SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
internal revenue service
'Dangerous for Democracy': Trump IRS Says Nonprofit Churches Can Make Political Endorsements
"Holy shit, a real masks-off moment," said one professor. "The divide between church and state is already falling. The divide between church and political group will disappear."
Jul 08, 2025
"This is another dark day for our democracy."
That's what American Humanist Association (AHA) executive director Fish Stark said in a Tuesday statement responding to a move from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to allow houses of worship to endorse political candidates.
When former President Lyndon B. Johnson was a senator, he introduced a provision of the U.S. tax code that bans organizations from participating or intervening in campaigns for public office as a condition for keeping their nonprofit, tax-exempt status.
The National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America and two Christian churches—Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom—wanted a federal court in Texas to strike down the Johnson Amendment. Instead, according to a Monday filing from the plaintiffs and Internal Revenue Service intended to settle the case, the IRS created a formal exception for houses of worship.
Noting the definitions of participate and intervene, the filing states that "bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates."
"Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted," the document continues.
R.I.P. The Johnson Amendment, 1954-2025
[image or embed]
— Robert Downen (@robertdownen.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 12:16 PM
While the court could reject the plan laid out by the Trump IRS and plaintiffs in this case, observers responded to the settlement document by declaring the 1954 Johnson Amendment "essentially overturned" and "effectively DEAD."
Like many critics of the decision, the court filing acknowledges that its new interpretation "is in keeping with the IRS' treatment of the Johnson Amendment in practice," as the agency "generally has not enforced the Johnson Amendment against houses of worship for speech concerning electoral politics in the context of worship services."
Also highlighting that "it's been clear that many churches were both collecting tax deductions while engaging in partisan politics, so this merely formalizes the practice," Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, wrote on social media, "Holy shit, a real masks-off moment."
"There is already a problem of political operations pretending to be churches," he added, citing 2022 ProPublica reporting. "The divide between church and state is already falling. The divide between church and political group will disappear."
Christa Brown—whose memoir Baptistland tells the story of abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church—said that "churches were already doing this but now it's going to get a lot worse. Bad for the country, dangerous for democracy, and terrible for the separation of church and state. Inevitably, heaps of dark money will now get funneled through churches to influence elections."
AHA's Stark issued a similar warning, saying that "the Johnson Amendment, though weakened over the years by lax enforcement, is the small but mighty dam standing in the way of a torrent of dark money influencing our elections. Now that the Trump administration has opened the door to pastors and houses of worship explicitly backing candidates for office, all bets are off."
"There will be little to stop billionaires from funneling money through churches to buy our elections—and they will get a tax write-off for doing it, all subsidized by American taxpayers," Stark continued. "Weakening the Johnson Amendment to consolidate political power has long been a priority for Christian nationalists—and now they have the megaphone they've been waiting for for decades."
Americans United for Separation of Church and State president and CEO Rachel Laser said Tuesday that "the Trump administration's radical reinterpretation of the Johnson Amendment is a brazen attack on church-state separation that threatens our democracy by favoring houses of worship over other nonprofits and inserting them into partisan politics. It's President Trump and his Christian nationalist allies' signature move: exploiting religion to boost their own political power."
"For more than 70 years, the Johnson Amendment has reflected the will of the American people, the majority of whom want to protect the integrity of our elections and shield our houses of worship from the corrupting influences of partisan politicking," Laser added, urging the court "to reject the administration's latest gambit to rewrite the law through the judicial system."
Trump’s IRS just declared churches can endorse political candidates from the pulpit.This move upends a core protection for church-state separation, AND erodes the freedom and independence of churches.www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/u...
[image or embed]
— Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons (@guthriegf.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, also criticized the "deeply concerning" court filing for "furthering an assault on the bedrock principle that charitable organizations must remain nonpartisan in law, fact, and purpose in order to serve their missions and communities."
"This action—long sought by President Trump—is not about religion or free speech, but about radically altering campaign finance laws," Yentel argued. "The decree could open the floodgates for political operatives to funnel money to their preferred candidates while receiving generous tax breaks at the expense of taxpayers who may not share those views."
Some political leaders also weighed in. Congressman Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said that "this is really bad. The merger of tax-exempt conservative churches with the MAGA Republican Party is complete. It started with endless rightwing attacks on the IRS, leading to partisan political operations like Family Research Council posing as 'churches,' and now this. American taxpayers are now subsidizing both partisan (mainly GOP) politics and religion."
California state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-25) concluded that "if churches can make political endorsements and make political donations, they can pay taxes."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Dems Press Palantir on Trump-Era Contracts for 'Mega-Database' of Americans' Info
"We are concerned that Palantir's software could be used to enable domestic operations that violate Americans' rights."
Jun 17, 2025
A group of Democratic lawmakers on Monday pressed the CEO of Palantir Technologies about the company's hundreds of millions of dollars in recent federal contracts and reporting that the big data analytics specialist is helping the government build a "mega-database" of Americans' private information in likely violation of multiple laws.
