The Minority Leader of the United States Senate appeared on The Kelly File, Wednesday night, to announce a push back against the IRS’s latest attempt, via new rules, to silence conservative groups. Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network reaction? Silence. Not a single network morning show, on Thursday, reported on the latest charges from Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Appearing on the January 29 edition of FNC’s The Kelly File, McConnell told host Megan Kelly about the proposed regulations: “Megyn, they’re now initiating a new rule through the Treasury Department in the IRS to quiet the voices of outside groups. It is called a c4, and what they’re gonna do is redefine what outside groups can do in a way to silence the voices of conservative critics.” (video after the jump)
McConnell went on to depict the IRS abuse of conservative groups in Nixonian terms, as seen in the following exchange:
MEGYN KELLY: Let me just set the stage for the viewers. Because it came out that the IRS was targeting conservatives, and both parties said “that’s awful, that’s terrible, we need to investigate,” and shortly thereafter, the focus seemed turn for some to, “you know, what? These groups should not have been granted 501-3 status in the first place. They shouldn’t even be applying for tax-exempt status because they’re too political.” That’s what the Democrats started to say. And what you’re basically telling me is that now the IRS, all of these months later has said, “you’re right, let’s change the rules so that, they won’t have to deal with it at all because we’re just going to stamp ‘rejected’ as soon as they submit their applications this time.”
MCCONNELL: Yeah. Well, let me tell you about the key to it. You know, Nixon tried to use the IRS to go after his enemies back during Watergate. And the commissioner of IRS said, no. So we’ve got a new commissioner over at the IRS, I think we want to see if he has the integrity to stand up to this White House like the IRS commissioner did when Richard Nixon was trying to use the IRS to achieve a political objective. Will, this new fresh, IRS commissioner coming in to clean up this troubled agency, be used by this White House to silence critics?
KELLY: Yeah.
MCCONNELL: Will he throw the IRS right in the middle of this big political debate? I want to see a statesman over there at the IRS. He got recently confirmed by the Senate. I had a conversation with him about this subject. We’re counting on him not to be used by this White House to carry out their political agenda of quieting their critics.
KELLY: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, great to see you. Thank you, sir.
