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IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins, one of two Obama political appointees at the agency and whose office reviewed certain Tea Party tax-exemption applications starting in early 2010, is a lawyer who defended Obama’s denomination, the United Church of Christ (UCC), when the IRS questioned its tax-exempt status following a speech by then-Senator Barack Obama in 2007. “We were so interested in the case, we offered to do it pro bono,” said Wilkins. … At the time of the IRS investigation, William J. Wilkins was working as a lobbyist for the WilmerHale legal firm, which eventually took up the cause of...

Congressional investigators are probing the highest echelons of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C., in connection with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups, according to documents obtained by National Review Online. Those documents, provided by an IRS employee who asked to remain anonymous, indicate that those being asked to provide computer data to investigators include the agency’s chief counsel, William J. Wilkins, and both of his deputies. The chief counsel is one of just two political appointments at the IRS made by the president. Investigators asked the IRS to gather all data from the computers of several employees throughout...

Lawyers from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have won the dismissal of an IRS case against United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama's denomination. The IRS initiated an investigation early this year after a speech by Obama at a 50th anniversary celebration of the church last June. It was a reference by Obama to his presidential candidacy in a talk otherwise focused on faith that caught the agency's attention. (snip) Obama has been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago -- a UCC congregation -- for more than 20 years. The church has been in the...

The daughter of President Barack Obama's controversial former pastor was indicted on Wednesday on charges of money laundering and lying to federal authorities, a Justice Department spokeswoman said. Jeri L. Wright, 47, the daughter of Jeremiah Wright, was accused of participating in a fraud scheme led by a former suburban police chief and the chief's husband that involved a $1.25 million state grant, according to the Attorney's office for the Central District of Illinois in Springfield.

The daughter of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — the controversial former pastor to President Barack Obama — was indicted today in an expanding federal probe of a state grant tied to a former suburban police chief. Jeri Wright of Hazel Crest is accused of helping former Country Club Hills Police Chief Regina Evans convert fake paychecks from Evans’ nonprofit to Evans’ personal use, allegedly hiding money that was supposed to be used to train minority and female workers in the building trades. Federal prosecutors in the Illinois’ central district say Jeri Wright received about $28,000 in grant-tied paychecks in 2009,...

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Jeremiah Wright’s daughter has allegedly been a naughty little money launderer, and if true, it would appear as though her chickens are coming home to roost. Jeri Wright, 47, faces two counts of money laundering, two counts of making false statements to officers and seven counts of giving false grand jury testimony. She couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Philadelphia Magazine editor Tom McGrath and Robert Huber, author of the controversial "Being White in Philly" cover story, faced their critics at a forum Monday night at the National Constitution Center. McGrath opened by saying he was sorry to anybody who was hurt by the article, because that was not his intent, but adding that he did not regret publishing the story in the March issue. Huber told the packed auditorium of about 200 people that the purpose of the article was to explore "how white people relate to black people in the inner city, or don't relate to them."...

“The state of Israel is an illegal, genocidal place… to equate Judaism with the state of Israel is to equate Christianity with Flavor Flav.” – UCC Pastor Emeritus Jeremiah Wright, in a speech to thousands of people in Baltimore in 2011 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. – Acts 17:11 ----- Much has been made in the Jewish community – too much, in my humble opinion – of the recent letter signed by 15 Protestant church leaders...

First-Ever Video of Rev. Wright’s ‘Audacity to Hope’ Sermon Extolling Malcolm X & Condemning Chicago as City That ‘Hates Blacks’ — the Homily Obama Said Brought Him to Christ * This is first video to be released, to TheBlaze’s knowledge, of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “Audacity to Hope” sermon * Delivered numerous times with varying degrees of political imagery, this is the homily (at least a version of it) that President Barack Obama claims brought him to Christianity * In the sermon, Wright accuses Chicago of being a city that “hates blacks,” while seemingly praising Malcolm X in front of...

President Obama is getting so desperate about Romney-trending election polls that he is calling on an old, discarded ally to help his get out the vote effort: Rev. Jeremiah Wright. According to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, “If Obama looks as if he's going black, he could turn off white people. So he's largely been lying low on the race issues - visibly pushing for the Latino vote, the gay vote, the women's vote, but not the black vote. But last weekend, he held a conference call with a collection of black preachers that included his old pastor, Jeremiah...

