AMERICAN THINKER
by Thomsas Lifson
May 7, 2015

The IRS was almost laughed out of court yesterday when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case Z Street v. Koskinen.  Z Street, founded by AT contributor Lori Lowenthal Marcus, is a pro-Israel educational group that applied for tax-exempt status, only to encounter delay.  When it inquired as to the progress of its application, an agent told it that auditors had been instructed to give pro-Israel groups special attention, and that its application had been forwarded to a special IRS unit for additional review. Z Street sued for viewpoint discrimination, a constitutional no-no, and the IRS went to U.S. District Court in D.C., seeking dismissal of the case.  A year ago, a federal judge rejected that dismissal, and the IRS appealed, which landed the case on the docket of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the highest court in the land other than the Supreme Court.  The appeal, critically, had the effect of halting discovery in the case, which would have allowed Z Street to examine IRS officials, under oath…READ MORE