook and Twitter I had ever posted, questions 

about my political aspirations, and demands to know the names of 

groups that I had spoken with, the content of what I had said, and 

everywhere I intended to speak in the coming year. 

The answers to these sorts of questions are not of interest to the 

typical IRS analyst, but they are certainly of interest to a political 

machine that would put its own survival against the civil liberties 

of a private citizen. 

This government attacked me because of my political beliefs, but 

I refuse to be cast as a victim; not to the IRS; not to the FBI; not 

to OSHA; not to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or 

to any other government agency. I am not a victim, because a victim has no options. I do have options. And I intend to use them 

to the fullest extent of my capabilities. 

As an American citizen I am part of a country that still believes 

in freedom of speech, and so I will continue to speak out. Here in 

Congress and all across this country, I will continue to press in 

every legal way possible, as I did by filing suit against the Internal 

Revenue Service. No American citizen should be willing to accept 

a government that uses its power against its own people. 

After all of the tyranny and all of the things that have been to 

my organizations, to my family, and to me, many people would 

quit. And, Mr. Chairman, many Americans have quit. I have heard 

over and over that people are afraid to tell their stories. But know 

this: My experience at the hands of this government in the last 5 

years have made me more determined ever than before to stand beVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:20 Mar 26, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87094.TXT APRIL
8 

fore you and to all of America and say that I will not retreat, I will 

not surrender, I will not be intimidated, and I will not ask for permission to exercise my constitutional rights. 

I come before you today, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Americans 

just like me asking for a solution to end this ugly chapter of political intimidation. There was a time when people of goodwill were 

encouraged to participate in the processes of government, not targeted because of it. 

I applaud your request of the Internal Revenue Service to withdraw a proposed regulation limiting political speech by nonprofit 

organizations. That action should be taken quickly and without 

fail, because if it is not, it will effectively codify into law the very 

thing that brings me here today. If those regulations pass, nonprofit organizations across the country will be destroyed. No American, regardless of their political affiliation, should support the silencing of political speech. 

Beyond ending the proposed IRS regulations, I ask you, I implore 

you as representatives to the people of this great Nation to pass 

a law that protects all citizens of this country from the increasing 

use of such abusive practices. Pass a law that exposes government 

officials who trample on the rights of ordinary citizens. Do not 

allow them to continue to cower behind a veil of secrecy, abuse, unethical and unfair behavior. Send the President a bill that makes 

public, at the option of persons and entities regulated, all communication between government agencies and those they regulate. No 

restricted, redacted, selectively release, files. Give us a truly transparent process. Protect the people. Restore liberty to the people, because we will not be silenced. 

Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Chairman, and the committee’s members. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Ms. Engelbrecht. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Engelbrecht follows:] 

9 


Insert offset folio 1 here 87094.001
10 


Insert offset folio 2 here 87094.002
11 


Insert offset folio 3 here 87094.003
12 


Insert offset folio 4 here 87094.004
13 


Insert offset folio 5 here 87094.005
14 


Insert offset folio 6 here 87094.006
15 

Mr. JORDAN. And God bless you. And again, we appreciate you 

being here today. 

You referenced a proposed rule. I would like to enter into the 

record a letter that Chairman Issa and I sent to the new Commissioner of the IRS, John Koskinen, 2 days ago, where we highlight 

some of the things you have referenced in your testimony; specifically, how this rule was being prepared long before the TIGTA report came into existence and how Lois Lerner was integrally involved in putting this rule together. And so I would ask, with 

unanimous consent, to enter this into the record. Without objection 

that will take place. 

Ms. Mitchell, you are now recognized. 

STATEMENT OF CLETA MITCHELL 

Ms. MITCHELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear here 

today. 

I’m a practicing attorney, and I deal with the IRS and have dealt 

with the IRS on a daily basis for many, many years. What I do is 

I help people obtain the tax-exempt status or to fit their activities 

within the proper section of the Tax Code depending on what it is 

they want to do. I want to make three primary points here today. 

I will be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time. 

First, the IRS scandal is real. It’s not pretend. It’s real. Number 

two, the IRS scandal is not just a boneheaded bunch of bureaucrats 

in some remote office, contrary to what the President of the United 

States told the American people on Sunday. And number three, the 

IRS scandal is not over. It is continuing to this day, and the Department of Justice investigation is a sham. It is a nonexistent investigation. 

With regard to point number one, let me tell you in one sentence 

what the IRS scandal is. The IRS, at the direction of some political 

elites in Washington, not in Cincinnati, but Washington, took what 

had been for decades a process of reviewing applications for exempt 

status that for a 501(c)(4) organization could be expected to take 

3 to 4 weeks. And they converted that process into one that took 

3 to 4 years and in some cases is still not over. 

Number two, the line agents in the IRS had their work disrupted 

and halted by Washington. In 2010, True The Vote filed its application for (c)(3) status and did not obtain that (c)(3) until we sued the 

IRS. So in September they granted it. People shouldn’t have to sue 

to get their tax-exempt status. 

And when Lois Lerner and President Obama accused line agents 

in Cincinnati of being responsible, ladies and gentlemen, that is a 

lie. And I knew when Lois Lerner said that in May of 2010, when 

she admitted that it was happening, after we knew it was happening, it is sort of like we knew we were targeted, it’s just that 

she finally admitted it, but I knew it hadn’t happened in Cincinnati 

because the first time I really became aware of this was with a 

group that I represent. We filed for tax-exempt status in October 

of 2009. And besides cashing our check for our filing fee, we did 

not hear from the IRS again until June of 2010. And we didn’t hear 

from Cincinnati; we heard from Washington. 

16 

That group did one thing. It lobbied against Obamacare in the 

fall of 2009 and the spring of 2010, something that a 501(c)(4) organization is permitted to spend 100 percent of its program expenditures doing. We did not get the tax-exempt status for that organization until July of 2013. 

When I took on the representation of Catherine Engelbrecht and 

her two organizations in the fall of 2011, this is now a year after 

she has sent her application to the IRS, and she has heard nothing, 

and when I talked to the assigned agent in Cincinnati in October 

of 2011, saying we are going to supplement the application to try 

to help make it easier for you to process, he told me at the time, 

oh, there’s a task force in Washington, we can’t do anything until 

we hear back from Washington. 

Number three, this scandal is not over. The lying has not 

stopped. I represent one Tea Party group, Tea Party Patriots, who 

applied in December of 2010. They still don’t have their (c)(4) status. There are lies upon lies in this ugly episode. The Commissioner of the IRS lied to Congress, lied, I believe it was this committee in March of 2012, or April of 2012, when he said there was 

no targeting. 

How many communications from the IRS to Members of Congress who inquired about the status of applications and whether 

there was targeting, how many communications were there in 

which agents of the IRS told Congress that there was no targeting? 

Those are lies. Lying to Congress is a crime. 

The Department of Justice has refused to investigate who it was 

who was responsible for releasing the confidential tax information 

of Koch Industries to the President’s economic advisor who, in 

turned, released it to the press. Or who released the National Organization of Marriage’s tax return? I represent NAM. We have 

sued the IRS to try to get to the bottom of why our confidential tax 

information was made available to our political opponents. 

Where is the FBI in investigating? That is a criminal offense. It 

is a criminal offense to have also for the IRS to release the confidential donor information of the Texas Public Policy Foundation 

and the Republican Governors’ Public Policy Council, conservative 

organizations whose donor information was released by the IRS. 

That’s a criminal offense. Who is investigating that? 

And then finally, again, it is a felony to lie to a Federal agency. 

And yet, the IRS on the day after Thanksgiving in proposing these 

regulations, the agent from the IRS who transmitted those proposed regulations in the formal publication says that there are no 

related documents. That’s what it says on the Web site: related 

documents, none. Yet, I have submitted a FOIA request on behalf 

of the Tea Party Patriots for the underlying background documents, and they said, we can’t get you all those documents until 

April. The public comment period closes February 27th. So there 

are no documents, but it will take them until April to get them to 

us. That’s a lie. 

And they also lied when they transmitted those regulations and 

said that the purpose of the regulations, the genesis was the 

TIGTA report. 

There are too many lies, Mr. Chairman. It’s time to get to the 

truth. It’s time for the FBI to investigate those criminal acts. And 

17 

it’s time for the IRS to cooperate as we try to get to the truth of 

why it’s happened and how to make it stop. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Ms. Mitchell. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Mitchell follows:] 

18 


Insert offset folio 7 here 87094.007
19 


Insert offset folio 8 here 87094.008
20 


Insert offset folio 9 here 87094.009
21 


Insert offset folio 10 here 87094.010
22 


Insert offset folio 11 here 87094.011
23 


Insert offset folio 12 here 87094.012
24 


Insert offset folio 13 here 87094.013
25 


Insert offset folio 14 here 87094.014
26 


Insert offset folio 15 here 87094.015
27 


Insert offset folio 16 here 87094.016
28 


Insert offset folio 17 here 87094.017
29 


Insert offset folio 18 here 87094.018
30 


Insert offset folio 19 here 87094.019
31 


Insert offset folio 20 here 87094.020
32 


Insert offset folio 21 here 87094.021
33 


Insert offset folio 22 here 87094.022
34 


Insert offset folio 23 here 87094.023
35 


Insert offset folio 24 here 87094.024
36 


Insert offset folio 25 here 87094.025
37 


Insert offset folio 26 here 87094.026
38 


Insert offset folio 27 here 87094.027
39 


Insert offset folio 28 here 87094.028
40 


Insert offset folio 29 here 87094.029
41 


Insert offset folio 30 here 87094.030
42 


Insert offset folio 31 here 87094.031
43 


Insert offset folio 32 here 87094.032
44 


Insert offset folio 33 here 87094.033
45 


Insert offset folio 34 here 87094.034
46 


Insert offset folio 35 here 87094.035
47 


Insert offset folio 36 here 87094.036
48 


Insert offset folio 37 here 87094.037
49 


Insert offset folio 38 here 87094.038
50 


Insert offset folio 39 here 87094.039
51 


Insert offset folio 40 here 87094.040
52 


Insert offset folio 41 here 87094.041
53 


Insert offset folio 42 here 87094.042
54 


Insert offset folio 43 here 87094.043
55 


Insert offset folio 44 here 87094.044
56 


Insert offset folio 45 here 87094.045
57 


Insert offset folio 46 here 87094.046
58 


Insert offset folio 47 here 87094.047
59 


Insert offset folio 48 here 87094.048
60 


Insert offset folio 49 here 87094.049
61 


Insert offset folio 50 here 87094.050
62 


Insert offset folio 51 here 87094.051
63 


Insert offset folio 52 here 87094.052
64 


Insert offset folio 53 here 87094.053
65 

Mr. JORDAN. Ms. Gerritson. 

STATEMENT OF BECKY GERRITSON 

Ms. GERRITSON. Thank you so much for inviting me here to 

speak. I can’t tell you how much I do appreciate you holding this 

hearing. 

Unfortunately, I’m not here to carry a message of joy or thanksgiving. I’m in absolute grief for my beloved country. Eight months 

ago, I along with five other victims, eloquently laid out our cases 

about the IRS abuses in a committee just like this. And at that 

hearing, we learned details about the IRS leaking confidential 

donor information to opposition groups. When proven, this is a felony. We learned of serious constitutional violations of the First and 

Fifth Amendments. We witnessed multiple violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as violations of the Internal Revenue Code. 

Lois Lerner outright lied to the American people, blaming the 

scandal on a few rogue agents in Cincinnati, knowing full well that 

the targeting involved IRS offices across the country, including her 

very own office in Washington, D.C. Lois Lerner took the Fifth for 

a reason. Government employees don’t go rogue en masse. Their orders originate somewhere. 

Yet even with all of these known violations of the law, no one 

has been blamed, shamed, fired, arrested, or brought to justice. 

And because of that, I have to ask, how many people in Congress 

are taking this seriously? 

Since my last testimony in Congress, I still have not been contacted by the FBI. The FBI told The Wall Street Journal that no 

one would be charged with a crime. Yet they haven’t even interviewed the witnesses. Are you going to let them get away with 

this? If so, then I must say it again, my government has forgotten 

its place. It appears that many in Washington fear regular citizens 

standing up for constitutional, limited government. 

Why in America is it now considered a threat to our government 

to study the founding documents and to advocate for responsible 

spending? Why is giving out copies of the Constitution, discussing 

pending legislation, or even creating legislative score cards a threat 

to this administration? Obviously, these activities are viewed as 

subversive to their agenda. Otherwise they wouldn’t have tried to 

stop us. 

In my previous testimony, I explained that our application was 

complete and accurate. We easily qualified for a 501(c)(4) status. 

Yet, that did not stop the IRS from demanding information they 

were not entitled to, unconstitutional requests that violated even 

their own rules. 

The information they demanded from us had nothing to do with 

our tax status. Why must the IRS know who is coming to our meetings? Why did they need to have copies of every speech ever given 

and the credentials of those speakers? Why did they need to know 

who our donors were? There is clearly something wrong with this. 

The IRS’ targeting of the Wetumpka TEA Party and other conservative and religious groups is profoundly disturbing. I’m offended that a Member of Congress, of the United States Senate, 

would continually request the IRS to go after Americans like me 

66 

because they do not agree with our values. This is unprecedented. 

