(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to obtain records related to possible improper targeting of January 6, 2021, Capitol protesters, their supporters, and related nonprofits (Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:25-cv-01290)).
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the IRS failed to respond to a January 22, 2025, FOIA request for the records of IRS officials, including former Commissioner Daniel Werfel, Acting Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell, Chief Tax Compliance Officer Heather Maloy and others that mention President Trump or his pardons of the Capitol protesters plus all records referring to plans for audits of the protesters, their supporters or related nonprofits.
On January 19, 2024, National Public Radio published “IRS is called to look into nonprofit for Jan. 6 rioters,” in which it reported:
Democratic Congress members are calling for the IRS to scrutinize a nonprofit that supports defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has close ties to the Trump campaign…. The Patriot Freedom Project provides financial help to January 6 defendants and describes them as, quote, “political prisoners.” The group is organized as a charity under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) also sought a broad IRS investigation of groups allegedly associated with the January 6 protests.
“The IRS has a demonstrated record, as proven by Judicial Watch, of abusing taxpayers at the behest of politicians,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The IRS obviously has the January 6 documents – so, why the cover-up!”
In 2022, Judicial Watch obtained sealed court documents revealing that former IRS officials Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, who led efforts targeting Tea Party groups, acknowledged internally that most of those organizations were legally entitled to tax-exempt status in the lead-up to President Obama’s 2012 reelection.
In 2018, Judicial Watch obtained IRS records that contained material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including Lerner, to “audit so many [conservative groups] that it becomes financially ruinous.” Kerner was appointed by President Trump as special counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.
Judicial Watch had previously reported on the 2013 meeting. Senator McCain then issued a statement decrying “false reports claiming that his office was somehow involved in IRS targeting of conservative groups.” The IRS had blacked out the notes of the meeting but Judicial Watch found the notes among subsequent documents released by the agency.
Judicial Watch separately uncovered that Lerner was under significant pressure from both Democrats in Congress and the Obama DOJ and FBI to prosecute and jail the groups the IRS was already improperly targeting. In discussing pressure from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to prosecute these “political groups,” Lerner admitted, “it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity.”
The April 2013 meeting came just under two weeks prior to Lerner’s admission during an American Bar Association (ABA) meeting that the IRS had “inappropriately” targeted conservative groups. In her May 2013 answer to a planted question, in which she admitted to the “absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate” targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups, Lerner suggested the IRS targeting occurred due to an “uptick” in 501 (c)(4) applications to the IRS but in actuality, there had been a decrease in such applications in 2010.
In May 2013, a report by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed: “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status” (e.g., lists of past and future donors). The illegal IRS reviews continued “for more than 18 months” and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” in advance of the 2012 presidential election.
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