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True the Vote Wins Ruling Against IRS in US District Court

IRS Forced to Turn Over Evidence of Targeting Seven Years After it Began

WASHINGTON, DC - April 13, 2017 Judge Reggie Walton, of U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia just issued a critical order in True the Vote v. IRS case. The order compels the IRS to submit to
discovery and depositions, giving True the Vote a long-awaited opportunity to expose the full scope of the
discriminatory practices used by the Internal Revenue Service to target and abuse organizations and
individuals who expressed political views in opposition to the Obama Administration.

"This is a huge step forward," said TTV founder, Catherine Engelbrecht. For years, the Internal Revenue
Service has tried to cover up the role they played in suppressing True the Vote. Thanks to Judge Walton's
Order, we will finally have an opportunity to expose the truth of what really happened inside the IRS offices in
Cincinnati, all the way to the West Wing of the Obama White House. We want to ensure that no American will
ever again be targeted for viewpoint discrimination by a weaponized government.

After four years of obstruction, TTV will finally be able to find out how the IRS Targeting Scheme was put
together and who is responsible for it. TTV needs to find out what happened in order to ensure that advocacy
groups are not targeted based on their political beliefs by the IRS, said James Bopp, Jr., attorney for TTV.
This may involve further orders by the District Court to remedy the IRSs illegal conduct.

A copy of Judge Walton's Order is attached here.

Case Background: TTV originally filed its application for 501(c)(3) exemption on July 15, 2010. By that time,
the IRS had already instituted a viewpoint based targeting program where conservative and Tea Party groups
were purposely singled out for adverse treatment by the IRS. As the Treasury Inspector General found in its
May, 2013 report, this IRS Targeting Scheme (1) selected groups for special treatment who had Tea Party,
Patriot, of 9/12" in its name or who advocated conservative policy position, (2) subjected the victims to
numerous inappropriate and intrusive questioning, and (3) grossly delayed the approval of their applications.
When TTV filed suit, right after the Inspector General had exposed the Obama administrations attack on
conservative groups by the IRS, TTVs charitable application had still not been granted.
Since then, the IRS has (1) refused to acknowledge, even to this day, that the IRS had unconstitutionally
targeted conservative groups for adverse treatment, and (2) doggedly obstructed all attempts by TTV to
conduct discovery to find out the full nature of the IRS targeting scheme, how it was put together by the Obama
Administration and who was responsible for authorizing it.

The IRSs effort to obstruct the TTV suit had temporary success in 2014 when the DC District Court dismissed
the case saying that it was moot since the IRS claimed that it had stopped using politically disfavored names
to select applicants for special scrutiny and since the IRS had approved TTVs application.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals, however, disagreed. It held (1) that the IRS cannot defend its discriminatory
conduct on the merits so it is claiming mootness and (2) that the IRS had not shown that there was on
reasonable expectation that the conduct will recur, and that subsequent events had completely and
irrevocably eradicated the effects of the IRSs discriminatory targeting scheme. They remanded the case to
the DC District Court for a merits disposition based on adjudication of substantive evidence.

Once back in the District Court in the fall of 2016, the IRS again sought to obstruct TTVs case by renewing its
claim that the case was moot and should be dismissed. TTV, however, moved the District Court for discovery
to ferret out the facts of the IRS Targeting Scheme that the IRS had refused to disclose since the beginning.

On April 12th, the DC District Court granted TTVs motion for discovery, permitting TTV to discover the past
acts of alleged discrimination stemming from the alleged illegal targeting scheme to ensure that the IRS has
eradicated the effects of its illegal targeting scheme.

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True the Vote (TTV) is an IRS-designated 501(c)(3) voters' rights organization, founded to inspire and equip
volunteers for involvement at every stage of our electoral process. TTV empowers organizations and
individuals across the nation to actively protect the rights of legitimate voters, regardless of their political party
affiliation. For more information, please visit www.truethevote.org.