Never before has the Federal Government tried to muzzle everyday 

Americans solely because of their political view. The governments 

of Third World nations intimidate and harass dissenting citizens. 

It does not happen in the land of the free until recently. 

It’s shocking. It’s pathetic. It’s infuriating and depressing. But 

most troubling of all, is Congress has not stopped this. It’s actually 

gotten worse. During these past 8 months Congress has quietly sat 

by while the IRS has proposed to cover up their targeting by rewriting the rules for 501(c)(4)s, rules which are an ardent attempt 

to shut us down completely. One of our most sacred fundamental 

rights in this country is freedom of speech, but the IRS under this 

administration wants to strike out 226 years of history with a keystroke. 

Under these new rules we are not allowed to use the words oppose, vote, support, defeat, or reject. We’re not allowed to mention 

on our Web site or in any communication that would reach over 

500 people even the name of a candidate who is running 30 days 

before a primary or 60 days before a general election. We are not 

allowed to mention the name of a political party if they have a candidate running for 60 days before an election. No more voter registration drives, no more conducting nonpartisan get out the vote 

drives, no creating or distributing voter guides outlining incumbents’ voting records. We can’t even host candidates for debates or 

forums less than 60 days before a general election. Our officers and 

our leaders cannot speak publicly about incumbents, legislation, 

and/or voting records without jeopardizing our tax status. 

Does this sound like the land of the free or the home of the brave 

to you? 

The political targeting carried out by the IRS is a fundamental 

transformation of the America that we all grew up in. Like Catherine, I am not here as a victim because I refuse to be a victim. 

I am a born-free American woman, and these abuses of power put 

all Americans’ liberties at risk. Our government is using its agencies as weapons against its own citizens, and history shows that 

unaddressed abuses of power lead to greater abuses of power. 

I, along with my fellow Americans, are looking to you on this 

committee to restore the faith that you really do represent us. We 

implore you to use the full force of the law to stop these abuses immediately and to bring to justice not only those who gave the orders, but all who helped carry them out. I want the Federal Government to know and the IRS to know that you will not divide us, 

you will not conquer us, and we will not be silenced. 

Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Ms. Gerritson. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Gerritson follows:] 

67 


Insert offset folio 54 here 87094.054
68 


Insert offset folio 55 here 87094.055
69 


Insert offset folio 56 here 87094.056
70 


Insert offset folio 57 here 87094.057
71 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Sekulow. 

STATEMENT OF JAY SEKULOW 

Mr. SEKULOW. Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Cartwright, 

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the 

American Center for Law and Justice, thank you for allowing me 

to participate in today’s hearing. I represent 41 organizations that 

have filed a Federal lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. 

My first job out of law school, a long time ago, was with the Office 

of Chief Counsel of the IRS. I was a trial lawyer for Chief Counsel’s 

Office. I’m proud of that heritage in my legal career. I am disappointed and dismayed with what the IRS is doing even today. 

I have prepared comments. I would like those to be made part 

of the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Sekulow follows:] 

72 


Insert offset folio 58 here 87094.058
73 


Insert offset folio 59 here 87094.059
74 


Insert offset folio 60 here 87094.060
75 


Insert offset folio 61 here 87094.061
76 


Insert offset folio 62 here 87094.062
77 


Insert offset folio 63 here 87094.063
78 


Insert offset folio 64 here 87094.064
79 


Insert offset folio 65 here 87094.065
80 


Insert offset folio 66 here 87094.066
81 

Mr. SEKULOW. I’m going to deviate from those for a moment because of a recent revelation. But before I do that, Mr. Cartwright, 

I would like to give you some information about the progressive 

versus conservative groups that were targeted, and indeed there 

were some progressive groups that were put in this list. However, 

this is the IRS’ own statistics through July 29th of last year. 

One hundred and four conservative organizations, according to 

the IRS, were targeted. They were asked 1,552 questions. The average question per group was 15. That did not include the subparts. 

Forty-eight were approved, which is an overall approval rating of 

only 46 percent. Indeed, seven progressive groups somehow got 

caught up in this dragnet because of their names. They were asked 

a total of 33 questions, or 4.7 questions per organization. Seven of 

them were approved. That’s 100 percent. 

This wasn’t an equal opportunity discrimination. This was targeted discrimination coming from the Internal Revenue Service. 

And what I would like to address now is that our view is that that 

determination came from the highest ranks of the Internal Revenue Service. 

Just yesterday it was brought to the public’s attention that an 

email had been sent by Lois Lerner, the former head of Tax Exempt. She pled the Fifth Amendment. Based on the evidence that 

came out yesterday, if I was her lawyer I would have told her to 

plead the Fifth Amendment also, and here is why. 

An email from Lois Lerner was sent, with Ruth Madrigal from 

the Office of Tax Policy, United States Department of the Treasury, 

it went to Janine Cook, deputy division counsel and associate chief 

counsel of the IRS Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division. 

It went to Victoria Judson, division counsel, associate chief counsel, 

Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division. It went to Nancy 

J. Marks, division counsel and associate chief counsel for Tax Exempt and Government Entities, and a senior advisor who conducted a probe—for Steven Miller, by the way—with Holly Paz into 

the impropriety months before this email. 

What was this email? It was an email that, we will work, ‘‘off 

plan to devise rules to curtail the activities of 501(c)(4) organizations.’’ Off plan. That’s very different from saying two rogue agents 

in Cincinnati. So if I was Lois Lerner’s attorney, I would have told 

her to plead the Fifth Amendment, too, because there is serious liability. 

With regard to the facts of this case, we have 41 clients. Late in 

December I was contacted by the United States Department of Justice, the FBI, and Ms. Bosserman was on the call as well. They had 

requested at that point that they might want to after the first of 

the year interview 3 of our 41 clients. They said they would get 

back with us after the first of the year. They did. And about the 

same day they got back with us, of course the announcement about 

Ms. Bosserman’s political contributions was made public, and that 

was followed up by a statement to The Wall Street Journal by an 

FBI source that there was indeed no criminal investigation. 

My office’s comment back—and by the way, the lawyer in my office that is tasked with dealing with the FBI on this is a former 

assistant United States attorney—if there is no criminal investigaVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:20 Mar 26, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87094.TXT APRIL
82 

tion, why do you need to speak to our clients? No comment. They 

said they will not discuss the ongoing investigation. 

The next question, which I think is a very serious one, is the fact 

that the FBI in desiring to speak with our client, we raised the 

concern of Barbara Bosserman. And, Mr. Cartwright, again, with 

due respect, it is not because of her capabilities as a lawyer. I’m 

sure she’s a fine lawyer. She’s a career lawyer. You cited an ethics 

rule. And then Chairman Jordan, you cited the real rule. The obligation is not on the Department of Justice for something like this. 

It is on the lawyer. 

Mr. JORDAN. Sure, sure. Exactly. 

Mr. SEKULOW. The lawyer has to avoid the appearance of impropriety. And if you are heading up the investigation—and we are assuming she is, no one has ever been very clear on that—you can’t 

head up the investigation in an impartial method if the public 

thinks there is an even potential for bias or an inappropriate position. 

It was very simple for the Department of Justice to solve this. 

They didn’t have to go in and ask for her political position. She has 

the affirmative obligation to tell her supervisor, I could be compromised in this, it would be best if someone maybe from Public 

Corruption took a look at it. I’m just saying that for the record so 

that we are clear on the evidence. 

But what we have right now, in the few moment I have got left, 

Mr. Chairman, is—— 

Mr. JORDAN. She could have said that and the Department says, 

no, we want you to head the investigation. That is my hunch. 

Mr. SEKULOW. That’s why I’m saying that I don’t want to impugn 

her integrity. I don’t think it’s fair to do that because I don’t know 

what statements she made. 

Mr. JORDAN. I agree. I agree. 

Mr. SEKULOW. But she did have the obligation. 

But let me say this: The IRS attempt now to change the rules 

falls on two systematic problems. Number one, you don’t get to 

change the rules for a post hoc justification of your prior bad and 

illegal conduct, number one. And number two, remember that the 

Acting Commissioner, when this first broke, proposed a scenario 

where he would do a 40 percent self-certification to grant exemptions to these (c)(4) organizations if they would self-certify that no 

more than 40 percent of their activity was deemed political. 

Now, my clients did not exercise that. But if some client of some 

lawyer did exercise that, because there were over 300 of these 

groups that were targeted, if they did exercise that how would you 

like to be the lawyer that told their client to exercise the 40 percent rule and then 9 weeks later, the IRS say, and by the way, 40 

percent, we have just changed the definition of political activity. 

You don’t get to change the rules in the middle of the game to justify your bad behavior. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Sekulow, we appreciate that. 

Recognize the vice chair of the committee, Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the witnesses. 

83 

You know, this targeting issue is obviously very concerning, but 

understanding the government being what it is, understanding 

human nature, people are apt to abuse their power. What is even 

more concerning for me is that once you have an admission of that, 

once you have somebody taking the Fifth Amendment, there is zero 

interest in rectifying any of this. And what the IRS has done, what 

the FBI has done, the Justice Department, I mean, I agree with 

the witnesses, this is just a total sham and the American people 

are not getting answers. 

Ms. Engelbrecht, you mention in your statement, but I just think 

it should bear repeating, you had 20 years in business, zero issues 

with any agencies. You file for King Street and for True The Vote 

for status, and you are visited by how many different agencies? 

Which ones? FBI? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. The FBI, the IRS. 

Mr. DESANTIS. IRS. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. 

Mr. DESANTIS. ATF. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. OSHA. 

Mr. DESANTIS. OSHA. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. And Texas’ sort of branch of the EPA. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Now, and you have mentioned, I think very eloquently, that you are going to keep fighting, and I see that, obviously. But when you have to deal with this, I mean, you have a 

business, you have other things, you are trying to impact the country in a positive direction, when you have to deal with these agencies like this, it makes you less effective in pursuing your message. 

It has to. Am I right in saying that? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. It certainly gives one pause to think that 

there is interagency collusion against private citizens. It is the 

weaponization of government. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And do you think that people similarly situated 

to you may look at what happens to people who speak out, and 

they may just decide, look, I don’t want to deal with that. And so 

I’m going to just remain silent because I don’t want to buy myself 

problems. In other words, this type of targeting can chill political 

speech. Do you think that is true? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. That’s absolutely the case. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Ms. Gerritson, what was the IRS asking you to 

provide? It seems like these were very invasive and intrusive questions. 

Ms. GERRITSON. They sent me a list of approximately 80 questions. It was an eight-page document. Some of the questions they 

asked they wanted to know all of my members’ names. They wanted to know volunteers’ names. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Which by the way, I mean, we already know Lois 

Lerner has disclosed tax information, that she got caught red-handed in an email, so this stuff is supposed to be confidential, but we 

know that a lot of times it is not kept confidential. So continue. 

Ms. GERRITSON. They wanted to have copies of every speech that 

was ever given. They wanted credentials of who those speakers 

were. They wanted to know if any of our members or volunteers 

were going to run for office, and if so, what office. Remember, this 

was the 2012 election cycle when we got this questionnaire. They 

84 

wanted to know any communications that I have had with any legislative body, even within my own representative. They wanted 

emails, phone contact. They wanted to know what I was saying to 

my legislator. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So I will ask a similar question for you. Just seeing that, a lot of people getting involved in politics for the first 

time, you are seeing all these questions, do you think that some 

people just look at that, and say, I don’t want to have to deal with 

this? In other words, does this cause some people to silence themselves. 

Ms. GERRITSON. Absolutely. We have a group in Alabama who 

said they got their letter and said, we are not going to do this, and 

they stopped. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Ms. Mitchell, do you agree with Mr. Sekulow, this 

idea that, oh, well, they were targeting everybody, liberal groups 

as well, you know, that is false in your judgment, correct? 

Ms. MITCHELL. It is absolutely false. The records don’t substantiate that, and I know that that is one of the things that people 

have been using since last summer as a means of trying to discredit or to thwart the investigation. I will give you one example. 

There was a report that was published in USA Today last September which was an internal IRS document that listed 162 organizations that were on the watch list or development list at the IRS. 

And I think the number that was calculated was 83 percent of 

them were conservative. I’ll give you the example. This was a document prepared in November 2011. King Street Patriots is listed on 

there and it says on the report likely approval. November of 2011, 

likely approval. 

Also on that list is one of the few liberal groups, Progress Texas, 

and references in the comments that this is an organization that 

appears to engage in anti-Rick Perry propaganda. November 2011. 

Fast forward. Progress Texas gets its tax-exempt status by May of 

2012. King Street Patriots did not get its tax-exempt status until 

2 months ago after going through yet more rounds of questioning. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you. I’m about out of time. I just want to 

ask Mr. Sekulow, what the administration is trying to do with the 

(c)(4), is it safe to say that if that is in effect that that would disproportionately affect conservative groups? In other words, a lot of 

the labor unions and environmental groups would not be affected 

by that, is that correct? 

Mr. SEKULOW. Correct, because a lot of those are exempt under 

different provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. But in that regard and with regard to the questioning aspect of this and the 

chilling effect, which I think, Congressman, is what you are going 

after, we have a client, a pro-life organization that is one of the 

ones targeted. The questions to them were so draconian in nature 

that this is what they asked. Talking about the client’s pro-life position, this is the IRS, ‘‘The presentation of viewpoints or positions 

are unsupported by facts as a significant portion of the organization’s communications. The facts that purport to support the viewpoint or positions are distorted.’’ This is coming from an Internal 

Revenue Service agent. 

