ANALYSIS/OPINION:

A watchdog group filed a complaint to the IRS requesting an investigation of another watchdog, Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), calling into question the group’s nonpartisan billing after hiring David Brock, a liberal operative with ties to leftist donors.

“While CREW bills itself as a nonpartisan federal ethics watchdog, records show the organization is funded by a ream of left-wing organizations, foundations and special interest groups and recently joined the orbit of liberal attack dog David Brock,” the Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE) said in a statement.

In its complaint, the center specifically requests an audit of CREW’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, providing evidence which indicates CREW may have engaged in activity designed to impermissibly benefit donors in violation of the Internal Revenue Code.

Since Mr. Brock’s arrival in 2014, CREW has abandoned much of its core and influential work, a Bloomberg News article reported.

“Annual rankings of the ‘most corrupt’ members of Congress and a biannual list of the ‘worst’ governors have stopped,” Bloomberg observed. “A pipeline of in-depth reports on issues ranging from financial markets to timber-industry lobbying has gone dry. The group walked away from a spat over Hillary Clinton’s treatment of emails as secretary of state, even after an Inspector General found that CREW’s public records request had been improperly denied.”

With Mr. Brock’s arrival, former CREW staffers told Bloomberg, he has pulled the watchdog into partisan efforts — aimed at Republicans — and in doing so, has weakened its impact. Mr. Brock is the founder of American Bridge 21st Century, a political action committee that digs up opposition research on conservatives, and he’s involved in George Soros’s funded Media Matters for America.

CREW told Bloomberg they haven’t turned into a partisan hack organization.

“The board membership may change, but we have always maintained the highest level of integrity and absolute independence in the work we do — and that remains the case,” said Jordan Libowitz, the watchdog’s communications director to Bloomberg.

CORE simply disagrees.

“CREW frequently requests investigations of its political adversaries in the name of transparency and accountability,” said Will Coggin, director of research at CORE. “We are hoping to expose the systematic shadiness of Washington’s self-anointed auditor of ethics and lawfulness. We strongly urge the IRS to conduct a rigorous investigation of this hypocritical, left-wing attack apparatus masquerading as a nonpartisan watchdog.”

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