Abbie Alger of the nonprofit Leadership Institute termed the president’s recent dismissal of the Internal Revenue Service scandal “incredibly interesting,” and she called for further investigation of the IRS’s targeting of conservative organizations – including the Institute itself, which was subjected to a 13-month audit that cost the group $50,000 in legal fees and included detailed questions about the identities of the Institute’s student interns. Appearing on On the Record last night, Alger laid out details of the audit, which was reported by our own Andrew Stiles earlier this year.

“There’s three things” that stand out, Alger told Greta van Susteren:

The first is the timeline: The audit of us as an existing organization closely parallels the audits of all the new conservative organizations applying for the tax status for the first time. The second is that a new conservative organization, the Hawaii Tea Party, was specifically asked about their relationship with the Leadership Institute, and to turn over the training materials that they received from us. The third is the nature of the questions that we received from the IRS; so there’s either amazing telepathy occurring across IRS offices, or there’s something more going on behind the scenes.


She also noted that the audit originated in the IRS’s Baltimore office, notwithstanding initial claims by IRS officials that the targeting had been confined to the Cincinnati office.