A group member complained that Cummings sent letters to 'True the Vote.' IRS tea party hearing goes off course

A conservative group claiming it was targeted by the Internal Revenue Service stole the show at a congressional hearing on Thursday when it veered off topic and accused top panel Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings of harassment.

Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote, complained that Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee “sent letters to True the Vote, demanding much of the same information the IRS had requested” after she filed for nonprofit status and then “would appear on cable news and publicly defame me and my organization.”


Democrats called it outrageous that Republicans gave the group a platform to attack a member, and even some Republicans tried to change the subject back to the IRS controversy itself.

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Cummings staff promptly produced copies of the five letters sent in the fall of 2012 and said the Maryland Democrat was conducting appropriate oversight of True the Vote, among the biggest organizations to crop up in recent years seeking to tighten voting rules.

Groups like True the Vote are backed by Republicans, and most Democrats call the efforts an attempt to restrict voting of minorities by challenging voter registration, curbing early voting and requiring multiple forms of identification. Republican governors and legislators have been successful in enacting many of these changes to voting in recent years.

“There is no one that I know of that cares more about the rights of our citizens than I do,” Cummings, an African-American, said. “I don’t care if you’re tea party or Democrat or Republican — I want to make sure no one is blocked from voting,” like he said his now 88-year-old mother was years ago.

The ostensible focus of the hearing was GOP outrage that a Obama donor, a career Justice government employee, is working on the FBI investigation of the targeting debacle. The entire panel was made up of tea party groups and their backers describing what they called harassment by the government. The Justice Department declined to send the official, citing the ongoing probe.

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After applying for tax-exempt status, Engelbrecht said her organization and manufacturing business received IRS audits and six separate inquiries from the FBI regarding “domestic terrorism.” Atop that, her business was inspected and fined by OSHA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

She speculated that there was a type of government conspiracy aimed at her for founding a tea party organization.

“For decades, I went unnoticed but now find myself on the receiving end of interagency coordination into and against all facets of my life,” she said.

She said Cummings and his staff might have inspired these audits.

”We believe that Rep. Cummings misrepresented his authority as Member of Congress to intimidate me and others associated with me, and which may be responsible for a series of incursions into my personal, organizational and business affairs by various federal agencies, agents and bureaucracies over the past four years,” read Engelbrecht’s official complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics.

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Even some Republicans came to Cummings’s defense and said perhaps the group was going too far in the accusations.

Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) encouraged the group to drop the complaint.

“I don’t think the ranking member was attacked, but I instructed our staff to encourage [the group] not to proceed with the ethics complaint,” he said.

“What is so astonishing to me is that you would give them a forum to do this,” said Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). “I regret that our committee would allow [the hearing] to be used for such a blatant political stunt.”

Cummings said he often will “write letters in my capacity as ranking member … to investigate serious allegations of wrongdoing” — one of the primary duties of the committee.

His letters detail examples of challenges of voter registrations made by True the Vote that turned out to be wrong and seeks information about the methodology of the group’s challenges.

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The group, Cummings’s staff said, describes itself as “a non-profit, non-partisan, non-political charitable and educational organization” yet “has raised millions of dollars for Republican candidates” and has a policy arm to try to limit early voting.

Therein lies the link to an underlying topic of the hearing — IRS oversight of so-called 501(c)(4) groups, which are exempt from federal taxes. Many on the left say groups with clear links with political parties should not be eligible for tax exempt status in the first place.

The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights in 2012 reported that True the Vote’s poll monitoring efforts in North Carolina were tailored to African-American and minority communities that traditionally vote Democrat.

Cummings had earlier provided copies of his letters to Issa, his staff said. True the Vote declined to produce any documents.

Lauren French contributed to this report.