‘‘The organization’s presentation makes substantial use of inflammatory and disparaging terms and express conclusions more 

85 

on the basis of strong emotional feelings than of objective evaluations. And the approach used in the organization’s presentation is 

not aimed at developing an understanding on the part of the intended audience or the readership because it does not consider 

their background or training in the subject matter.’’ 

Who gave the IRS the authority to say this? And how is it that 

the President of the United States can say there is not a smidgeon 

of corruption when the documents—by the way, some of these 

signed by Lois Lerner or Holly Paz—how could they possibly even 

say this? 

The thing I don’t understand, Mr. Chairman, is as the President 

was making his statements, as members of this committee were 

making statements, we had the documents in our possession, and 

I know Cleta did as well, from offices all over the country, coast 

to coast. And the agents told our clients it was being managed out 

of Washington. And with the email that was released yesterday, we 

know how high up the chain. And I would urge the committee, 

when you start talking about associate chief counsels, divisional 

counsels, this is as high as it gets. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well said. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I said at the outset of this hearing, I am deeply troubled regarding IRS employees’ improper handling of applications for taxexempt status. However, I am encouraged that senior leadership of 

the agency during this period has been removed. In December the 

Senate confirmed a new Commissioner of the IRS, and he has 

pledged his commitment to cooperating with Congress and reforming the agency. I do look forward to working with him. 

While I welcome the opportunity to hear the concerns of these 

witnesses that participate in this hearing, I do fear that the committee is once again presenting only one side of the story. The committee’s 10-month-long investigation has uncovered no evidence to 

support claims that the IRS was targeting any groups for political 

reasons. Not one single witness has appeared before this committee 

and told us that the White House was involved in directing the 

conduct of the IRS employees. 

The deputy inspector general for investigations identified absolutely no evidence of political motivation after a review of more 

than 5,000 emails of IRS employees, and that was Russell George. 

And he was the one whose report really sparked this committee’s 

hearings. And I personally asked him that question: Did you find 

evidence of political motivation for what was going on? And he said 

no. 

Instead, as we learned in a transcribed interview last year, it 

was the self-described conservative Republican manager in Cincinnati who oversaw IRS employees who developed the inappropriate criteria for examination. 

And, Mr. Sekulow, you were helpful with some statistics this 

morning, and I wanted to ask you about that. You mentioned 104 

conservative groups targeted. Was that the number? 

Mr. SEKULOW. This is from the report of the IRS dated through 

July 29th of 2013, 104 conservative organizations on that report 

were targeted. 

86 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you. And then seven progressive targeted groups. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Seven progressive organization groups, all of 

which received their tax exemption. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Does it give the total number of applications? 

In other words, 104 conservative groups targeted. How many applied? How many conservative groups applied? 

Mr. SEKULOW. In the TIGTA report I think the number was 283 

that they had become part of the target. But actually, applications, 

a lot of the IRS’ justification for this, at least purportedly, was an 

increase in applications, and there was actually a decrease in the 

number. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Right. And does it give the number of progressive groups that applied for tax-exempt status? 

Mr. SEKULOW. No, the only report that has the progressive—— 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. No? No? 

Mr. SEKULOW. The report I have in front of me is the one which 

just has the seven. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right, thank you. 

Mr. SEKULOW. None of those have been denied, though. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Now, in addition, the committee’s investigation 

in this matter revealed that the IRS also sought out liberal groups 

with these words, progressive or occupy, in the names. At an Oversight Committee hearing last year, Russell George admitted he actually failed to inform our committee that he was aware of progressive groups receiving similar treatment as conservative groups. 

And now, Ms. Mitchell, you have favored us with your testimony 

this morning, and thanks again for coming. We just found out 

about you Monday afternoon, so we didn’t have too much time to 

read about you. But I saw your extensive CV, which is online, and 

has you as a partner at the Foley Lardner law firm here in Washington, is that right? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. And it says that you are a member 

of the firm’s political law practice. Is that correct? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. The firm has a taxation practice that’s 

different from the political law practice? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. But you are in the political law practice. 

If I’m not mistaken, you have personally served as legal counsel to 

the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Am I correct on 

that? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Among others, yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. You have personally served as legal counsel to 

the National Republican Congressional Committee as well. Am I 

correct in that? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. You served as a legislator in Oklahoma. Am I 

correct? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Would that be as a Republican legislator? 

Ms. MITCHELL. No, actually, I was a Democrat then. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Were you? 

87 

Ms. MITCHELL. Until I realized that that had become the party 

of the government and not the people. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Cartwright, just for the record, not all of us 

would agree with that. We are entitled to our political views, too. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. 

I guess the question I have for you is, in your law practice, your 

political law practice, how many progressive groups do you represent right now? 

Ms. MITCHELL. None, because it doesn’t work that way. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. How many liberal groups do you represent 

right now? 

Ms. MITCHELL. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that 

way. It doesn’t work that way, Congressman. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Well, you testified that you represent Tea 

Party groups. 

Ms. MITCHELL. I do. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. So it works that way. 

Ms. MITCHELL. That’s right. And as I say to people, in this law 

practice practice you can’t play for USC and Notre Dame, you have 

to pick a team. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. How many occupy groups do you represent? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Lord, I wouldn’t represent one of them on a bet. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. I think you have answered my question. 

Mr. SEKULOW. I have represented the ACLU, however, Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Now, in light of continuing revelations that the 

majority on this committee has excluded Democratic members and 

staff from in-person meetings with the inspector general’s staff, serious concerns persist about the impartiality of the work of the majority on this committee. Sadly, only Tea Party groups are represented before this panel today, and one of them has already testified before Congress. Since the identities of these witnesses has 

only been revealed on Monday afternoon, our staff was unable to 

identify a minority witness on such short notice, and as a result 

this is not a balanced hearing. 

Now, this committee is charged with conducting oversight of the 

Federal Government. And as Members of Congress, we must exercise that authority in a responsible manner. Calling this kind of 

one-sided hearing and making false legal allegations, attacking the 

credibility of career Federal employees falls well short of that 

standard. Going forward, I want to see us working together to conduct responsible oversight of the Internal Revenue Service. 

With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. I would just point out that—well, first of all, you 

know, Ms. Mitchell doesn’t represent progressive groups, because it 

sounds like, according to Mr. Sekulow, they don’t need it. They 

were seven for seven. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Now, I’d urge you to have some come over here 

and testify and find out what they were asked. 

Mr. JORDAN. The minority had—the minority had 9 days’ notice 

of this hearing. They could have got a witness here. Maybe you 

want to go get one of those seven who got approved out of the 

88 

seven who were put on some notice. But what the committee did— 

what the minority did have time to do was to write me a letter urging me not to pursue having Barbara Bosserman come here and 

answer our questions. You had time for that, but you didn’t have 

time to find someone to come testify? 

I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m a lot more interested in having a balanced investigation than 

I am a balanced hearing, and in that light, Ms. Engelbrecht, did 

you hear the President say there was not a smidgen of corruption? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I’ve heard that he said that, yes, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Ms. Gerritson, did you hear the President say there 

was not a smidgen of corruption? And let me just translate that, 

because ‘‘smidgen’’ is not a legal term. I assume he meant scintilla, 

and I assume he meant criminality instead of corruption. 

How was he able to make that conclusion? Neither of you have 

been interviewed by the Bureau, have you? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Ms. GERRITSON. No. 

Mr. GOWDY. And according to Mr. Sekulow, of his 41 clients, 3 

have been interviewed, or 3 were asked to be interviewed. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Right. Not interviewed yet. 

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. Zero of 41 have actually been interviewed. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Correct. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. So the President says there’s not a smidgen of criminality or corruption. Do either of you remember seeing 

a witness named Lois Lerner sitting at the very table you-all are 

sitting at? Do you remember her invoking her Fifth Amendment 

privilege, the same privilege that she targeted some of your groups 

for trying to educate people about. Some of your just groups just 

want to simply educate people about the Constitution, the one that 

she availed herself of the very second she was exposed to criminal 

investigation. 

So how can the President say there’s not a smidgen of criminality, when Lois Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment, 41 witnesses haven’t been interviewed, including the 2 that are here right 

now? How can he possibly draw that conclusion? 

Ms. GERRITSON. Good question. 

Mr. GOWDY. I wish someone—I wish one of my colleagues on the 

other side of the aisle would ask the President how in the world 

he concluded no criminality when Lois Lerner sat in front of them 

and invoked her privilege against criminality? How do you square 

that? 

Mr. SEKULOW. Mr. Gowdy, if I may. She invoked her Fifth 

Amendment privilege, which she has the right to do, of course. You 

and I both respect that because we now know the reason why. It 

wasn’t perhaps as clear as it was made yesterday. She invoked her 

Fifth Amendment privilege because she knew—after she made a 

false statement in a planted question at an ABA meeting, she knew 

that, in fact, there was, her words and her emails, off-plan drafting 

of rules targeting conservative groups. 

She also said at a Duke law forum that people are asking us 

what we can do, and she said, I can’t do anything until I see the 

990s, the tax returns that are filed. That was all going on while 

89 

she was redrafting the rules with the highest level of the Chief 

Counsel’s Office. 

Mr. Cartwright, I—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Mr. Sekulow, I just—I want to say this. I understand why she invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege. I don’t understand why in the hell the President of the United States would 

prejudge an investigation—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. I don’t either. 

Mr. GOWDY. —before any of your clients were interviewed, before 

either of these two victims—and I know you don’t like that word, 

but I’m using it in a criminal sense of the word—before either of 

these two victims were interviewed. He has gone on national television, he has prejudged the investigation and, in my judgment, 

has compromised the Department of Justice, which leads me to this 

question, Mr. Sekulow. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. There is the option, when you have a compromised 

investigation and a chief executive who has prejudged the outcome 

before the jury’s even gotten all the evidence, he’s got an option of 

appointing a special counsel, right? 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yes, he does. 

Mr. GOWDY. And the special counsel regulation says if it’s extraordinary circumstances that furthers the public interest. Can 

you think of anything more extraordinary than government targeting people based on their political beliefs? 

Mr. SEKULOW. No. I agree with you 100 percent, and I also would 

point to the—again, the email of June 14th, 2012, which was just 

released, because this shows the need for a special prosecutor at 

this point on the criminal aspect of this. 

And again, Mr. Cartwright, when you asked about the no evidence of politics, let me quote from the email: 

‘‘Don’t know who in the organization is keeping tabs on (c)(4)s, 

but since we mentioned potentially addressing them off-plan in 

2013, I’ve got my radar up, and this seemed interesting.’’ 

These are coming from the most senior people within the Chief 

Counsel’s Office of the IRS, which is a Presidential appointee. 

Again, it’s an office I came out of, so I have due respect for the office. But at this point, a special prosecutor to evaluate the criminal 

sanctions or criminal laws applicable would probably be the best 

way—I believe would be the best way to go because I don’t think 

the Justice Department right now—again, with due respect to the 

Justice Department—is institutionally capable of doing this. 

And I need to say this also, because I thought that the—the 

question of Mr. Cartwright on Ms. Mitchell’s legal representations. 

She has an exceptionally excellent reputation in this town as a lawyer, and her clients tend to be conservative because that’s who her 

clients tend to be. But, you know, I’m a conservative also, but I— 

like I said, I’ve represented the American Civil Liberties Union in 

cases at the Supreme Court of the United States. I’ve represented 

the National Democratic Policy Committee as well. So I don’t think 

this is—it’s fair to go after the lawyers in a situation where it is 

the IRS that is trying to use their procedures to justify their illegal 

conduct. They—remember the apology? They offered the apology. 

You know what? The apology is not accepted. 

90 

Mr. GOWDY. Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I believe the ranking 

subcommittee member said that there are 13 people assigned in 

this investigation, if I heard correctly. Thirteen people in 6 months 

have not had time to interview a single solitary one of Mr. 

Sekulow’s clients; 13 people in 6 months have not had time to 

interview either of these 2 witnesses, and yet the chief executive, 

the President of the United States, has already prejudged the outcome of this investigation. So either it’s ongoing or it’s not; either 

he’s wrong or Eric Holder is wrong. In either case, it is time for 

special counsel, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, gentlemen. 

I recognize the gentleman from Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

this intriguing hearing. 

I will say at the outset my friend from South Carolina, for whom 

I have great regard—we don’t agree on much, but we have mutual 

respect—but I will say it ought to trouble a Tea Party panel and 

a lawyer who represented the ACLU that this committee took upon 

itself a unique task in voting that a U.S. citizen, irrespective of her 

views or what you think she did or did not say, to protect herself 

against self-incrimination, a very sacred principle enshrined in the 

Constitution of the United States, and it was enshrined in there 

because of the experience of our Founders with the British, it’s a 

very real right—this committee took upon itself, every Member on 

that side including my friend from South Carolina, voted unilaterally to decide she dispense with, waive her Fifth Amendment right. 

And if we can do that to her, we can do it to you. 

Every one of us on this side of the aisle voted not to do that because irrespective of what one may decide on the substance of Ms. 

