Justin Binik-Thomas isn’t aware of other individuals targeted by the Internal Revenue Service for political reasons, but he considers the tax agency’s focus on one person’s politics an even bigger threat than targeting organizations for political reasons.
“Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas,” said one of the 35 questions an IRS questionnaire to the Liberty Township (Ohio) Tea Party on March 1, 2012, signed by Mitch Steele, an IRS Exempt Organizations Specialist.
Liberty Township, Binik-Thomas said, is about 30 miles from his hometown of Deer Park, Ohio.
“They not only reached out and politically targeted groups, they were targeting individuals,” Binik-Thomas told CNSNews.com. “That’s a big systemic problem. You bring in people, you change the game.”
Binik-Thomas was a founding member or the Cincinnati Tea Party, and runs a small media relations firm called Conservative Media Group LLC.
IRS officials apologized Friday that the tax exempt division based in Cincinnati targeted groups with the word “tea party,” “patriot” and other conservative-sounding terms or slogans.