An employee at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who was involved in targeting conservative groups during the Obama administration is now leading the same IRS division, according to a new memo from the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Robert Choi served as the director of the IRS’s Tax-Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements division in 2010, when the agency began applying heightened scrutiny to organizations associated with the Tea Party movement seeking tax-exempt status, the AAF found. Despite this history, Choi was reportedly recently promoted to acting commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities division, which handles the administration of tax laws that govern tax-exempt organizations.
Choi led the Tax-Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements division between 2007 and 2010, reporting to Lois Lerner, who admitted in 2013 to singling out applications containing the words “tea party” or “patriot” for tax-exempt status, resulting in her resignation. Emails showing Lerner describing Republicans as “crazies” and “a**holes” also fueled allegations of anti-conservative bias within the agency.
