Some Soros Funded Groups and a Timeline

As IRS efforts targeting politically-conservative groups gained momentum, George Soros-funded liberal groups repeatedly called on the IRS to investigate conservative nonprofit organizations.

While the first reported instances of extra IRS scrutiny for conservative groups began in Cincinnati in March of 2010, the attacks began to pick up steam on a national level soon after Soros-funded groups began firing off letters to the IRS in October of that year - following the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

The talking points of these groups then bounced around a carefully created progressive "echo chamber," until they eventually made their way into established media outlets. Key IRS policy changes about how it investigated conservative groups took place soon after it received three separate letters sent by Soros-funded liberal organizations.

Several Soros-funded groups including the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and Alternet have worked to pressure the IRS to target conservative nonprofit groups. The subsequent IRS investigation flagged more than 100 tea party-related applications for higher scrutiny, including applications that included the words "Tea Party" and "patriot."

The IRS scandal can be traced back to a series of letters that the liberal groups Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy 21 sent to the IRS back in 2010 and 2011. Both groups were funded by George's Soros's Open Society Foundations. The CLC received $677,000 and Democracy 21 got $365,000 from the Soros-backed foundation, according to the Foundation's 990 tax forms.

The letters specifically targeted conservative Super PACs like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, asking the IRS to scrutinize them more thoroughly to determine whether or not they should retain their tax-exempt status.

I WILL NOT PUBLISH THE REST OF THE ARTICLE WITH THE TIMELINE. PLEASE GO TO THE ARTICLE ITSELF AS IT IS VERY LONG, but below is the timeline of Soros funding from the end of the article. 

Timeline Shows Influence of Soros-Funded Groups

• March 1-17, 2010: First ten reported cases of targeting by the IRS against groups that had ties to the "tea party or similar organizations."
• Sept. 16, 2010: TIME article "The New GOP Money Stampede" quotes Wertheimer;
• Sept. 23, 2010: DISCLOSE act, a campaign finance disclosure act specifically targeting a Tea Party group, in the writing of which the CLC participated, fails in the Senate;
• Sept. 28, 2010: Democrat Senator Max Baucus writes a letter to the IRS, citing the TIME article;
• Oct. 5, 2010: Democracy 21 and Campaign Legal Center petition IRS, Wertheimer writes HuffPo article;
• Oct. 7, 2010: Legal brief from HoltzmanVogel PLLC against the Democracy 21 petition;
• Oct. 14, 2010: Dick Durbin asks IRS to investigate American Crossroads, HuffPo coverage;
• June 27, 2011: Second petition to the IRS by CLC and Democracy 21;
• June 29, 2011: IRS senior agency official Lois Lerner briefed on efforts to target groups which "criticize how the country is being run";
• Sept. 28, 2011: CLC and Democracy 21 petition IRS again, this time about four conservative groups;
• Oct. 31, 2011: CPI "investigation";
• Nov. 18, 2011: Mother Jones article;
• Nov. 21, 2011: Alternet repost of Mother Jones Article;
• Dec. 29, 2011: New York Times oped;
• Jan. 15, 2012: IRS targeted groups focusing on limiting government or educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights;
• February 2012: First articles promoting this issue appear in New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times

$6.1 Million in Soros Funding Since 2000

Center for Public Integrity: $2,716,328
Campaign Legal Center: $677,000
Media Consortium: $675,000 
Mother Jones: $485,000
Democracy 21: $365,000
ProPublica: $300,000
Alternet: $285,000
Human Rights Campaign: $600,000