bill: the irs commissioner says his agency plans to issue a new version of the controversial rules that govern what political activities are allowed and not allowed for the so-called social welfare organizations. martha: a cohost of fox and friends weekend. good to see you. good morning, martha. thank you. martha: i started looking at it this morning. what caught my attention was this quote, we would likely repurpose a redefined rule and ask for more public comments. that is not government response. repurpose a redefined rule. this a man who has spent his life in public service. bureaucratic speak. it means they will change the existing rules, and that is not a surprise at all because they were unattainable. they would have prevented groups
but i m not going to answer while my fingerprints are on the demand note. well, joining us for a fair and balanced debate, richard goodstein, democratic consultant, former advisor to hillary clinton s campaign. and martha zoller, radio talk show host and former congressional candidate for georgia s 9 district. so richard, let me start with you. how do you defend that? first of all, i don t think the democrats are defending lois lerner particularly. what they re saying is that this is a witch hunt for the following reasons: almost 20 hearings. 255 irs people contacted or questioned. over $14 million spent on this investigation of what? 501 c 4s which are social welfare organizations. rotary clubs, disabled vets, the miss america pageant. crossroads, the one that s now in the cross fire, is the group that is getting all this
essential to understanding why absolutely nothing scandalous has happened at the irv in this story. the 100-year-old law as viewers of this program know says tax exempt social welfare organizations must be civic leagues of organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. and then in 1959, president eisenhower s chief counsel at the irs wrote an interpretation of that have law, called a regulation, that says that 50 c-4 s must be operated primarily, that was his word, primarily for social welfare. if there is a scandal here, it is this president eisenhower s irs, effectively rewrote the law from exclusively to primarily without any consultation with the congress, without the legal authority to do that.
u you would think someone at fox news would have done that. but they haven t. they won t. they never whether. i was the first to make the wording of that law public last year. but fox news and most of the washington media still relentlessly avoid the wording of that law, which is absolutely essential to understanding why absolutely nothing scandalous has happened at the irv in this story. the 100-year-old law as viewers of this program know says tax exempt social welfare organizations must be civic leagues of organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. a and then in 1959, president eisenhower s chief counsel at the irs wrote an interpretation of that have law, called a regulation, that says that 50 c-4 s must be operated primar y
the democrats going back to the well is brazen and they are publicly saying let s do it again and the american public is clearly offended by this. we talked about this same topic on the friday segment. and i had forgotten that the conservative group said their list was leaked. do we need more regulation. you say political speech. but are they all social welfare organizations. are they nonpartis an political organizations? i will believe that the left is truly opposed when they chastise president obama for going back on public financing and turn off the spiccet on