Maggie Gallagher, co-founder and former Chair of NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, says “a low-level employee … released NOM’s private tax-return information to a guy claiming to be a NOM employee, who then posted it on the Internet.” Gallagher made the statement in a blog post at the National Review.
This damning statement wholly douses NOM president Brian Brown‘s accusation, which he made in a press release this week on May 13:
“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”
Last year, on April 5, Brown claimed:
“It’s clear that the tax return was stolen, either from NOM or from the government. The Huffington Post article says that HRC claimed they received the document from a ‘whistleblower.’ But the term ‘whistleblower’ is completely inapt. We’re talking about a criminal who has stolen confidential tax return information. We demand to know who this criminal is, whether they work for the HRC or the IRS, and how they obtained confidential tax information filed only with the US government.”
“The American people are entitled to know how a confidential tax return containing private donor information filed exclusively with the Internal Revenue Service has been given to our political opponents whose leader also happens to be co-chairing President Obama’s reelection committee,” Brown wrote one week later, in an April 12, 2012 press release. “It is shocking that a political ally of President Obama’s would come to possess and then publicly release a confidential tax return that came directly from the Internal Revenue Service. We demand to know who is responsible for this criminal act and what the Administration is going to do to get to the bottom of it.”
Then, yesterday, jumping on the IRS victim train, Brown issued this press release:
“Not only has the IRS retaliated against conservative, small-government and tea party groups as they apply for recognition of tax exemption AND lied about it, but it has criminally released our confidential tax return including the identity of dozens of major donors to a political enemy,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “In addition to being our principal combatant in the war on traditional marriage, the HRC’s president at the time was serving as a Co-Chair of President Obama’s reelection campaign. This is a chilling set of circumstances that should ring alarm bells across the nation.”
But if “NOM’s private tax-return information” was “released” “to a guy claiming to be a NOM employee, who then posted it on the Internet,” per NOM’s former Chair, then that’s not — in my non-legal estimation — “criminally releas[ing],” but just bad practice.
And “post[ing] it on the Internet” is not handing it over to HRC’s Joe Solmonese, is it?
If NOM had a case, wouldn’t they would have sued the IRS a year ago?
Hat tip: Margaret White