Prominent evangelical Christian leader James Dobson joined the radio program today and revealed the the IRS targeted one of his organizations as well. When he had been stonewalled by the IRS for months and finally called to get an update, what he was told was shocking. Dobson told shared his story with Glenn today on the radio show.
TheBlaze has more on this story HERE.
Transcript of the interview is below:
GLENN: Over the weekend Billy Hallowell from TheBlaze broke the story about Dr. James Dobson. This is some disturbing stuff. Dr. Dobson is on with us now. James, how are you, sir?
DR. DOBSON: I'm doing fine, Glenn, and thanks for having me on. This is such a critically important issue.
GLENN: Tell me, tell me what happened with you.
DR. DOBSON: Well, as you know, it's been admitted now that the IRS profiled ‑‑ that's my term for it but I think that fits ‑‑ about 300 or more conservative organizations. You referred just a minute ago to the TEA Party and the smoking gun there, but it's not limited to the TEA Party. The it's limited to evangelical organizations, conservative Christian organizations.
GLENN: Jewish organizations.
DR. DOBSON: I would imagine conservative Catholic organizations. And what they did was to harass and intimidate and delay their applications for nonprofit status, especially 501(c)(4) organizations. Billy Graham's ministries was part of it, Concerned Women for America and then, of course, the TEA Parties and who knows who else is on the 300 ‑‑ the list of 300. I can just tell you that our organization was among them. Family Talk Action applied for a 501(c)(4). We already have a (c)(3), but applied for a (c)(4) in September of 2011 and that started the process which took 19 months to come to fruition. Some of that time was spent by us answering questions, questions that I don't remember ever being asked before but our Family Talk Action attorney finally called to find out what the delay was. He couldn't get through and then on March the 19th of this year he got a call from a female agent named R. Medley and she called to tell us what the holdup was. And she said that Family Talk Action was ‑‑ and by the way, Glenn, I think we are the first one where the IRS had admitted, or at least one I know of that has admitted what was the problem with getting these approvals. She said that Family Talk Action was a partisan rightwing group because we represented only one point of view, she said that we were a political organization because we had criticized the president on occasion. And then she said that we were not an educational organization because it doesn't represent all views. Not educational, Glenn. I don't want to be self‑serving here but, you know, I have an earned Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in child development. I was a professor of pediatrics for 14 years. I've written 80 books. I've done 8,000 radio programs in 35 years, and I'm not educational. But it really all ‑‑
GLENN: Just so long as you understand that.
DR. DOBSON: It all comes down to this: Medley implied ‑‑ or this is the implication of what she was saying: That Family Talk Action was not worthy of a 501(c)(3) status, and she did say that they were probably not going to approve us and it was because we don't devote airtime that we have paid for to those that represent a different world view and opposing perspectives.
GLENN: You don't have to do that.
DR. DOBSON: And then this Ms. Medley asked our attorney if we want to do revise our application, and he said, "No. If we have to litigate, we will." And nine days later they approved our application. So that was our experience, and I'll bet it's been duplicated many, many times over.
GLENN: Did you say anything at all while you were going through this? Did you say any of this on the air?
DR. DOBSON: Say what? What the IRS had done?
GLENN: Yeah, what was going on.
DR. DOBSON: Yes. Today's program, Family Talk, and tomorrow's program. Tomorrow I'm interviewing Michele Bachmann and today I interviewed Penny Nance.
GLENN: No, but I mean ‑‑
DR. DOBSON: And they are alarmed about it too.
GLENN: During the scandal, during ‑‑ while you were waiting for it, did you ever mention that you were still waiting for the IRS?
DR. DOBSON: No. We obviously didn't want to rock the boat. We wanted to get the approval and so we didn't talk about it because ‑‑
PAT: I bet everybody was like ‑‑
GLENN: We were.
PAT: Everybody was lying that.
GLENN: We did exactly the same thing because we were doing some things as well and had some ‑‑ you know, I had an IRS audit and we ‑‑ you know, everybody said, Glenn, shut your mouth until it's over and you don't want to ‑‑ you just don't want to ‑‑ and that should tell you something. I mean, this is like Muslim extremism. You know, shut your mouth, don't say anything because they'll make it worse. I mean, that should tell you everything you need to know about the organization.
DR. DOBSON: It certainly does. And we knew. We knew what we were dealing with. We had no qualms, no questions about what the Obama administration thinks about conservative Christian organizations but, you know ‑‑
GLENN: So where was this R. Medley, how did you get roped up with her in Cincinnati (sniffing)?
DR. DOBSON: Well, our attorney called and asked for an update and he couldn't ‑‑ or he called to ask for an update and he couldn't get through. And finally she called back responding to him ‑‑
GLENN: Wait. What location was she ‑‑
DOBSON: I've never met her, I don't know her, but she called back and was amazingly candid with us.
GLENN: What location was she at? James, where was she, in what city? Do you know?
DR. DOBSON: You know, I really don't know. I assume that it was Cincinnati, but my attorney would have to answer that. I haven't been involved in any of the conversations because you let attorneys handle these things and that's what we did.
GLENN: Okay. Dr. James Dobson ‑‑
DR. DOBSON: Charles Krauthammer, a commentator on Fox News said something the other night that I thought was very telling. He said that this IRS scandal is the most damaging of all because the American people know the enormous power of the taxing authority and they're frightened by it. And, of course, chief justice John Marshall said in 1819 that the power to tax is power to destroy. So when you add to this the fact that the IRS is going to be the implementer of ObamaCare, they will know not only everything about our money, everything about our money, our salaries, everything, what we spend our money on, everything, but also know everything about our health. And you put those two things together and that is enormous power.
GLENN: Yeah. Dr. James Dobson, thank you so much and we'll talk to you again. Stay safe.
DR. DOBSON: Thank you, Glenn.
GLENN: You bet.