Lois Lerner’s behavior, testimony, whatever, we think American 

citizens are entitled to constitutional protections, and that the Congress—a committee of Congress does not have the unilateral ability 

to decide on its own that you waive that right. And listening to the 

testimony and the concerns here about a government that’s overreaching, I would think you might be concerned about this committee overreaching. But it wasn’t this side, Ms. Mitchell, that did 

it. It wasn’t this—no, I’m not asking you a question. You made a 

statement. I’m making a statement. 

Ms. Engelbrecht, your written testimony states you believe various run-ins with the government were prompted by your applications for tax-exempt status with the IRS; is that correct? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. One of the Federal agencies you mentioned is 

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. You 

complained specifically that in 2012, OSHA inspected your company, Engelbrecht Manufacturing, and—which manufactures fabricated metal products, and you state that OSHA found, ‘‘nothing 

serious or significant, and nonetheless, OSHA issued fines in excess 

of $20,000′′; is that correct? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. OSHA’s inspection report shows that it identified 

10 violations at your manufacturing company, all of which are classified as serious. These violations included the failure to provide 

employees with appropriate eye or face protection when exposed to 

91 

eye or face hazards from flying particles, molten metal, liquid 

chemicals, acids, caustic liquids, chemical gases or vapors, or potentially injurious light radiation. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I would ask that the inspection report go 

into the record at this point. 

Mr. JORDAN. Without objection. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Now, is it your contention that those findings 

were politically motivated because you’re seeking a tax-exempt status for another entity; that those violations, in fact, were trivial or 

nonserious, in your view? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. When OSHA came to our shop, they came 

under a false SIC classification. They came when neither my husband nor I were there, and proceeded to interview employees. And 

I would very much welcome everything that the—that OSHA—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But my question—— 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. —gave to us be included, because the cover 

letter of OSHA clearly states that—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Ms. Engelbrecht. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. —that they found nothing. No, sir, let me 

please answer your question. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, ma’am, I am going to control this questioning, and I’m asking you a simple question. You’re going to have 

a press conference later. You can speak to your heart’s content 

there. I only have 5 minutes. 

Were these or were these not, in your view, a serious matter? I 

thought your testimony said they were not serious. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. In my opinion and in the cover letter stated 

opinion of OSHA, they were not serious. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You complained that neither you nor your husband were there. Is it not the case that it’s OSHA’s practice not 

to give advance warning? That’s the whole point of an inspection 

to determine whether a facility, in fact, is safe, whether there are 

violations or not. To tell you we are coming next Thursday is obviously to give you a heads up to clean up whatever you might think 

is, you know, a violation. Isn’t that their normal practice? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Sir, I don’t know what the normal practice is. 

We complied as we did with every agency that came over these last 

3 years. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, if it’s your testimony now under oath that 

you don’t know their normal practice, how are you able, nonetheless, to conclude that it’s politically motivated and has something 

to do with your seeking a tax-exempt status, to punish you for that, 

as opposed to their normal practice looking at a manufacturing facility to make sure it’s safe for the workers? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Because in the past 3 years, after 20 years 

of being—nearly 20 years of being in business and no agency coming to visit with us, the succession of agencies that have now come 

to us for all manner of things begs the question the statistical probability of what happened to me happening without political motivation is staggering. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, I would just note for the record, Ms. 

Engelbrecht and Mr. Sekulow, because we are so concerned about 

the law here and making sure there are no violations of the law, 

are you aware of the fact that it’s actually illegal for the DepartVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:20 Mar 26, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87094.TXT APRIL
92 

ment of Labor’s OSHA to give advance notice when it does inspections? That’s actually a matter of law. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I was not aware of that, but I’m not contending that they should have given us notice. I’m only—I’m only 

observing. 

Mr. CONNOLLY.But you complained about it. You complained that 

you didn’t get advance notice, and you just said you were concerned 

that neither your husband—I understand the concern, but you understand that they can’t check in advance to see will you be there. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Nor did we try to do anything to discourage 

that process even though we weren’t on premises. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And I absolutely take that at face value. But it’s 

a huge leap, then, given that, to conclude that someone is out to 

get you, Ms. Engelbrecht; that there’s any political motivation 

whatsoever with OSHA following its standard operating procedures. 

Mr. SEKULOW. But, Mr. Connolly, you’re aware that the information from the IRS is—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Sekulow—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. I’m sorry. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Sekulow, I’m trying to ask the question. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. Ms. Engelbrecht, in the first 20 years of business, 

did OSHA ever visit your place of business? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Never once? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. After you filed the application, OSHA visited then, 

right? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. And in the first 20 years of business, did the 

ATF ever come to your business? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. And they came a couple of times once you 

filed your application? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. All right. And in your first 20 years of business, did 

the IRS ever audit you? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. But once you filed your application, did they audit 

you? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Many times. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. And in your first 20 years of business, did the 

FBI ever visit you? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. But once you filed your application, did they visit 

you? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Six times. 

Mr. JORDAN. But Mr. Connolly wants us all to believe that’s a 

coincidence. 

I would recognize the—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, are you saying unilaterally to respond every one of our questions without a response? 

93 

Mr. JORDAN. Go ahead. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. [Inaudible.] 

Mr. JORDAN. I was just pointing out that in 20 years of business, 

OSHA never came to Ms. Engelbrecht’s place of business. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You didn’t just—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes, I was, and in 20 years of business, OSHA 

never visited, FBI never visited—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. —invoking my name, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. IRS never audited. Okay. Well, you can respond. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. Even thought I gave you plenty of extra time, I’ll 

give you some more. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman is recognized for a minute. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So where is the proof, though, other than you’re 

connecting dots that may or may not be connected, that OSHA was 

politically motivated? 

Mr. JORDAN. I didn’t say proof; I’m just saying you want us all 

to believe it’s a coincidence. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, and you want us all to believe that by innuendo there must be something wrong. 

Mr. JORDAN. Fifteen times in a 2-year timeframe, four different 

Federal agencies visit this lady’s place of business, audit her personal and business records, and you expect us to believe that 

just—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY.I don’t expect you to believe—— 

Mr. JORDAN. To them, it just happened? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I don’t expect you believe anything. You can believe whatever you choose to believe. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, you can believe it’s all a coincidence. I refuse 

to do that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, I didn’t say that either. I believe in factbased, empirical oversight, and innuendo and drawing conclusions 

and paranoia—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I’d ask the gentleman—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. —do not substitute for fact-based, empirical oversight, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, here are the facts. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And the—— 

Mr. JORDAN. She filed a—an application for (c)(4) status and subsequently was visited by OSHA, FBI, ATF, and was audited by the 

IRS. That happened. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I would just say, Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. —you should be in the panel, given your views. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Chairman, will you yield your time for a parliamentary question? 

Mr. JORDAN. Yield to the gentleman. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Can someone answer for me, in the report that 

was referred to by Mr. Connolly and the OSHA report, the witness 

reached a negotiated agreement with OSHA and paid fines. 

94 

Mr. JORDAN. I’m not sure this is a parliamentary inquiry. 

Mr. HORSFORD. It is because it deals with—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You want to enter something in the record, we’ll put 

it in the record. 

Mr. HORSFORD. It’s already in the record. My question is, is it 

true that the witness paid fines substantiating the serious violations that were found out of the OSHA report? 

Mr. JORDAN. I think that question has been asked and answered. 

Mr. HORSFORD. No, I didn’t—I did not hear. That’s my parliamentary question. Will the witness answer the question? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Chairman, that’s not a parliamentary—— 

Mr. JORDAN. When you get recognized, which will be shortly, 

we’ll let you ask that question, and if the—I think the witness has 

answered it, but if she wants to answer it again, and you ask it, 

I’m sure she’ll do that. 

I recognize—want to recognize the gentleman from North Carolina Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Engelbrecht, you started to respond to the gentleman from 

Virginia by saying ‘‘the cover letter,’’ and he cut you off. Go ahead. 

You can finish what you wanted to say in that cover letter. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Thank you. 

Just that the cover letter from OSHA made very clear that they 

found no serious or concerning findings. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. Well, I want to apologize, because what 

happens in these hearings, quite frankly, is that you come to tell 

the story of a true American patriot, and then politics can be 

played. And I’m not making any assertions towards my colleagues 

opposite, I’m just saying that it becomes very clear that it was extremely coincidental that all these Federal agencies decided to visit 

your place of business after you took one particular action, and so 

I find it, the probability of that happening, extremely low. 

I do want to follow up. In your opening testimony, though, you 

made some assertions, and you mentioned the gentleman from 

Maryland, who is here. And I want to make sure that in that, you 

know, that we—we don’t do anything indirectly that would disparage a Member of this House. You were saying that he targeted you; 

is that correct? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Congressman Cummings, on three separate 

occasions, sent letters on letterhead from this committee stating 

that he had concerns and felt it necessary to open an investigation 

on True the Vote, yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So, it was correspondence as it relates 

to this committee, finding more facts as it relates to, you know, getting to the truth. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes. He—he, according to the letters, indicated that it was the consensus of this committee that we needed 

to be investigated. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Oh, he said you needed to be investigated. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. And that he was going to be the self-appointed person to do that investigation of us, yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. And so—so as we look at it—Ms. Mitchell, 

so the point of that is as—they were going in saying that she 

95 

should be investigated in what terms? I mean, what’s the scope of 

that investigation? 

Ms. MITCHELL. True the Vote is a 501(c)(3) now, but its application was still pending at the time, and True the Vote became very 

involved and is the Nation’s leading organization which tries to enforce election laws and ensure the integrity of elections. True the 

Vote has recruited hundreds and hundreds of volunteers across the 

country who volunteer to help preserve the integrity of the elections in their communities and in their States. They challenge— 

they try to—True the Vote has filed lawsuits to encourage the—to 

force localities to comply with Federal law in cleaning up voter 

rolls, among other things. 

Congressman Cummings took it upon himself—and I think that 

I was not representing True the Vote in that particular proceeding, 

but there were a series of letters sent to True the Vote from Congressman Cummings, which purported to be on behalf of the committee, using the franking privilege, and which sought to delve into 

the inner workings of True the Vote and to make allegations about 

True the Vote that were not true, demanding materials, demanding 

information, demanding that Catherine Engelbrecht and representatives of True the Vote make themselves available in Washington. 

And frankly, we think that is improper, and we will deal with that 

in a different proceeding, but we also—because we—but we also 

want to know whether there was any effort. 

We want to get to the bottom of how these coincidences happened, and we’re going to try to figure out whether any—if there 

was any staff of this committee that might have been involved in 

putting True the Vote on the radar screen of some of these Federal 

agencies. We don’t know that, but we—we’re going to do everything 

we can do to try to get to the bottom of how did this all happen. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank the gentleman for his courtesy. 

What she just said is absolutely incorrect and not true. Letters 

were sent out as the ranking member. I am the ranking member 

of this committee. I did nothing different than what Mr. Issa has 

done when looking into situations, and I don’t want to put out 

there that I was trying to act on behalf of the committee or anything unusual. We were basically looking into voting situations and 

whether voters were in any way, in any way, being impeded from 

voting. 

I want to thank the gentleman. And we have the letters, by the 

way, and the only one—and Chairman Issa was sent copies of all 

of the letters, so we weren’t hiding anything. 

Thank you very much for yielding. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, and I thank the gentleman and certainly 

wanting to make sure that you have the opportunity. 

And so, Ms. Engelbrecht, the gentleman from Maryland obviously is one that—from a targeting standpoint, so I would just let 

him follow up on that and make sure—and give him—yield to him 

in terms of following up to assure you that neither he nor his staff 

or anyone would have contacted the IRS to investigate you and to 

do that. And so I’d yield to the gentleman and let him give you 

those personal assurances. 

96 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I can assure you—let me just be—and I want to 

thank the gentleman for that. 

There is no one that I know of that care more about the rights 

of our citizens than I do. And I’m not—and I’m sure all of us do. 

But just as you-all have the passion that you have, and I respect 

that, I, too, have the passion to make sure that no one, I don’t give 

a—whether it’s Tea Party, Republican or Democrat, nobody is 

blocked from voting. There is no way that I would be sitting here 

today, no way, unless it was for—unless we had fair and vote—the 

voting in this Nation. My 88-year old mother, who’s probably 

watching us right now, could not vote. 

And the last thing, I said, Ma—one of the things she said to me, 

I do not want to die with the thought that my people are losing 

their right to vote. And so I got to tell you, I want to thank the 

gentleman because I wanted that to be clear, and I will fight until 

I die, until I die, for the right to vote because it’s not about me. 

It’s about generations yet unborn and their rights. And just like 

you-all care about IRS not doing the things that you feel that 

they’ve done, I feel the same way. I don’t want the IRS targeting 

anybody. But at the same time I have the same position about 

their right to vote. And again, I want to thank the gentleman for 

yielding. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I want the gentleman to be able to assure 

Ms. Engelbrecht that he—and I’ll let him speak to this, but that 

he did not direct, nor his staff direct, anybody at the IRS to investigate you and look into this particular matter. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I can assure you of that, of what he just said. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you. I thank the gentleman, and I thank 

the chairman for his patience. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I want to thank—I really do thank the gentleman for that opportunity. 

Mr. JORDAN. Gentlelady from Illinois is recognized. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I am looking at a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice in response to your letter and Chairman Issa’s letter requesting information pertaining to an ongoing investigation, 

and I did not—I don’t know if this is in the record or not, but I 

will ask for it to be entered into the record. It’s their response to 

your request. 

