{"id":8762,"date":"2025-05-02T12:46:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T12:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-push-for-ig-probe-as-trump-targets-harvards-tax-status\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T12:46:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T12:46:53","slug":"democrats-push-for-ig-probe-as-trump-targets-harvards-tax-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-push-for-ig-probe-as-trump-targets-harvards-tax-status\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats push for IG probe as Trump targets Harvard’s tax status"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and three other Democratic senators are urging the IRS\u2019s watchdog to investigate whether the Trump administration is illegally pressuring the agency to strip Harvard of its tax exemption.<\/p>\n

The request from Schumer and Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was first reported by POLITICO<\/a> less than two hours before President Donald Trump announced he would proceed with revoking Harvard’s exemption<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We are going to be taking away Harvard\u2019s Tax Exempt Status. It\u2019s what they deserve!” he wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the announcement, the Democrats noted that Trump had openly called into question Harvard’s tax exemption \u2014 delivering the kind of pressure, they said, that runs afoul of post-Watergate laws that make it illegal for government officials to push the IRS to audit or investigate individual taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The senators wrote to Treasury’s acting inspector general for tax administration<\/a> that it\u2019s \u201cunconscionable that the IRS would become a weapon of the Trump Administration to extort its perceived enemies, but the actions of the President and his operatives have now made this fear a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to asking for an investigation into the Harvard threats, Democrats want the watchdog to hand over information about whether the IRS has faced pressure from Trump or other administration officials to revoke the tax exempt status of other institutions besides Harvard.<\/p>\n

Trump has criticized elite schools for a variety of reasons, including not doing more to rein in antisemitism and for their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.<\/p>\n

The president specifically asked on social media last month whether Harvard \u201cshould lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IRS reportedly started looking into that possibility shortly thereafter, though the White House has said that the president wouldn\u2019t play any role in any investigation from the tax agency into Harvard.<\/p>\n

Investigations into a nonprofit\u2019s tax exemption frequently take years, and Schumer and the other senators noted that Harvard had the resources to fight back against just such a challenge.<\/p>\n

But the Democrats also worried that smaller nonprofits would be much more vulnerable if they found themselves in the same situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cChurch groups, hospitals, health clinics, or food banks could be next,\u201d Schumer, Markey, Warren and Wyden wrote. \u201cIf the President is able to successfully target Harvard\u2019s tax-exemption, anyone could be next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and three other Democratic senators are urging the IRS\u2019s watchdog to investigate whether the Trump administration is illegally pressuring the agency to strip Harvard of its tax exemption. The request from Schumer and Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was first reported by Blue Light News less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}