The IRS Admits Wrongdoing and Pays Up...

June 25, 2014

The Daily Signal Reports:

The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage as a result of the unlawful release of the confidential information to the Human Rights Campaign, that is NOM's chief political rival.

"Congress made the disclosure of confidential tax return information a serious matter for a reason," NOM Chairman John D. Eastman told The Daily Signal. "We're delighted that the IRS has now been held accountable for the illegal disclosure of our list of major donors from our tax return."

The $50,000 to be paid by the IRS represents actual damages NOM incurred responding to the illegal disclosure, not punitive damages, since the marriage group was unable to prove disclosure of the confidential records was deliberate after Meisel took the Fifth.

It has been a long and arduous process to hold the IRS accountable for their illegal release of our confidential tax return and donor list, which was ultimately given to our chief political rival by the recipient. In the beginning, the government claimed that the IRS had done nothing wrong and that NOM itself must have released our confidential information. Thanks to a lot of hard work, we've forced the IRS to admit that they in fact were the ones to break the law and wrongfully released this confidential information.