As we roll into the final presidential debate, the polls show a very tight race. One thing they don't show, however, is how race is a factor in the election. By my estimate, you have to build in a three- to five-point slip from the poll numbers for any black candidate on election day. To overcome the slip, you need to pump up the black vote by equal measure. And that's not easy, because brothers and sisters aren't among the top turnout groups. In 2008, Barack Obama was able to compensate for the slip and then some. You would have...

...Historians may remember Obama as the nation’s first black president, but he’s also a religious pioneer. He’s not only changed people’s perception of who can be president, some scholars and pastors say, but he’s also expanding the definition of who can be a Christian by challenging the religious right’s domination of the national stage. Obama is a progressive Christian who blends the emotional fire of the African-American church, the ecumenical outlook of contemporary Protestantism, and the activism of the Social Gospel, a late 19th-century movement whose leaders faulted American churches for focusing too much on personal salvation while ignoring the...

Letters signed by Barack Obama 25 years ago and obtained by The Daily Caller, show the future president approaching Chicago’s then-mayor Harold Washington in 1987 about a community organizing project whose advisory board would include his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; the controversial leftist Catholic priest Father Michael Pfleger; and the brother of Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. When Obama later ran for president, he sought to distance himself from Rev. Wright, although the letters obtained by TheDC indicate a working relationship between the two men on a political level when the future president was just 26 years old.

Per Matthwe Boyd I have an explosive story about Barack Obama's past coming tonight.

Letters signed by Barack Obama 25 years ago and obtained by The Daily Caller, show the future president approaching Chicago’s then-mayor Harold Washington in 1987 about a community organizing project whose advisory board would include his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; the controversial leftist Catholic priest Father Michael Pfleger; and the brother of  Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.When Obama later ran for president, he sought to distance himself from Rev. Wright, although the letters obtained by TheDC indicate a working relationship between the two men on a political level when the future president was just 26 years old.They hint at a young Obama,...

Letters signed by Barack Obama 25 years ago and obtained by The Daily Caller, show the future president approaching Chicago’s then-mayor Harold Washington in 1987 about a community organizing project whose advisory board would include his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; the controversial leftist Catholic priest Father Michael Pfleger; and the brother of Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Letters signed by Barack Obama 25 years ago and obtained by The Daily Caller, show the future president approaching Chicago’s then-mayor Harold Washington in 1987 about a community organizing project whose advisory board would include his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; the controversial leftist Catholic priest Father Michael Pfleger; and the brother of Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/16/documents-despite-obamas-2008-claims-political-relationship-with-rev-wright-began-as-early-as-1987/#ixzz29R22F7sW

On the heels of an absolutely miserable debate performance… yet another problem for the Obama campaign. There's another tape. This time with Jeremiah Wright. And a very curious video. "Grace and peace be unto you," begins Wright, smiling, his voice calm and low. It's June 23, 2007 -- a mere 18 days after the now infamous Obama speech at Hampton University that the Daily Caller and the Drudge Report titled as "Obama's Other Race Speech." An angry, racially divisive speech in which Obama effortlessly slides into a Southern accent, shouting "The people down in New Orleans they [the Bush administration...

As a young single woman, Michelle Robinson was a fixture in the home of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who along with Rev. Jeremiah Wright “arranged” her marriage to Barack Obama, according to sources in Chicago who know the couple. Jackson’s daughter, Santita, is still one of Michelle’s best friends. “It all relates back to Trinity and to the Jesse Jackson orbit of blacks here in Chicago who gave Obama legitimacy and helped him establish his identity as a black man,” Robyn explained. “The political left wanted to push a black to the presidency, and the key operatives in the...

The Obama campaign called a video touted by conservative news aggregator Drudge Report as a potentially explosive development in the election a "transparent attempt to change the subject" from Mitt Romney's comments, made by his "allies." “In a transparent attempt to change the subject from his comments attacking half of the American people, Mitt Romney’s allies recirculated video of a 2007 event that was open to and extensively covered by the press at the time. The only thing shocking about this is that they apparently think it’s wrong to suggest that we should help returning veterans, children leaving foster care...