Mr. JORDAN. This is response from Mr. Cole? 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. This is the response from—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Deputy Assistant Attorney General? 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. No, from Assistant Director Steven Kelly to 

your letter and Mr. Issa’s letter. 

Mr. JORDAN. Yeah, without objection. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. 

Like all Americans, I was outraged to learn of the targeting by 

the IRS of both conservative and progressive groups. This type of 

political targeting by a government agency that is supposed to have 

the public’s trust is completely unacceptable, so I certainly understand the emotion and passion of the witnesses. 

As Members of Congress, particularly members of this committee, we have a duty to look into this type of wrongdoing and 

mismanagement that occurred at the IRS. We also have to learn 

97 

from the mistakes and put processes in place to make sure that 

they never happen again, and I think this is something that all of 

my colleagues on this panel are committed to do doing. The Department of Justice is also rightfully investigating the incident to determine if any laws were broken. 

But, you know, Mr. Chairman, I think it’s completely inappropriate to provide these witnesses with a platform today to unfairly 

attack ranking member of the full committee Mr. Cummings. Like 

any member of this committee, he has the authority, and one might 

even say the moral obligation, to conduct investigations into serious concerns that are raised to his attention. 

In this case the ranking member requested documents to investigate serious public allegations of voter disenfranchisement regarding True the Vote. He wrote letters laying out these allegations, he cited the sources for his information, and he asked True 

the Vote to provide documents to either prove or disprove these allegations. 

Mr. Cummings’ actions were no different than those of Congressman Issa when he served as this committee’s ranking member, and 

Representative Issa sent letters after letter in his making similar 

document requests from all kinds of government and private entities. 

I would expect that you and every other member of this committee would defend the right of all members to seek information 

and documents, regardless of party affiliation. It’s no surprise but 

the group the ranking member has been investigating should lash 

out against him. What is surprising is that they would suggest that 

the FBI investigate his actions as potential illegal activity. And 

what is so astonishing to me is that you would give them a public 

forum to do so. 

The false and outrageous allegations against Mr. Cummings 

were included in written testimony distributed by this committee 

in advance of today’s hearing and posted on the Committee’s public 

Web site. You knew this was coming, and you allowed it to happen. 

And earlier today, Mr. Cummings wrote a letter to the Board of the 

Office of Congressional Ethics easily debunking these claims and 

providing full copies of all of his correspondence with True the 

Vote. He also made all those letters available to the public on the 

Democratic Committee Web site. 

I ask that his letter be made part of the hearing record today, 

and I regret that our committee would allow itself to be used for 

such a blatant political stunt. 

Mr. JORDAN. Without objection. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. 

I want to sort of touch back as someone who has a large number 

of manufacturers in my district. I am very, very concerned for 

small business owners. Ms. Engelbrecht, you are a small business 

owner. I congratulate you on that. They’re the engine of our economy, even during the recession. It’s the only part of our economy 

that continue to grow, and you certainly provided 30-plus employees with a good living so that they could take care of their families. 

Can you—am I—just answer yes or no. Am I correct in saying 

that you are in the business of manufacturing, heavy manufacturing of parts for oil drilling and the like? Is that correct? 

98 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. We’re a high-precision machine shop, so we 

make small component parts. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. You make small component parts. So you use 

things like milling machinery and that type of thing. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Computerized machinery, yes, ma’am. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Okay. I have quite a few of those in my district, and I am actually somewhat worried that OSHA had not inspected you in 20 years. I would think that OSHA should be inspecting any manufacturing business on a regular basis, and that 

we would not go a whole 20 years without ever inspecting the 

health and safety environment for employees. And I personally— 

I know that you don’t think that the allegations of not providing 

eye protection and the like is not a serious concern, but as someone 

who has been around a lot of heavy manufacturing, let me just say 

that it is concern. 

And I’m out of time. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. Ms. Engelbrecht, in the 20 years prior to OSHA 

coming there, did you ever have anyone—any serious injury at your 

place of business? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. And to be clear on the eyewear point, 

we do absolutely require eyewear to be worn. They just weren’t 

happy with the kind we provided. 

Mr. JORDAN. Someone probably forgot to put their goggles on one 

day, right? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Well, forgot to put the goggles on. They identified an entry—or an entry point that they thought was an exit, 

which cost, I don’t know, $4,300, if memory serves, something like 

that. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you. We’ve all—we’ve all had businesses in 

our district have OSHA show up and find that they put a box in 

the aisleway that they forgot to move, and they get hit with a fine. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Exactly what happened. 

Mr. JORDAN. Gentleman from Tennessee is recognized. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Certainly appreciate you-all being here today, and just reflecting 

on the past 3 years in this committee here, I know a lot of politically-charged issues get brought forth. But listening to the testimony today really makes you think about what being an American 

means, what it should mean. And, you know, we can try to divert 

into questions about OSHA and other violations, but what I heard 

was two very impassioned testimonies from two Americans that 

wanted to exercise their freedom to publicly speak about their preferences in an election. 

We can sit and try to pretend that this didn’t happen. We can 

go back and look at the statements. We can go back to May of 2012 

when the IRS internal investigators said that there was substantial inappropriate bias going on. We can go to when Mr. Miller had 

his epiphany that this was going on. We can go to when the President said that this is inexcusable and intolerable; and Eric Holder, 

the same thing, this is unacceptable. 

And so, there’s no question that this happened. We can’t sit up 

here as Democrats and Republicans and deny that the IRS did not 

target people. They did. They apologized. There has been hearings. 

Ms. Lerner came in here, took the Fifth, and Mr. Sekulow talked 

99 

about that earlier, and maybe we can talk about it again. But this 

is about our rights as Americans. That’s why we are here today. 

I’d like to think that the people on the other side of the aisle as 

well as the people on this side would equally listen to Occupy Wall 

Street or liberal groups that were targeted by a Republican President. It’s about the Federal Government using their power to suppress our rights as Americans, and that’s wrong in any party, in 

any language. 

We’re not a Third World country. I hope we’re not a country 

that’s run by a dictator that fixes elections. Sadly, we won’t know 

what the outcome of the last election would have been had this targeting not taken place. We’ll never know that. We won’t know if 

the election would have been altered if we weren’t misled by the 

YouTube video story about Benghazi. We won’t know that. There’s 

a lot of things that were done before the election that, now that it’s 

over, people are saying, okay, well, now we got to clean up this 

mess, so let’s pay attention to this IRS scandal, this targeting, and 

that happened. 

Well, it didn’t happen for very long because it was in July, during an economic address at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, 

that President Obama charged the Republicans turning the IRS 

matter into part of an endless parade of distractions, political posturing, and phony scandals. I mean, I thought we were past that. 

What we’re here today is to make sure you-all get a fair chance 

and a fair response to your questions. So, we have attorneys here 

today representing these clients. Have they gotten that chance yet? 

Ms. MITCHELL. No, they have not. I mean, I represent many 

groups, and I talk to many groups. There’s a particular group, Tea 

Party Patriots, they host a Sunday night conference call every Sunday night with grassroots groups from across the country, literally 

hundreds of people, who talk about things like what are some positive alternatives to the Affordable Care Act, and they hear speakers, and they are trying to educate themselves about issues so that, 

in turn, people in their communities or part of their groups can 

learn about what Congress is doing and have an impact on public 

policy. But many of those groups are the very same groups that 

were targeted, that were besmirched, that were treated and continue to be treated in a terrible manner, and now, through the IRS, 

is proposing to essentially silence permanently, and I—and that 

none of them have been interviewed by the FBI to hear the stories 

of what they went through. 

In Catherine Engelbrecht’s case, in True the Vote’s case, when 

it got its, I want to say, third round of questions from the IRS 

about 2 years ago this month, there were 102 questions when you 

take into consideration the subparts and the subparts’ subparts; 

102 questions, and that was almost 2 years after the application 

had been filed. 

And I have been doing this a long time, and I have never seen 

anything like it. I knew something was going on, and to say that 

it was boneheaded mistakes is to treat all of these people with 

utter contempt and disrespect and to deny what they’ve been 

through and what they are still going through. And I would implore the Democratic members of the committee and of the ConVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:20 Mar 26, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00103 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87094.TXT APRIL
100 

gress to not fall in line and try to defend something that is indefensible and to treat this as some kind of partisan ballgame. 

We had this one brief shining moment last summer where both 

Democrats and Republicans came together, and Congress was 

doing its—intent upon doing its oversight duty, and the media was 

intent upon actually exposing wrongdoing even in this administration, and somehow that dissipated with that speech that you just 

referred to, and I find it very distressing. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from 

Maryland, is recognized. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Mitchell, I just—you know, we have interviewed a whole lot 

of people in IRS, and perhaps there’s still more to be done. And 

again, I want to emphasize that the Members on this side of the 

aisle are just as concerned about every single taxpayer being treated fairly. And so we’ve seen the—we’ve listened, and we’ve seen the 

testimony, and so we just—it’s not—and I’m sure we will—if there 

are things to be corrected—I know that there are a lot of things 

that have already been corrected based on the IG’s report. And so, 

you know, I just want you to be assured that we care about these 

issues, too, you know. We have constituents who we want to make 

sure are treated fairly, too, no matter who they are, no matter who 

they are. And so I want to make that clear. 

I also want to go back to Mr. Meadows. I want to thank you for 

again yielding. And, Ms. Engelbrecht, I just—Mr. Meadows is right. 

There’s no targeting over here. We were just trying to figure out— 

make sure that no one was unfairly being impeded from voting, 

and it’s a very serious matter for me. 

But the letters that I sent you, some of them concern a report, 

and the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights 

issued that report in 2012, and their report examined your organization’s activities in North Carolina, particularly with respect to 

where your poll watchers were placed. 

The report said that your poll watchers,—and this is the report, 

and this is what we were trying to figure out whether it was true 

or not, Mr. Meadows, and it said, ‘‘go to the polls on election day 

and aggressively challenge the registration, the identity, or eligibility of prospective voters.’’ According to this report, your volunteers were concentrated in counties in North Carolina that have 

high percentages of African American and Latino populations. I 

want to ask you about this specific information in the report. 

First, of the 25 counties in North Carolina with the highest African American population, the report says that True the Vote and 

volunteers were sent to 24 of them. Is that accurate? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I don’t know, Congressman, because all True 

the Vote does is provide training. The way our electoral process 

works, citizens will choose their party or candidate of their choice 

to go and work on behalf of, but True the Vote has no control over 

where citizens end up ultimately working. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. And the report went on to say that 

True the Vote had poll watchers in 9 of the 10 counties with the 

101 

highest Latino populations. So you wouldn’t have that information 

either then. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. True the Vote provides training. We cannot 

place volunteers inside of the polls. Therefore, that report is fundamentally flawed. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. By contrast, according to the report, 

True the Vote had recruits in only 4 of the 25 counties with the 

lowest Latino population. And I assume that your answer would be 

the same for that; is that right? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. It would seem to me, Congressman, that a 

volunteer would be sent where there were volunteer needs. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. And who determines those needs? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. The party or the candidate that the citizen 

chooses to work on behalf of, or in some cases the county, when 

they need volunteers sufficient just to keep polling places open. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The report says you had only 2 volunteers covering all of the 10 counties with the fewest African American citizens. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. We had no volunteers covering any county. 

We provide training, Congressman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, if the numbers in the report are correct, 

they indicate that poll watchers were concentrated in counties 

where there were more minorities. It looks like the organization, if 

the report were accurate, was selectively targeting minority voters, 

and I think you would agree that you don’t want that, do you? You 

wouldn’t want that? I’m not saying—I know you’re saying that 

didn’t happen, but I’m saying that’s definitely not what you were 

wanting. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No. The mission of True the Vote is to make 

sure that every American citizen, regardless of political party affiliation, has the opportunity to participate unimpeded in elections 

that are free and fair. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And on October 29th, your attorney wrote a letter saying this, ‘‘We—we operate completely in the open for anyone 

and everyone available to see what we do when we do it.’’ 

Is that true? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so, you know, obviously—I hear what you’re 

saying, but you can understand that when we get a report like 

that, we are almost incumbent—I would think Republicans and 

Democrats would be concerned about those kinds of allegations, because those are the things that go to the fundamentals of this 

country, that right to vote. And you—you made it clear that you 

don’t impede people from voting; is that right? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Very well. Thank you very much. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Ms. Engelbrecht, deep down, deep down, why do you think you 

had 15 visits from 4 Federal agencies in a 2-year timeframe after 

you—what—deep down, why do you think you were targeted? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I think I was targeted because of my political 

beliefs. 

Mr. JORDAN. Because of your conservative political beliefs. 

102 

You know, I think it’s actually, though, a little bigger. My guess 

is you were targeted because of your political beliefs, yes, but also 

because you were effective. It was working, right? True the Vote 

was having an impact. You were cleaning up voter rolls, right? You 

were educating people about how we should have free and fair and 

honest election. You were praised by attorney generals all over the 

country, secretary of states. I’m looking at this—I mean, it’s—looking at you even had a program to—an outreach program to Hispanic Americans; is that correct? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Absolutely. 

Mr. JORDAN. They targeted you because it was working. They 

said, well, we can’t have—we can’t have this. Here’s a conservative 

who’s making an impact. That’s why you were targeted. And all 

while this is going on, the President is saying things, after the Citizens United, and the President President is making all kinds of 

statements. He says—he says things like we got shadowy groups 

getting involved in elections. It says—this is August 21st, 2010— 

‘‘Attack Ads Run by Shadowy Groups,’’ foreign control corporations 

could be involved, this is a problem for democracy, a threat to our 

democracy. 

