After years of being stonewalled by the Obama administration, the hundreds of Tea Party groups that were targeted by the Internal Revenue Service in 2013 for political purposes finally received justice Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett approved a multimillion-dollar settlement.
Although the settlement doesn’t include an admission of guilt by the IRS, it does force the agency to finally pay penance by forking over $3.5 million total to the hundreds of conservative non-profit that were unfairly targeted for intense scrutiny after applying for tax-exempt status.
“It shows that when a government agency desires to target citizens based on their viewpoints, a price will be paid,” Edward Greim, the attorney who led the class-action suit against the IRS, said to The Washington Times.
It was not until October of 2017, nine months after President Donald Trump took office, that the federal government finally agreed to settle the Tea Party groups’ complaint.
Wednesday’s ruling also marks the first time the IRS has ever agreed to pay for its transgressions: “I’m not frankly aware of any other class action lawsuit against the IRS for anything where the IRS paid money,” Citizens for Self Governance president Mark Meckler, who funded the lawsuit, said.
