PrintA week of public relations disasters for the Obama administration does not appear to be ebbing just yet. A “charity” run by the president’s half-brother maneuvered through the IRS tax-exempt process in just a single month. Despite reportedly soliciting tax-exempt donations for years prior to garnering the stamp of approval from Internal Revenue Service, the Barack H. Obama Foundation still got the go ahead.
It is illegal to solicit tax-deductible donations for longer than 27 months without non-profit approval from the IRS. The available paperwork stemming from the Barack H. Obama Foundation reveals that the organization’s 990 filings for both 2008 and 2009 were submitted to the IRS on May 30, 2011. The filings from 2010 were handed over on May 23, 2011. The Barack H. Obama Foundation is not even registered in Virginia, but is reportedly promoted as an Arlington-based charity. Virginia requires all charities be registered in the state in order to solicit donations, another error that the IRS conveniently overlooked.
Why did a charity with a stated goal of aiding poor Kenyans that appears not to be located in the state listed as the headquarters skip through the IRS process in one month? This latest twist in the IRS scandal should make it impossible for even the most far-left liberal to deny the obvious bias by the federal government. Political bias should not impact decisions made at the IRS, the EPA, or the agriculture department, yet as we now know – it does.
All of President Obama’s talk about a “level playing field” apparently extends only to those who agree with his Constitution-infringing policies. If I worked at the IRS, I would have some nasty thoughts when signing off on tax-exempt approval for groups like Media Matters or ACORN, but I would not subject their paperwork to any greater scrutiny than that of organizations which fit my own personal mindset.
The IRS not only offered non-profit status to Malik Obama’s organization in record time, the federal agency also reportedly made the status retroactive. Some of the Tea Party and conservative organizations jumped through unreasonable hoops for three years before their tax-exempt status requests were granted.
It does not appear that Malik Obama was asked for details about what books he had been reading or for access to his social media accounts like the Tea Party group did during the IRS review process. I have been involved with two civic groups who spent months working through the IRS non-profit packet. Even though the groups were extremely organized and had used a CPA for all fiscal matters, the process was still both time consuming and tedious. While the community betterment and youth organizations did not have members’ privacy invaded like the conservative and patriot organizations did, they could never have answered all of the legitimate IRS questions in just one month.
Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official currently under fire for the actions of the agency, reportedly signed the Barack H. Obama Foundation request. In May of 2011 the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint about Malik Obama’s organization soliciting tax-deductible donations. The request for funds occurred before the group had even applied to the IRS for non-profit status.
An officer from the Barack H. Obama Foundation stated during an interview with the New York Post that they had not been able to find “someone with the expertise” to apply for the necessary IRS status. The president of the United States could not have tossed out a few attorney or CPA suggestions? I live in the most poverty-stricken county in Ohio, and the groups I was involved with had absolutely no problem calling up one of the few local lawyers and an accountant to assist with the IRS non-profit application. Malik Obama certainly had the ability to do the same. The charity was founded during Barack Obama’s run for office at the home of Alton Ray Baysden, a former State Department staffer. Baysden had this to say about the delay in applying for tax exempt status:
“We haven’t been able to find someone with the expertise to do this. We are informally scouting for an executive director, someone who knows how to register the charity.”
Seriously? Once again, a rural group of youth sports boosters that come from a county with only one traffic light and is comprised entirely of villages can find individuals to help register a charity, but a former State Department staffer and the president’s half-brother cannot? I have heard better excuses from 5-year-olds who forgot to bring their glove to t-ball practice.
Lois Lerner issued approval for tax-exempt status on June 26, 2011. Anyone who has ever had dealt with any governmental agency knows that paperwork of even the most mundane type is never processed in a quick manner. There are reportedly no filings of expenditures from the Barack H. Obama Foundation, an IRS requirement for large charities. Tea Party groups were required to offer up a list of donors, which is way beyond normal protocol, yet Malik Obama’s charity did not even have to account for how donations were spent. What little integrity the IRS attempted to cling to after the tax-exempt review scandal broke has now entirely unraveled.
The Barack H. Obama Foundation founder and president, Abon’go “Roy” Malik Obama was also the best man at the president’s wedding. The lesser known Obama once unsuccessfully ran for governor of Siaya County in Kenya. Malik was also once allegedly accused of being a wife beater. The president’s half-brother supposedly has a dozen wives, one of which allegedly came into the family when she was just a 17-year-old girl.
1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ken Rutherford traveled to Kenya with a group of students from Missouri State in 2009 to meet with Malik Obama. Rutherford won the Peace Prize for his work on landmine banning around the world. Rutherford reportedly decided that Malik was an “operator” and decided to give the 400 pounds of medical supplies not to him, but a local clinic instead.
“We didn’t know what he was going to do with them.” Ken Rutherford said about the medical supplies slated to be delivered to Malik Obama.