Ms. Gerritson, you haven’t talked much. Let me ask you this. Is 

the Wetumpka Tea Party a shadowy group? 

Ms. GERRITSON. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. You’re not secret, are you? 

Ms. GERRITSON. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. Everyone knows who you are down home, right? 

Ms. GERRITSON. That’s right. 

Mr. JORDAN. You don’t have any foreign corporations helping you 

out, do you? 

Ms. GERRITSON. No. We don’t even have any corporate money 

helping us. 

Mr. JORDAN. Are you trying to threaten any democracy? 

Ms. GERRITSON. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. You’re trying to promote democracy, right, just like 

Ms. Engelbrecht’s doing? 

Ms. GERRITSON. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN. You want honest elections. You want people to respect the Constitution. Are you a threat at all to the democracy, 

problem for the democracy? Of course not. And yet you were targeted, and in Ms. Engelbrecht’s case, 4 Federal agencies in a couple-year timeframe, none of them had ever had any interaction 

with her before, but suddenly she’s filed for tax-exempt status, and 

she’s having an impact, and you’re having an impact, and suddenly 

the President’s making all these statements, and here comes the 

full weight of the Federal Government down on two ladies exercising their constitutional First Amendment political speech right. 

And the minority says we shouldn’t have this hearing and let you 

tell your story, and the minority tells us we shouldn’t have Barbara 

Bosserman come in here, who’s head of the investigation, and won’t 

even give us the idea of who’s heading it up if—and they haven’t 

even talked to you, which makes me want to. 

I want to ask one other question here. Mr. Sekulow. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yes, sir. 

103 

Mr. JORDAN. One of the—one of the many questions that your clients and Ms. Mitchell’s clients got—I’m just going to rewind. 

But there are all kinds of questions. I mean, we’re talking about 

political—groups involving political activity, so they ask all these 

questions. One of the questions was do you have a relationship 

with any candidate for public office? 

Mr. SEKULOW. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, think about this. They’re asking Ms. 

Gerritson—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN. —Ms. Engelbrecht, and a boatload of other people 

across this country if they have a connection, but the person investigating this target has a connection with the most powerful individual in this country. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the 

American people give maxed-out contributions to a political candidate; that’s who’s heading the investigation. Now, if that’s not 

irony, I don’t know what is. 

Mr. SEKULOW. It’s not only irony, in our view, and I said this 

again with no disrespect to Ms. Bosserman and her career at the 

Department of Justice—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I don’t have any either. 

Mr. SEKULOW. It raised serious ethical concerns that she may 

well have brought up, and the Department of Justice chose to ignore. But you look at the scope of the questions that were asked, 

which were way outside of legitimate inquiry, I mean, incredible. 

Mr. JORDAN. I’ve looked at it. 

Mr. SEKULOW. And you look at cases like NAACP v. Alabama, 

NAACP v. Flowers, and others, there’s a whole host of them, because what was happening in those cases was exactly what was 

happening here. Government agencies were targeting groups to try 

to intimidate them into silence, in those particular cases the 

NAACP, by saying things like, we’d like to see your membership 

list, who do you talk to, what conversations with legislatures do 

you have. 

This has been going on since 1950. It didn’t work out too good 

for the State of Alabama when they tried that with the NAACP. 

It shouldn’t work out for the Department of Treasury, IRS either. 

Mr. JORDAN. Great point. I just got one other question for you, 

and then we got to—we’re going to have to recess and go vote. 

This is all going on. You’re an individual who’s represented—as 

you pointed out to the minority, you’ve represented the American 

Civil Liberties Union, you’ve represented Democrats, you’ve been in 

front of the Supreme Court, you’ve seen all kinds of things. You’ll 

see history—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. —including this same kind of thing. 

I want to know, do you think this changed the impact of the 2012 

Presidential election? 

Mr. SEKULOW. I think there is evidence—American Enterprise 

Institute and others have put forward evidence that the groups 

being intimidated, were it even not recognized, had a significant 

impact on that election. I think it’s very well possible. We don’t 

want to be—we haven’t had a trial on this. 

Mr. JORDAN. I understand. I’m just asking you—— 

104 

Mr. SEKULOW. It’s very well possible that the 2012 election was 

impacted by an aggressive, continuous, and systematic and intimidation factor by the IRS with applications still pending, Mr. Chairman, for 3 years. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Chairman, may I ask, you’re going to recess 

before the votes. We have 15 minutes before. 

Mr. JORDAN. You want to go is what you’re saying? 

Mr. HORSFORD. I think, yes, I would. 

Mr. JORDAN. All right. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes, and then we’ll have to recess then and come back. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I have 5 minutes, so I’m going to be quick. 

First, I want to say to the chairman, it’s unfortunate that, one, 

our Ranking Member Mr. Cummings was attacked in this hearing, 

and that the chairman provided an opportunity for two witnesses 

to be given a platform to do that. We have never done that. When 

the chairman of this committee has called for in his—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. HORSFORD. No, I will not. I have 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. I understand that. 

Mr. HORSFORD. No, I will not yield, Mr. Chairman. I have 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. But I’m the chairman. Let me just say one thing. 

Mr. HORSFORD. It’s my time, Mr. Chairman. I’m not yielding my 

time. I have 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman just asked me not to recess. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Chairman, I have questions for the witness. 

Can I go to my questions? 

Mr. JORDAN. I can recess if you want, but I would rather you just 

yield me 30 seconds. I was going to make a point about Mr. 

Cummings’ issue. The gentleman yield? 

Mr. HORSFORD. For the purpose of responding to why the ranking member was attacked. 

Mr. JORDAN. I don’t think the ranking member was attacked, but 

I instructed our staff a couple of days ago to encourage Ms. 

Engelbrecht and Ms. Mitchell not to proceed with the ethics complaint. I further talked to them this morning not to proceed in that 

matter. We want the focus of this hearing to be the fact that these 

individuals were systematically harassed by their government, and 

that’s what the focus is. You guys keep wanting to bring this issue 

up, and I’ve encouraged them not to pursue that. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Well, I don’t know how you can—— 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

I don’t know how in one breath you can encourage them not to 

do it, and then the next breath give them the very platform to do 

it. 

Let me go to my questions. 

Mr. JORDAN. Because for—— 

Mr. HORSFORD. Let me go to my questions. 

Mr. JORDAN. —for 3 years they’ve been targeted by four separate 

agencies. 

Mr. HORSFORD. And I agree. 

Mr. JORDAN. That’s a side that needs to be told. 

105 

Mr. HORSFORD. And I agree with that, Mr. Chairman. I agree 

with the fact that groups, whether they’re Tea Party groups, the 

NAACP, or Greenpeace, have been targeted by the IRS. There’s 

no—— 

Mr. JORDAN. That’s not the fact. That’s not the fact. 

Mr. HORSFORD. There’s no disputing the fact that there was 

wrongdoing, and there’s no disputing that we should be working to 

fix that, but that’s not what happened here today. What happened 

here today was an ongoing theatrics to continue the partisanship 

about relitigating an election that is over. 

Now, the question that I have and the question that I want to 

represent is I’m not here as a Democratic; I’m here as a representative of the constituents of Nevada’s fourth that elected me to serve 

them, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, or 

nonpartisans. I have Tea Party constituents in my district, and I 

respect their right, as I respect any other constituent, and I am not 

here to push an agenda, but to get to the facts. And so I am deeply 

concerned about what has transpired, and I want to fix it, but 

that’s never what this committee ever gets to because we spend 

more time attacking our own members. 

But regardless of which party holds power, it’s unacceptable, it 

needs to stop, and we need to fix it. One way I think we should 

be working to fix it is by addressing the inconsistency of the regulation for how 501(c)(4)s are treated to begin with, and according 

to statute, if they engaged exclusively on social welfare activities, 

they may qualify for 501(c)(4) status. However, it is not how it has 

been applied in that way that has allowed organizations to engage 

in some political activity as long as it is not the primary activity 

of that organization. 

So, in my opinion, political activity should be strictly limited 

based on the statute, and we should completely prohibit any 

501(c)(4) from making expenditures, supporting or opposing a candidate for public office, or making monetary or in-kind contributions to political action committees or any other entity engaged in 

campaign activity. If we were able to get to that point, there 

wouldn’t be this ambiguity to begin with. 

Now, we’ve heard issues where, unfortunately, some of the 

groups who were—who were reviewed may not have been following 

this standard. Ms. Engelbrecht, your group, True the Vote, on your 

Web site it says one of your top goals last year was to, ‘‘trim the 

early voting period’’ is that right? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I’m not—I’m not sure what you’re referring 

to. 

Mr. HORSFORD. On your Web site it indicates—are you guys 

against early voting? Do you oppose early voting in States? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, absolutely not. However, there are states 

that have months of early voting, and I think that that could be 

looked at for a number of reasons, yes. 

Mr. HORSFORD. But on your Web site it does not say, ‘‘Trim the 

early voting period.’’ I have a copy of your Web site. I mean, 

it’s—— 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Taken out of in that context, it may say, in 

fact, but for the record, early voting is an important part of the 

106 

process. I think there’s value in this in determining whether or not 

a month before the election day early voting is really necessary. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Well, during the 2012 election we saw lines 

stretching so long that people couldn’t even get to vote, and many 

people were discouraged. And from that President Obama commissioned a bipartisan commission, the head of his election and the 

head of Mitt Romney’s election working in a bipartisan way, to 

come up with recommendations, and their conclusion was actually 

that we need to expand early voting to help voters. Would you 

agree that that should be an approach that should be taken based 

on the recommendations of that commission? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I—I guess I’m a little confused about why we 

would want to try this at this point in this hearing, but in any 

case, I certainly respect the findings of the commission. Our election process is deserving of a hearing unto itself. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

I’ll conclude by just asking if you would respond to the request 

by the ranking member on the statistics around where people were 

placed, particularly in the North Carolina voting. Will you provide 

that information to the committee as it was previously requested? 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. HORSFORD. I have a question for Ms.—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I know, but—— 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I’m glad to respond. 

Mr. JORDAN. Can you quickly? Go ahead. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. The response is I can’t do that. There is—we 

do not place poll watchers. That was the fundamental misunderstanding that I tried to communicate to the Ranking Member when 

I asked to visit with him. 

Mr. JORDAN. People are allowed to go where they want to go in 

America still. You can’t say everything they want to say, or the IRS 

might come after them. They are still allowed to go where they 

want to go, right, Ms. Engelbrecht? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. They can always take the Fifth, can’t you? 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, they can do that, too, yeah. 

We are going to have to recess. We want to thank our witnesses. 

There’s restroom facilities that you can get to. We’ll be back in approximately 30 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. JORDAN. The committee will—I should have looked up. Wait 

for Ms. Engelbrecht, too. The committee will be in order. 

Again, I want to thank you all for being here. What you have 

been through is something that is just—look, we appreciate your 

courage. We appreciate what you have—your willingness to come 

here and take some of the—take some of the questions that you 

had to take. We appreciate it. And I recognize the gentleman from 

Arizona for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before I get to my questions, I’m sad to see my colleagues aren’t 

over here on the other side of the aisle, because I think it would 

be nice to see the application of us drilling the Tides Foundation 

in the same place that you are. That would be a wonderful conversation, I think. So, but thank you very much, Mr. Chairman for 

the question, you know, for this opportunity. 

107 

This is a serious issue in which the executive branch has abused 

its powers for political gain. My constituents in Arizona are mortified and angry. Congress must ensure that the investigation into 

the targeting of these groups is being conducted in a thorough, 

timely, and appropriate fashion. So I’m going to ask some questions 

very quickly to each of the witnesses, but I have a few to get 

through, so if you can keep it pretty concise, I think it will be pretty self-explanatory. 

Would the witnesses agree that the administration and the enforcement of the law should be done impartially and without regard 

to political affiliation? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Absolutely. 

Ms. MITCHELL. The Constitution requires it. 

Ms. GERRITSON. I agree. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOSAR. So real justice should be blind? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Absolutely. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOSAR. Do the witnesses recall President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder expressing their supposed outrage that 

the IRS would target organizations that do not share their political 

views? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes. May 15th. 

Mr. GOSAR. Do you happen to share in their outrage? 

Ms. GERRITSON. Yes. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Oh, absolutely. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Absolutely. 

Mr. GOSAR. So do I. And so I did find it terribly ironic that the 

President and the Attorney General expressed such an apparent 

outrage over this type of behavior, only later to assign the task to 

an investigator that is biased towards the administration. 

Yes, Miss Barbara Bosserman, one of the lead investigators, do- nated nearly $7,000 to the President and the Democratic National 

Committee, and while I believe in everyone’s right—it’s everyone’s 

right to donate political donations, I do not believe that she is the 

best fit to lead in this investigation and potentially embarrass her 

party or the man she wanted to be President. 

Some might say the Department of Justice agrees that Ms. 

Bosserman leading the investigation is inappropriate. The committee asked the DOJ to allow Ms. Bosserman to attend the hearing today, and the answer to the question was they refused outright. DOJ officials had the nerve to claim that making Ms. 

