The IRS division responsible for flagging Tea Party groups has long been an agency afterthought, beset by mismanagement, financial constraints and an unwillingness to spell out just what it expects from social welfare nonprofits, former officials and experts say.
In January, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, ascended to the powerful chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee. Six weeks later, campaign finance filings and interviews show, Hensarling was joined by representatives of the banking industry for a ski vacation fundraiser at a posh Park City, Utah, resort.
A House bill would bar the IRS from offering taxpayers software that would compete with programs like TurboTax. Tax activist Grover Norquist and others wrote a letter to members of Congress that urged them to support the bill — what they called a "pro-taxpayer, anti-IRS power grab legislation." At issue is how Americans file their taxes and whether electronic filing can be offered directly through the IRS.
Industry ties aren't uncommon for cabinet nominees, and President Obama praised Ernest Moniz for understanding both environmental and economic issues. But Moniz's work for energy companies since he served in President Clinton's Energy Department has irked some environmentalists.
An official with the Library of Congress says a widely cited but poorly sourced report his office did on Iran's intelligence ministry has been pulled from circulation.
Dark money groups flooded Albuquerque's airwaves in August, aiming to sway a hotly contested U.S. Senate race by making more than half the political ad buys on top TV stations.
The Government Integrity Fund, a previously unknown group, has poured money into ads bashing Ohio senator Sherrod Brown and praising his Republican opponent.
When Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) and his wife Samia arrived in Bahrain in April, they were greeted with a huge welcome poster featuring oversized smiling headshots of the Burtons.
The NYPD is held up as a sophisticated counterterrorism operation, with media and political figures citing 14 attacks prevented or stopped. But a ProPublica investigation finds that the number is inflated.
Late last month, syndicated columnist Clarence Page appeared at a rally in Paris in support of the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian group that has been lobbying Washington to be removed from the U.S. government’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.
ProPublica's Justin Elliott tries to lay out exactly what's known (not much) about President Obama's policy on drone strikes, what's not (a lot), and what the White House is saying in response to a New York Times report.
Many of the country’s biggest media companies — which own dozens of newspapers and TV news operations — are flexing their muscle in Washington in a fight against a government initiative to increase transparency of political spending.
There may be another benefit for corporations from the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision that opened up the way for unlimited corporate spending on politics: tax breaks.
Last August, the Associated Press launched a series detailing how the New York Police Department has extensively investigated Muslims in New York and other states. ProPublica's Justin Elliott spoke to Faiza Patel to get a better understanding of the rules governing the NYPD.
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