Just how political has IRS become?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- At least 20 non-profit organizations "unfriendly" to the Clinton administration have faced Internal Revenue Service audits since 1993, a survey by the Western Journalism Center, one of the groups targeted, has found.

Coincidence? Many conservative leaders and attorneys familiar with IRS practices laugh at that suggestion. Groups of all sizes and purpose are currently under audit, have gone through the process or are threatened with it -- from large, well-known organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Rifle Association to small, local pro-life and patriot groups. Even the two most popular conservative magazines -- American Spectator and National Review -- are feeling the inquisitorial wrath of the IRS.

Though officially no one at National Review will even confirm the audit, sources close to the journal say the audit is the first in the magazine's history.

"We're not talking about an attack on conservative philosophy, per se," says attorney William Wewer, a specialist in nonprofit law. "Clinton doesn't care about ideas. He cares about power and he's using the most feared enforcement tool in the government to attack people who are opposing him politically. He's using government to achieve personal political goals."

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The IRS denies any political motivations for its choices. Yet not a single prominent public policy organization friendly to the Clinton administration has apparently been targeted for audit in the same period, according to two random samples and research into the non-profit community. Many tax-exempt organizations are, however, loath to discuss such matters because of its potentially devastating impact on fund-raising efforts.

According to Wewer, who represents about a thousand charities, the groups singled out include many which have challenged the Clinton administration in a "high-profile fashion."

"Every one of our clients who is under audit has taken on the Clinton administration vigorously, usually through a direct mail campaign," he says. His observation applies to most of the groups so far identified.

For example, there was the American Policy Center and its "Fire Jocelyn Elders" campaign in 1993. In addition to a request for contributions, would-be donors were asked to mail an enclosed card to President Clinton demanding prompt dismissal of the former surgeon general. About six months ago, the group was notified that it was being audited.

"The idea that someone can write to them and say 'I don't like their politics, so go investigate them' is outrageous," says APC President Tom DeWeese,

The IRS claims it is increasingly dependent on these "citizen complaints" and maintains the ongoing investigation and audit of APC is simply normal routine checking. Wewer dismisses that idea as "bogus."

"I know of many citizen complaints that never get acted on," he says. "I've filed several myself against organizations that were promoting terrorism -- some of the extreme green groups and animal rights groups. Nothing was done, not even when I laid out the entire case for them."

Then there's the strange case of the newly formed Wisconsin non-profit Fortress America. Just last November the group received its 501(c)4 tax-exempt status -- a classification that entitles the organization to engage in some lobbying and political activities. A month later Fortress America sent out a fund-raising letter that was critical of Hillary Clinton. In January, two IRS agents began investigating the group.

Fortress America is so new it hadn't even filed its first tax return, hence, no actual audit was possible. Washington attorney Alan Dye, who represents the targeted group, says he can't recall being involved in a case where the IRS began investigating an organization before an audit was even begun.

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"The coincidence of this occurring within 30 days of a negative letter about Hillary Clinton is pretty striking," Dye observes. "If the IRS doesn't mean to be biased, they're doing everything they can to make it look like they are."

Another IRS target was Amy Moritz Ridenour's National Center for Public Policy Research. The group played a prominent role in the political defeat of the Clinton health-care plan in 1993 and 1994, focusing public attention on Hillary Clinton's role withe the president's advisory task force and its secret meetings. In 1995, the group was audited. The group also challenged the first lady's access to classified information, secured without a security clearance. The group called for congressional hearings to determine guidelines about such unprecendented clearances.

By IRS standards, the group's ordeal was brief -- about two weeks. At one point during the examination, Ridenour asked the IRS field agent why the group was targeted. The disturbing answer: "You probably made someone mad."

"Now why would he say, 'probably'?" Ridenour wonders. "You'd figure he'd say oh, it's just a routine audit, even if that weren't true. To me it shows there's an assumption at the IRS that decisions [like who gets audited] are made for political reasons. It must be part of the environment."

The Western Journalism Center shared a similar experience. When an IRS field agent began asking questions about the content of the group's work, the motivations for investigative reporting about White House scandals and suggesting that the center should be reclassified from an educational 501(c)3 status to a 501(c)4, group's accountant protested.

"Look," said Thomas Cederquist, the IRS auditor, "this is a political case and the decision is going to be made at the national level." Asked what he meant by that statement, Cederquist repeated it. Only recently, months after the center went public with accusations that the audit was politically inspired was Cederquist replaced as the lead investigator on the case.

None of this is surprising to Wewer who has been involved in conservative political activism for 33 years.

"They're trying to destroy the very warp and woof of what makes us work as a country," he said. "The democratic system is a robust system, but it can be very fragile when it comes to this type of attack."

In response to the Western Journalism Center's story of apparently politically motivated IRS audits broken last fall in the Wall Street Journal, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation began an investigation. Hearings are set to begin some time next month and a final report will be issued in September.

Last February, IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson, a long-time political ally and friend of the Clintons and a self-described "yellow-dog Democrat," announced she was stepping down from her post to pursue other interests. The New York Post, however, suggested in an editorial that the revelations of politically motivated audits may have been a central factor in her decision. No replacement for Richardson has yet been named.