Bosserman available to the Oversight Committee was tantamount 

to the targeting of a Federal employee. The use of the word ‘‘targeting’’ was not incidental. The DOJ was explicitly attempting to 

draw similarities between the IRS targeting of conservative groups 

to the House Oversight Committee targeting Federal employees. 

To make such an assertion is to imply that the oversight inquiries are inherently partisan, and therefore the administration can 

and should refuse to provide witnesses to answer questions when 

called upon. 

So I ask you witnesses, would you agree with that assessment? 

Ms. MITCHELL. That they—yes. That they were targeting? 

Mr. GOSAR. Yes. 

108 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, they are targeting. They certainly targeted 

many, many of our clients. 

Mr. GOSAR. But they are also trying to utilize it like—that we 

on this committee are actually targeting Federal employees. I 

mean, you can see a very strong—— 

Ms. MITCHELL. They have twisted the statute. They have twisted 

the term. 

Mr. SEKULOW. It is actually—what they are doing is conflating 

two issues. One is the IRS engaged in a systematic targeting, acknowledged systematic targeting. The selection of the Department 

of Justice attorney to head the investigation, they are trying to 

turn the targeting because we raised the concern of bias, which, of 

course, as a defense counsel, in our particular case, or as the plaintiff in lawsuit, and there is a Federal investigation, of course we 

are going to bring that up. 

So they are trying to turn what is an obligation of a lawyer to 

not have the appearance of impropriety, and they are trying to turn 

that as individuals on this committee targeting this lawyer, which 

has never been anybody’s—— 

Mr. GOSAR. Yeah, I agree with you. So, but let me switch gears 

for a minute because you just took me right to where I wanted to 

be. 

Do the witnesses happen to know whether it is legal or illegal 

for an IRS employee to target groups based on political affiliation 

or ideology? 

Mr. SEKULOW. They acknowledged it. I mean, Congressman, as 

you know, the IRS—this is not a case where we are trying to figure 

out what the IRS did. They have said affirmatively, we targeted by 

name, we created a ‘‘be on the lookout’’ list, and they said, we were 

wrong. That was incorrect, ‘‘We apologize.’’ That’s what Lois Lerner 

said. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, but then according to Steve Miller, the former 

Commissioner of the IRS, he actually said it is absolutely not illegal. He made those very, very comments. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yeah, well, I argued a case to the Supreme Court 

of the United States actually dealing with viewpoint discrimination, and all nine Justices said it was illegal. 

Mr. GOSAR. Yeah. Well, that’s why we have to rephrase the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOSAR. —into good behavior. I actually put a bill called the 

IRS Anti-Abuse Act, which would make and codify political affiliation or ideology as a protected class in the IRS—the Internal Revenue Code, but also expressly prohibits an employee from being 

threatened to audit an individual or a group due to arbitrary, capricious, or politically motivated reasons. Is it your recommendation that such provisions should become law? 

Mr. SEKULOW. I think so. I think right now the IRS is institutionally incapable of self-correcting, so legislative oversight is necessary. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Congressman, I would like to add that I just received a text a moment ago in the recess from a person who said: 

I built a Web site for our local Tea Party group, and now I have 

been audited by the IRS. I have heard stories from people all over 

109 

the country about having for the first time in their lives become 

somewhat politically active, or active in advocacy activities, and 

suddenly they have been audited, or their business has been audited. And I just have to think that this cannot be coincidental. 

And somebody needs to be doing the statistical analysis of those 

who have been selected for audit over the past 4 years. 

Mr. GOSAR. Absolutely. 

I want to close real quickly, sir, for your indulgence. I will close 

by noting again that the IRS Commissioner has now approved 

$62.5 million in bonuses to the IRS employees for their work in 

2013 to boost their morale. How absurd. I would say that those 

millions might be best used at the IRS to boost the ethical training 

and boost awareness of the United States Constitution. 

Thank you, sir. I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding.] I thank the gentleman from Arizona 

and will go to the gentleman from Michigan Mr. Bentivolio. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. 

And thank you, distinguished members of the subcommittee and 

those testifying before us today. Thank you very much. 

We appreciate hearing all of these stories from our witnesses, 

and it’s awful what has happened to you. And hearing you and 

your testimony and those from my own district, it appears that the 

President has a war on the Constitution. You know, I always believed the IRS was supposed to be objective and treat everybody 

equally, but under this administration and IRS, I guess, some 

groups are more equal than others. 

It has almost been 9 months since this has been made public, 

and we are no further along than when the initial report was released. Instead, we get typical Washington doubletalk, side-stepping the issue, happy talk, and verbal moon walking. These individuals testifying before us today deserve to have action taken. We 

need to hold this administration and the IRS accountable, and I’m 

committed to making that happen. 

In the hearing that was held in May of 2013, I asked Mr. 

Shulman of the IRS numerous questions about the Constitution 

and Bill of Rights. I asked if IRS agents take classes on the Constitution or Bill of Rights, and he didn’t know. Mr. Shulman is a 

lawyer, and I asked him if he knew the 1st, 2nd, and 19th amendments. He told me he didn’t have the Constitution memorized. 

That’s pretty bad. 

I’m guessing—Ms. Engelbrecht, right? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you. 

I’m guessing you’re all familiar with the Constitution and Bill of 

Rights. Can you tell me what the First Amendment is. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. First Amendment gives us freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Right, and a few others. How about the Second 

Amendment? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. The right to keep and bear arms. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Nineteenth Amendment? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Gave women the right to vote. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. My favorite amendment, yes. 

110 

Do you think IRS agents should have the right or should have 

to take training in the Constitution and Bill of Rights? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Absolutely. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Now, I want to ask you about Tea Party. I’m 

a member of the Tea Party, but I can’t really say that because I 

never filled out an application to join the Tea Party. Is that something—do you have to fill out an application to join the Tea Party? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No. Tea Party is a frame of mind. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. That’s right. You just show up, and you listen 

to what they’re saying, and if you agree with it, you know, you can 

join in the conversation, learn more possibly, or just leave, correct? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. That’s correct. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. You are peacefully assembling to address some 

grievances and ask some questions. Because I think, if you’re like 

me, you felt something was wrong; something was wrong in Washington, but you couldn’t really put your finger on it. Is that a correct assumption? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. That’s absolutely the correct assumption. And 

I assumed that we could ask questions. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. That’s right, you can. And, you know, as a 

former teacher, kids would come in and they would ask questions. 

I never—you know, I tried to answer those questions as best I 

could, and if I didn’t know the answer, I will try to get the answer 

for them. Is that pretty much what you’re doing? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. That’s what I’m trying to do. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Right, I understand. And in civics class—do you 

remember civics class? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I remember—yes, sir. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. A classroom full of kids from all kinds of backgrounds, you name it, and he or she, the civics teacher, said, you 

have an obligation to get involved in what’s going on in the world. 

Did you ever hear something like that or words to that effect? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. That’s how I was raised. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. That’s right. You were raised—— 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. You have an obligation to give back to your 

community. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. That’s how I was raised and so many other 

Americans. And now that you’re doing that, the government, the 

IRS, OSHA—and I have no doubt because I have experienced it 

myself—when my fellow teachers found out I was running for office 

with an R after my name, suddenly couldn’t do anything right. 

Never got a complaint. And all of a sudden I’m a conservative. 

You know, I have a great belief that this country, the greatest— 

well, that this country—how can I say this—the greatest thing 

about this country is our cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity. 

And, you know, I believe the other side agrees with that, too, unless, of course, you have an R or you’re conservative after your 

name. Would you agree with that assumption? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I think it’s a correct assumption that the best 

thing about this country is its people, and maybe we’ve lost our 

way for a little bit, but we’re finding it back. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. God bless you. Thank you for what you’re doing. 

I just want you to know, my office has a door that’s always open. 

111 

You are always welcome, as is anybody else. Feel free to stop in 

at any time. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Thank you. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it, and 

God bless you, all of you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from Michigan, and I go 

now to the gentleman and friend from Texas, the Honorable Judge 

Poe. 

Mr. POE. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for letting me sit on the committee today. 

Ms. Engelbrecht, I have some questions for you. Short answers 

would work okay. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Okay. 

Mr. POE. Have you—after you started King Street Patriots and 

True the Vote, were you visited by the FBI? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Were you visited by the FBI terrorist squad or whatever they call themselves, that investigate terrorists? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. How many times did you have either meetings or conversations with the FBI? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. There were six inquiries. 

Mr. POE. Were you visited by OSHA? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. How many times? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Once. 

Mr. POE. The ATF? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. How many times were you visited or audited by the 

ATF? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Twice. 

Mr. POE. And you were also visited by the Texas Commission on 

Environmental Quality? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. The State agency of the EPA; is that correct? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. The IRS, how many times? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Two personal audits, two business audits. 

Mr. POE. At some point did you believe you were under some 

criminal investigation? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. At some point I didn’t quite know what to 

think. 

Mr. POE. Did you come to me and ask for a FOIA request to see 

if you were being investigated criminally? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir, I did. 

Mr. POE. And we got a response from the FBI? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir, we did. 

Mr. POE. And they said what? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. They said that they were not. 

Mr. POE. They were not investigating you for criminal enterprises—— 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Correct. 

Mr. POE. —to your knowledge? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Correct. 

112 

Mr. POE. Do you think that—well, let me ask you this: Were you, 

at any time after you started these two groups, harassed by socalled liberal or progressive groups? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir, on a very regular basis. 

Mr. POE. And what does that mean, ‘‘harassed’’? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Well, that can mean many things, but speaking falsehoods, bearing false witness, trying to take something like 

election integrity and turn it into something that divides us instead 

of unites us. 

Mr. POE. And in your opinion, were you harassed by legislators? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Do you believe that there should be a special prosecutor 

to investigate the IRS? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. In 2013, on May the 14th, I sent Eric Holder a letter. 

Are you aware of the letter that I sent him asking for a special 

prosecutor and asking a bunch of questions about the IRS? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir, I am. 

Mr. POE. I have not received a response from Eric Holder on 

these. Have you received a response? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir. 

Mr. POE. Were you asked by the FBI—or the IRS, rather, to 

produce all of the tweets that you ever tweeted? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Facebook posts? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Did you comply with that? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I don’t do Facebook or Twitter. 

Mr. POE. The IRS, they wanted to know all of the places that you 

spoke publicly. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Did they want copies of your speeches? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Let’s get this correct. The Federal Government wanted 

a copy of a citizen’s speech in a public forum. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Did they want to know where you were going to speak 

in the future? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Did they want to know the names of the groups you 

spoke to? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Did they want the mailing lists or the attendee list of 

the people that were in attendance at the places that you spoke? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. They wanted the speech. They wanted to know where 

it was. They wanted to know what she said. They wanted to know 

who was there. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POE. Do you find that a little oppressive? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I find it highly political. 

Mr. POE. Do you think that the United States Constitution lets 

the Federal Government swoop in and kill the right of free speech 

by demanding all of this information? 

113 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No. That’s not what the Constitution was 

built to do. 

Mr. POE. I had a chance to be in the Soviet Union back in the 

1980s. The people were totally oppressed by government. They 

were afraid of government. They were afraid to say anything or 

write anything about government because government would punish them, take their job, put them in jail, harass them, take their 

money, all of those things. 

Did you ever think that we would see in the United States of 

America a government, through its agencies, the IRS, the FBI, 

OSHA, EPA, ATF, take on a citizen trying to keep you from criticizing government? Did you ever think that you would see that in 

this country? 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. No, sir, I never thought that I would see— 

I never thought that I would see that, but I do see it, it is happening, and I hope that the American public sees this for what it 

is. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentlewoman will suspend. 

The chairman is responsible under the rules of the House and 

the rules of this committee to maintain order and preserve the decorum in the room. So we ask everybody to abide by that. 

Go ahead, Ms. Engelbrecht. 

Mr. POE. I didn’t hear your answer, I’m sorry. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. I—my answer was no, I never believed that 

this could happen, and for many years I didn’t want to believe that 

by all appearances what seemed to be happening was, in fact, happening. And it is my hope now that we don’t gloss over these moments, that we see them in their fullness for what they are, because it threatens to undermine the very fabric of this Republic, 

sir. 

Mr. POE. Ms. Gerritson, did you ever think that that would—the 

things that I have mentioned that happened to you and Ms. 

Engelbrecht, did you ever as an American think that you would see 

government swoop down and punish you for exercising the right to 

criticize? 

Ms. GERRITSON. Absolutely not. 

Mr. POE. How does that make you feel as an American citizen? 

Ms. GERRITSON. Angry. 

Mr. POE. And you testified that you don’t think we’re doing 

enough to solve this oppression? 

Ms. GERRITSON. Correct. 

Mr. POE. Lastly, if I may, Mr. Chairman, my grandmother, who 

was my most influential person, a Democrat, by the way, to my 

friends over there, used to say there was nothing more powerful 

than a woman that has made up her mind. I think we have two 

of those—three of those women right here today. Thank you for 

being here. Thank you for your fight, because, you see, America is 

worth fighting for. 

Ms. ENGELBRECHT. Amen. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Amen. 

Mr. POE. And I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. I walked in right at the end 

of that, but it sounded like a great presentation. I call it ‘‘mom’s 

on a mission.’’ If mom’s on a mission, look out. Good things are 

114 

going to happen. So I echo what the gentleman from Texas had to 

say. 

Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So I have sat through today’s hearing, and, first of all, I want 

to say I appreciate all of you coming. Your viewpoint is appreciated. It is understood. I wish we had opposing viewpoints here 

today for a fuller discussion, but that doesn’t discount the value of 

your viewpoint. 

Now, one thing I wanted to raise was I think one or more of you 

have brought up the idea that people have said that there is no evidence of wrongdoing at the IRS; that there is no evidence of corruption, or however you want to say it; and that that is inappropriate 

because the investigation is ongoing. 

Which one of you said something like that? 

Mr. SEKULOW. I did. 

Ms. MITCHELL. All of us. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Professor Sekulow, I think. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Mr.—Jay, is fine. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. It’s a good point, Jay, and it’s something that 

we hear both ways. We as Americans are used to TV reporters putting microphones in prosecutors’ faces and investigators’ faces, police chiefs’ faces, asking for details of an investigation. And what 

is the phrase that they all intone always? I can’t comment on an 

investigation—ongoing investigation. 

And as Americans we understand that, because you can prejudice an investigation if you release details, if you give up clues, if 

you can—you can let guilty people off the hook if you do that, if 

you comment on ongoing investigations. So I think we as Americans understand that. 

But I think it works both way, doesn’t it? Before you impugn an 

investigation, before you condemn an investigation for using shoddy practices or unfair viewpoints, or whatever it is, before you attack an investigation, by the same token you want to wait until the 

end of it to see how it comes out. 

And to that point I want to ask, have—do any of you have information that this investigation is over, that it is complete at this 

point? If you do, weigh in. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Let me say from my perspective, because we have 

been involved in the situation since its outset, with regard to the 

investigations, two aspects. There is an ongoing Department of Justice investigation, and then, of course, you have the committee’s investigation. 

On the Department of Justice investigation, I think it’s important to point this out. The wrongdoing by the IRS was acknowledged by the Internal Revenue Service, and for that reason, Congressman, it’s different than a situation where you are trying to determine if, in fact, there was wrongdoing. Here the wrongdoing was 

acknowledged by the IRS. They offered, as I said, the apology for 

it. But they acknowledged they did inappropriate targeting. That’s 

number one. So the—— 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. I want to say, Professor Sekulow, we on this 

entire committee, on both sides—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. Right. 

115 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. —were in a high state of outrage when we first 

found out about it. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. But the answer is that no, we have not heard 

from the Justice Department that they are complete in their investigation. And I want to make the point that maybe, just maybe, it 

would make sense for all of us as Americans to step back and let 

them do their work before they attack—before we attack their 

methods or their conclusions. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Well, then, perhaps—— 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. I only have limited time. 

Mr. SEKULOW. I understand. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. The second point I wanted to make, there have 

been references to Ms. Bosserman, Barbara Kay Bosserman, who 

was invited to come, but did not come today. It is highly irregular, 

it is really unprecedented, to haul an investigator in before a congressional committee in the middle of an investigation for the very 

same reasons I just discussed, because it can prejudice an investigation, because it can really foul it up. And that’s why we don’t 

do that. 

But some of you, one or more of you, have said that Ms. 

Bosserman was leading the investigation. And I wonder, is any of 

you privy to who is leading the investigation, because Attorney 

General Holder testified, I believe it was in the Ways and Means 

Committee—no, I believe in the Senate he testified that Ms. 

Bosserman is not, in fact, leading that investigation. So if one or 

more of you is privy to information that she is, in fact, the lead on 

this investigation, now is the time to share your information with 

us. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Well, let me do that to clarify this for you, Congressman. Now, we, our office, and I believe we are the only ones 

so far, had a conversation with the Department of Justice. The 

highest-ranking official on that call was Ms. Bosserman. And, 

again, I want to be very clear, and I appreciate you giving me a 

moment to do this. We are not disparaging her credentials at all. 

It has raised issues, significant issues, but I also think it is important to point out that with regard to her relationship within the 

Department of Justice, she is a senior official in the Department 

of Justice and the highest-ranking member of the Department of 

Justice that we work with. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. So what you’re saying is that you suspect that 

she may be in the lead of this investigation, but the truth of—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. We were told that she is. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. —the matter is that you don’t know, and, in 

fact, Attorney General Eric Holder has said that she is not. So do 

you mean to really come in here and call the Attorney General of 

the United States a liar? 

Mr. SEKULOW. With due respect, nobody has called the Attorney 

General of the United States a liar. What I have said is this: We 

have been told that the highest-ranking official at the Department 

of Justice, Congressman, is Ms. Bosserman. That is what we have 

been told by the Department of Justice. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Sekulow and Mr. Cartwright, the Attorney General didn’t say that she was not the head of the investigation. 

116 

Mr. SEKULOW. That’s right. He did not know is what he said. 

Mr. JORDAN. He said she’s part of the team. What Mr. Sekulow 

has said is she’s the highest-ranking official part of the team, 

which would lead one to believe she is heading the investigation. 

Plus we have what took place in practice. People we have interviewed, the committee staff has interviewed, which your minority 

staff was in those same interviews, told us the person asking them 

the questions when Justice Department interviewed them was Barbara Bosserman. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. So any logical person, anyone with a brain can figure out she’s heading the investigation. The only one that won’t 

admit that is the Attorney General and the Democrat members of 

this committee. Anyone can figure that out. Of course she’s heading 

the investigation. And, oh, by the way, and this is the underlying 

point, she gave $6,750 to the President and the Democratic National Committee, and she should have recused herself by the plain 

language of the ethics rules in the Justice Department. And you 

can defend her, and you can send me a letter and say she can’t— 

she shouldn’t come here. Don’t subpoena her. Don’t bring her in to 

answer the questions. You can do all that, and you can also say, 

no liberal groups were invited. In fact, I would ask you, tell me one 

liberal group you wanted to invite. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Let me back up a second. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you have a name of a liberal group you want to 

invite here? Tell me one liberal group that’s targeted that that you 

know the name of that you want to invite here. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. The point I’m trying to make is this is—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I can point to 41 Mr. Sekulow knows. I can point 

to True the Vote. I can point to the Wetumpka Tea Party in Alabama. Tell me one you can point to. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. It’s—your opinion is well taken, the opinions of 

the testifying witnesses are well taken, but that’s what they are. 

They are opinions about who is leading this investigation, and we 

here in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee believe 

in dealing in facts. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Sekulow. Taking back my time—— 

Mr. SEKULOW. Congressman, it is a serious charge. We have been 

told—maybe you know something I don’t. We’ve been told that she 

is the lead for the Department of Justice on these investigations including not just with witnesses that we may produce, but that you 

all have produced. So maybe they have told you something we don’t 

know, or maybe they are not telling us the truth. 

And also, I just would add the point here, you’re talking about 

prejudging an investigation? The President of the United States 

said not one smidgeon of corruption. That’s very difficult—— 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. That’s what I said leading into it. It’s fair to 

criticize him for that, but by the same token, let’s all stand back 

and wait until the end of the investigation and reach a measured 

and reasoned evaluation. 

Mr. SEKULOW. Congressman, I don’t have the luxury of standing 

back. I’m in Federal court against the IRS. I don’t have that luxury. I’ve got 41 clients. I don’t get the luxury to sit back. 

117 

Mr. JORDAN. I want to thank all of you again for being here. I 

know the Engelbrechts have a—the gentleman from Texas is recognized. 

Mr. POE. I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record the 

three-page letter I sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on May 14, 

2013, asking for a special prosecutor, where he did not respond. I 

ask unanimous consent. 

Mr. JORDAN. Without objection, I appreciate that. I appreciate 

that, Judge. 

Mr. JORDAN. Again, the Engelbrechts have a plane to catch. I 

know—quickly. 

Ms. MITCHELL. I have one question. I have one question. 

Mr. JORDAN. Go ahead. 

Ms. MITCHELL. I think there’s a difference here between—and 

with all due respect to the ranking member, there is no question 

that these groups, my clients, many more who are—many more 

people, hundreds of groups, hundreds of groups involving thousands of citizens, there is no debate about the fact that they were 

subjected to a process which was instituted within the IRS in late 

2009 or early 2010 which changed the historic procedural manner 

that is published on the Web site of the IRS, that is the publicly 

available process that is supposed to be followed in reviewing applications for exempt status. There’s no question that that happened. 

So what I think when you’re saying the question of wrongdoing, 

that is the wrongdoing. We have—we’re supposed to be a Nation 

of laws, and the rule of law is that the process is published. Anybody who applies is subjected to the same process, the same procedures, and something changed inside the IRS, and that happened. 

There’s no debate about that. 

Mr. JORDAN. Right. 

Ms. MITCHELL. And that was wrong. 

Now, whether it rises to a criminal offense, I have mentioned 

several things that are criminal offenses. Those are the things we 

take exception to that the Justice Department needs to be investigating, that they really don’t—they really haven’t, to our knowledge or satisfaction. And people are calling for the appointment of 

special counsel. But let’s not go away from this hearing with any 

debate about whether or not the facts exist as they exist, which is 

that hundreds of grassroots organizations were subjected to an entirely new review process created in Washington and inflicted upon 

them by politically powerful people. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well said, Ms. Mitchell. 

Ms. Engelbrecht, thank you for coming. Ms. Mitchell, you as well. 

Ms. Gerritson, thank you so much. Mr. Sekulow, I want to thank 

you, too. 

The committee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:57 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(119) 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

120 


Insert offset folio 67 here 87094.067
121 


Insert offset folio 68 here 87094.068
122 


Insert offset folio 69 here 87094.069
123 


Insert offset folio 70 here 87094.070
124 


Insert offset folio 71 here 87094.071
125 


Insert offset folio 72 here 87094.072
126 


Insert offset folio 73 here 87094.073
127 


Insert offset folio 74 here 87094.074
128 


Insert offset folio 75 here 87094.075
129 


Insert offset folio 76 here 87094.076
130 


Insert offset folio 77 here 87094.077
131 


Insert offset folio 78 here 87094.078
132 


Insert offset folio 79 here 87094.079
133 


Insert offset folio 80 here 87094.080
134 


Insert offset folio 81 here 87094.081
135 


Insert offset folio 82 here 87094.082
136 


Insert offset folio 83 here 87094.083
137 


Insert offset folio 84 here 87094.084
138 


Insert offset folio 85 here 87094.085
139 


Insert offset folio 86 here 87094.086
140 


Insert offset folio 87 here 87094.087
141 


Insert offset folio 88 here 87094.088
142 


Insert offset folio 89 here 87094.089
143 


Insert offset folio 90 here 87094.090
144 


Insert offset folio 91 here 87094.091
145 


Insert offset folio 92 here 87094.092
146 


Insert offset folio 93 here 87094.093
147 


Insert offset folio 94 here 87094.094
148 


Insert offset folio 95 here 87094.095
149 


Insert offset folio 96 here 87094.096
150 


Insert offset folio 97 here 87094.097
151 


Insert offset folio 98 here 87094.098
152 


Insert offset folio 99 here 87094.099
153 


Insert offset folio 100 here 87094.100
154 


Insert offset folio 101 here 87094.101
155 


Insert offset folio 102 here 87094.102
156 


Insert offset folio 103 here 87094.103
157 


Insert offset folio 104 here 87094.104
158 


Insert offset folio 105 here 87094.105
159 


Insert offset folio 106 here 87094.106
160 


Insert offset folio 107 here 87094.107
161 


Insert offset folio 108 here 87094.108
162 


Insert offset folio 109 here 87094.109
163 


Insert offset folio 110 here 87094.110
164 


Insert offset folio 111 here 87094.111
165 


Insert offset folio 112 here 87094.112
166 


Insert offset folio 113 here 87094.113
167 


Insert offset folio 114 here 87094.114
168 


Insert offset folio 115 here 87094.115
169 


Insert offset folio 116 here 87094.116
170 


Insert offset folio 117 here 87094.117
171 


Insert offset folio 118 here 87094.118
172 


Insert offset folio 119 here 87094.119
173 


Insert offset folio 120 here 87094.120
174 


Insert offset folio 121 here 87094.121
175 


Insert offset folio 122 here 87094.122
176 


Insert offset folio 123 here 87094.123
177 


Insert offset folio 124 here 87094.124
178 


Insert offset folio 125 here 87094.125
179 


Insert offset folio 126 here 87094.126
180 


Insert offset folio 127 here 87094.127
181 


Insert offset folio 128 here 87094.128
182 


Insert offset folio 129 here 87094.129
183 


Insert offset folio 130 here 87094.130
184 


Insert offset folio 131 here 87094.131
185 


Insert offset folio 132 here 87094.132
186 


Insert offset folio 133 here 87094.133
187 


Insert offset folio 134 here 87094.134
188 


Insert offset folio 135 here 87094.135
189 


Insert offset folio 136 here 87094.136
190 


Insert offset folio 137 here 87094.137
191 


Insert offset folio 138 here 87094.138
192 


Insert offset folio 139 here 87094.139
193 


Insert offset folio 140 here 87094.140
194 


Insert offset folio 141 here 87094.141
195 


Insert offset folio 142 here 87094.142
196 


Insert offset folio 143 here 87094.143
197 


Insert offset folio 144 here 87094.144
198 


Insert offset folio 145 here 87094.145
199 


Insert offset folio 146 here 87094.146
200 


Insert offset folio 147 here 87094.147
201 

Æ 


Insert offset folio 148 here 87094.148