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Thought this old article deserved its own thread.

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*See my additions to timeline.

Timeline Shows Influence of Soros-Funded Groups

*May 13, 2008: IRS closed investigation into a speech made by then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) at Chicago’s United Church of Christ. WilmerHale announced it would defend the United Church of Christ on a pro-bono basis. Wilkins and a colleague at the law firm were placed in charge of the high-profile case.

*April 17, 2009: Obama Nominates William J. Wilkins to be IRS Chief Counsel.

March 1-17, 2010: First ten reported cases of targeting by the IRS against groups that had ties to the “tea party or similar organizations.”
Sept. 16, 2010: TIME article “The New GOP Money Stampede” quotes Wertheimer;
Sept. 23, 2010: DISCLOSE act, a campaign finance disclosure act specifically targeting a Tea Party group, in the writing of which the CLC participated, fails in the Senate;
Sept. 28, 2010: Democrat Senator Max Baucus writes a letter to the IRS, citing the TIME article;
Oct. 5, 2010: Democracy 21 and Campaign Legal Center petition IRS, Wertheimer writes HuffPo article;
Oct. 7, 2010: Legal brief from HoltzmanVogel PLLC against the Democracy 21 petition;
Oct. 14, 2010: Dick Durbin asks IRS to investigate American Crossroads, HuffPo coverage;
June 27, 2011: Second petition to the IRS by CLC and Democracy 21;
June 29, 2011: IRS senior agency official Lois Lerner briefed on efforts to target groups which “criticize how the country is being run”;

*Aug. 4, 2011: Meeting in which the IRS’s chief counsel appears to have conferred with agency officials to discuss the activities of a team in the Cincinnati field office that had been subjecting applications for tax-exempt status from Tea Party and other conservative groups to a greater degree of review than those from other organizations. (Under IRS rules, the agency’s chief counsel, William J. Wilkins, reports to the Treasury Department’s general counsel, and investigators want to determine if Wilkins took the issue out of the independent IRS to other parts of the Obama administration.)

Sept. 28, 2011: CLC and Democracy 21 petition IRS again, this time about four conservative groups;
Oct. 31, 2011: CPI “investigation”;
Nov. 18, 2011: Mother Jones article;
Nov. 21, 2011: Alternet repost of Mother Jones Article;
Dec. 29, 2011: New York Times oped;
Jan. 15, 2012: IRS targeted groups focusing on limiting government or educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights;
February 2012: First articles promoting this issue appear in New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times
$6.1 Million in Soros Funding Since 2000

*July 17, 2012: Lois G. Lerner responded with a three-paragraph letter (to watch dog groups) suggesting that the agency might consider reviewing its rules.

*Summer 2012: George W. Madison, General Counsel, US Department of the Treasury, steps down.

*April 30, 2013: Acting Treasury General Counsel Christopher Meade confirmed. From 2005 to 2010, Meade was a partner with the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

Center for Public Integrity: $2,716,328
Campaign Legal Center: $677,000
Media Consortium: $675,000
Mother Jones: $485,000
Democracy 21: $365,000
ProPublica: $300,000
Alternet: $285,000
Human Rights Campaign: $600,000