Boyden Gray, former White House counsel to President George H.W. Bush, appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Tuesday to discuss a complaint he filed to revoke the tax exempt status of Media Matters.

Tucker Carlson was in the crosshairs of the liberal watchdog group this week, which published a series of reports unearthing racist and sexist comments he made on a radio show from 2006-2011 when he worked for MSNBC and Fox News.

The Fox News host argued that Media Matters has clearly “violated its tax exempt status,” and asked Gray — whose complaint with the IRS seeks to pull that status — why the group still qualifies.

“They’ve misused you, they’ve abused you,” Gray told Carlson. “And they’ve abused me in a sense because I’m subsidizing an attack on your program and I don’t find that fair. If anybody wants to spend his own nickel attacking anybody on television, or what they have said, that’s fine, but I don’t think it ought to be subsidized by the federal government.”

“That’s completely wrong and the government ought to stay out of it,” he added.

Gray noted that the complaint was first filed after Media Matters had “declared war on Fox,” which he said was a violation.

“They have been in violation for over a decade,” he said. “So it’s really outrageous. And I don’t know how it can be stopped. But I think maybe it’s time for someone to speak up at the White House and say, look, the IRS is controlled, it’s under the control of right-thinking people, or better thinking people, and let’s see if we can push the IRS to treat you fairly. And to treat all people fairly who don’t want to subsidize a speech they don’t agree with.”

Carlson accused the IRS of “protecting an openly partisan group in flagrant violation of the law.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]