Citing New York Times reporting from late last month examining the Colorado-based tech giant's hundreds of millions of dollars in new government contracts during the second term of U.S. President Donald Trump, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) led a letter to Palantir CEO Alex Karp demanding answers regarding reports that the company "is amassing troves of data on Americans to create a government-wide, searchable 'mega-database' containing the sensitive taxpayer data of American citizens."
NEW: It looks like Palantir is helping Trump build a mega-database of Americans' private information so he can target and spy on his enemies, or anyone. @aoc.bsky.social and I are demanding answers directly from Palantir.
[image or embed]
— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) June 17, 2025 at 7:10 AM
The letter continues:
According to press reports, Palantir employees have reportedly been installed at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), where they are helping the agency use Palantir's software to create a "single, searchable database" of taxpayer records. The sensitive taxpayer data compiled into this Palantir database will likely be shared throughout the government regardless of whether access to this information will be related to tax administration or enforcement, which is generally a violation of federal law. Palantir's products and services were reportedly selected for this brazenly illegal project by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Several DOGE members are former Palantir employees.
The lawmakers called the prospect of Americans' data being shared across federal agencies "a surveillance nightmare that raises a host of legal concerns, not least that it will make it significantly easier for Donald Trump's administration to spy on and target his growing list of enemies and other Americans."
"We are concerned that Palantir's software could be used to enable domestic operations that violate Americans' rights," the letter states. "Donald Trump has personally threatened to arrest the governor of California, federalized National Guard troops without the consent of the governor for immigration raids, deployed active-duty Marines to Los Angeles against the wishes of local and state officials, condoned violence against peaceful protestors, called the independent press 'the enemy of the people,' and abused the power of the federal government in unprecedented ways to punish people and institutions he dislikes."
"Palantir's troubling assistance to the Trump administration is not limited to its work for the IRS," the letter notes, highlighting the company's role in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's mass deportation efforts and deadly U.S. and allied military operations.
The letter does not mention Palantir's involvement in Project Nimbus, a cloud computing collaboration between Israel's military and tech titans Amazon and Google targeted by the No Tech for Apartheid movement over alleged human rights violations. But the lawmakers did note that companies including IBM, Cisco, Honeywell, and others have been complicit in human rights crimes in countries including Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa, China, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
The lawmakers asked Karp to provide a list of all contracts awarded to Palantir, their dollar amount, the federal agencies involved, whether the company has any "red line" regarding human rights violations, and other information.
In addition to Wyden and Ocasio-Cortez, the letter is signed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.).
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Open Season for Wealthy Tax Cheats' as Republicans Confirm Trump IRS Pick Billy Long
The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee said Long is "knee-deep in tax scams, corruption and cover-ups."
Jun 12, 2025
The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate voted Thursday to confirm scandal-plagued Billy Long to serve as head of the Internal Revenue Service, an agency that he sought to abolish during his tenure in Congress.
Every Republican senator voted in favor of confirming President Donald Trump's IRS commissioner pick in the face of revelations that he was closely involved in promoting a fraud-riddled tax credit and allegations that he could be implicated in two separate bribery schemes.
In a floor speech ahead of Thursday's vote, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that Long is "knee-deep in tax scams, corruption, and cover-ups" that should disqualify him from leading the IRS.
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, pointed to a letter he sent earlier this week to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles detailing his concerns about the FBI's apparently lax background check on Long.
"Publicly available information raises very troubling questions of personal wrongdoing that merit serious and thorough investigation," Wyden wrote. "According to court documents, Mr. Long is implicated in a bribery conspiracy involving a healthcare company located in his Missouri district while he was a member of Congress. The case resulted in convictions and guilty pleas of more than a dozen people, including elected officials, businessmen, and lobbyists."
Democratic lawmakers also raised alarm over "unusually timed" donations that seven companies made to Long's defunct 2022 Senate campaign committee following news that he was nominated to lead the IRS.
"This ought to be an easy no," Wyden said Thursday. "It's one corruption bombshell after another with former Congressman Billy Long."
"Billy Long has a clear history of working to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to skirt paying their fair share of taxes."
While representing Missouri's 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House, Long co-sponsored legislation that proposed eliminating the IRS, repealing the federal income tax, and putting in place a regressive national sales tax.
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), a progressive advocacy group, said Thursday that Long's confirmation "signals open season for wealthy tax cheats."
"Trump and Senate Republicans finally delivered a long-awaited return on investment to the billionaire backers that fund their party: an IRS chief with extreme views on tax policy and no interest in reining in wealthy tax cheats or helping working families," ATF executive director David Kass said in a statement. "With Long at the helm, it becomes even more critical to stop Trump's disastrous tax bill that cuts critical programs Americans depend on, like Medicaid and SNAP, to fund massive tax giveaways for billionaires."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, similarly warned that "tax cheats just received a huge gift."
"Billy Long has a clear history of working to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to skirt paying their fair share of taxes," said Gilbert. "He has even supported abolishing the very agency he has now been tasked to lead—the agency meant to take the lead in cracking down on tax evasion and ensuring that government is sufficiently resourced to serve the public interest."
"Wall Street may celebrate his confirmation as IRS commissioner," Gilbert added, "but it is bad news for everyday people."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular