On Wednesday (Dec. 10) during a hearing with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission, Dr. Robert Jeffress testified about what he believes was an overreach of the IRS and a targeted attack from the Biden administration.
President Donald Trump established the commission earlier this year to “produce a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, the impact of religious liberty on American society, current threats to domestic religious liberty, strategies to preserve and enhance religious liberty protections.”
The commission is chaired by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Members of the commission include Dr. Ben Carson, Franklin Graham, Dr. Phil McGraw, and Paula White.
Wednesday’s hearing was the fourth that the commission has held.
Jeffress is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, a prominent and historic congregation affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. In the summer of 2020, the church held its annual patriotic service, drawing the ire of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).
FFRF filed a complaint with the IRS, alleging that the church had violated the Johnson Amendment of the U.S. tax code, which bars nonprofit organizations from endorsing political candidates. The service featured a number of prominent Republican politicians, including then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was running for re-election that year.
The church became the subject of a tax inquiry, but not until 2021, when Trump and Pence had left office.
During his testimony on Wednesday, Jeffress maintained that First Baptist Dallas had never endorsed Trump or Pence but he had only encouraged congregants to vote with “biblical conviction.”
“It’s interesting that we did not hear anything from the IRS for 11 months and four months after Joe Biden became president,” Jeffress said. “It was on May 6, 2021, that the IRS informed our church that they were initiating an inquiry into the tax-exempt status of our church because of our patriotic service.”
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Jeffress said that the inquiry lasted roughly a year, and in the end, investigators determined that First Baptist Dallas “did not engage in any improper political intervention or violate the U.S. tax code.”
