{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://doggett.house.gov/media/press-releases/doggett-sewell-renew-demand-answers-trump-administration-moves-strip", "Doggett, Sewell Renew Demand for Answers as Trump Administration Moves to Strip Nonprofits of Tax-Exempt Status", "2026-09-01", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "House", "TX", "Lloyd Doggett", "D000399", "doggett.house.gov", "doggett", "https://doggett.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "IRS confirmed in April that the Members\u2019 oversight letter had been assigned for response \u2014 four months later, not one of sixteen questions has been answered\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-AL), Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, today renewed their demand that Internal Revenue Service Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano answer sixteen outstanding questions about the Administration\u2019s use of the IRS against tax-exempt organizations and their donors. The Members first wrote to Bisignano on April 14, 2026. The IRS confirmed receipt on April 22 and told the Members\u2019 staff that the letter had been \u201cassigned for response.\u201d No response has ever come.\n\nThe renewed demand follows an August 27 New York Postreport that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his aides are preparing audits, revocations of tax-exempt status, and back-tax and penalty assessments against charitable organizations identified by their perceived opposition to the Administration rather than by any violation of the tax laws. The reported vehicle is a September 2025 presidential memorandum directing scrutiny of nonprofits alleged to operate for a \u201csubstantial illegal purpose.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith an alarming new report that the Trump regime is weaponizing the Tax Code against civic organizations that oppose the Trump agenda, we are renewing our demand for answers from the IRS. In response to my direct questions in March this year, Mr. Bisignano insisted \u2018100 percent\u2019 that he would not initiate audits, investigations, or revocations of tax-exempt status based on political targeting. Yet, he is stonewalling our requests for information about this potential wrongdoing. We need answers now, not after Trump\u2019s attempts to destroy important nonprofit organizations are implemented,\u201d said Rep. Doggett.\n\n\u201cThe American people will not stand for Donald Trump\u2019s blatant attempts to weaponize the federal government to attack organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center - whose mission is to protect the civil rights of all communities and defend our democracy against violent extremism,\u201d said Rep. Sewell. \u201cIt is a federal crime for political leaders to direct the IRS to investigate or audit individual taxpayers, and Congress must know why charitable organizations that are not aligned with Donald Trump\u2019s political agenda are being targeted.\u201d\n\nThe Members\u2019 letter renews all sixteen requests from April and asks the Service to identify the office to which the letter was assigned, the status of that response, and every official at the IRS, Treasury, or the White House who has handled it.\n\nOpposition to the reported campaign is not confined to one party. Writing the day after the Post report, Walter Olson of the conservative Cato Institute observed that \u201c[t]he IRS is not supposed to apply an ideological line in revoking tax exemption,\u201d and cautioned: \u201cProtect your opponents\u2019 rights, and when the wheel turns, you may find that you\u2019ve protected your own as well.\u201d\n\nBACKGROUND\n\nSection 7217 of the Internal Revenue Code makes it a federal crime for the President, the Vice President, the Treasury Secretary, and members of their staff to request, directly or indirectly, that the IRS audit or investigate any particular taxpayer. It also requires IRS officers and employees to report any such request to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.\n\nAt a March 4, 2026 Ways and Means Committee hearing, Rep. Doggett asked Bisignano whether he had received \u201ceither directly or indirectly any communication from anyone in the Trump regime suggesting that specific tax-exempt organizations should be scrutinized because of their political views.\u201d Bisignano answered: \u201cNo.\u201d Asked to commit that under his leadership the IRS would not initiate audits, investigations, or revocations of tax-exempt status based on political targeting, he answered: \u201c100%. We\u2019re here to administer the law, uphold the law.\u201d\n\nThe April 14, 2026 letter, signed by Doggett, Sewell, and fourteen colleagues, asked the IRS whether the President, the Treasury Secretary, or their staff had requested audits or investigations of particular taxpayers; who assembled the reported list of investigative targets; whether protected taxpayer information had been disclosed to the Department of Justice, Treasury, or White House staff; and what protections exist for IRS employees who decline to participate in politically motivated enforcement.\n\nIn October 2025, Ways and Means Democrats asked the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to investigate reports that the Administration was encouraging the IRS to facilitate criminal investigations of Democratic donors and \u201cleft-leaning\u201d nonprofit groups.\n\nFull text of the letter is available here.\n\nFull text of the April 2026 letter is available here.\n\nNew York Post reporting on the Trump administration\u2019s plans to crack down on nonprofits is available here.\n\nRep. Doggett Questions Trump IRS CEO Bisignano\n\nDoggett: If you would sir, with a simple yes or no, tell us whether you have received either directly or indirectly any communication from anyone in the Trump regime suggesting that specific tax-exempt organizations should be scrutinized because of their political views?\n\nBisignano: No.\n\nDoggett. You have not. Good. And will you commit today that under your leadership the IRS will not initiate audits, investigations, or revocations of tax-exempt status based on political targeting?\n\nBisignano: 100%. We're here to administer the law, uphold the law, uphold the law.\n\nDoggett: Thank you. Just to be clear what I'm talking about though, in that regard, the Wall Street Journal reported \u201cthe Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of some groups more easily.\u201d So are they in error and no such sweeping changes or any changes are being prepared there to use the IRS?\n\nBisignano: I hope that you understand that every form of the daily news is not a Bible.\n\nDoggett: That's why I'm asking.\n\nBisignano: Not a Bible, sir.\n\nDoggett Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I'm asking you about this.\n\nBisignano: I've actually never heard that or seen.\n\nDoggett: You've never heard that the Trump administration was trying to weaponize the IRS?\n\nBisignano: 100% not.\n\nDoggett: Then you're not familiar with President Trump's tweet specifically attacking Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, asking that it's tax-exempt status should be re-evaluated? You didn't . . . you're not aware of that?\n\nBisignano: I don't track tweets sir.\n\nDoggett: You don't track Truth Social. It doesn't have anything to do with your work?\n\nBisignano: You will not find my social media presence anywhere.\n\nDoggett: Well, this is the President of course not very interested in ethics so I was very concerned about that.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-02T09:19:58Z", "2026-09-02T09:20:51Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://doggett.house.gov/media/press-releases/doggett-sewell-renew-demand-answers-trump-administration-moves-strip"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.470780000090599, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}