Wyden calls for investigation into Trump admin targeting Harvard’s tax-exempt status

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is joining three of his Senate Democratic colleagues calling for an investigation into the Trump administration’s potential criminal activity against Harvard University after threatening the school’s tax-exempt status.

On Friday, the group of lawmakers – including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) – sent a letter to Heather Hill, the acting treasury inspector general for tax administration, demanding an immediate investigation into whether President Trump is targeting Harvard’s nonprofit status for political purposes.

The lawmakers said they question Trump’s motive after his social media post stating, “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax-Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

“It is both illegal and unconstitutional for the IRS to take direction from the President to target schools, hospitals, churches, or any other tax-exempt entities as retribution for using their free speech rights,” the senators wrote in their letter to Hill.

“It is further unconscionable that the IRS would become a weapon of the Trump Administration to extort its perceived enemies, but the actions of the President and his operatives have now made this fear a reality,” the letter continues. “We request that you review whether the President or his allies have taken any step to direct or pressure the IRS to take politically-motivated actions regarding the tax-exempt status of the President’s political targets.”

The lawmakers note the Internal Revenue Service can only revoke the tax-exempt status after a careful review and an opportunity for the school to appeal the decision, “not at the arbitrary and erratic whims of one person.”

“Churches and synagogues, non-profit hospitals and clinics, charter and private schools, and any others that land on the President’s target list will be forced to relinquish their free speech rights in order to remain in existence, or otherwise face this organizational death sentence,” the senators warned.

As reported by the Associated Press, most colleges and universities in the United States have tax-exempt status, noting Trump has questioned Harvard’s status after the school challenged the administration’s demands for leadership changes, updates to its admissions policy and audits of how diversity is viewed on the campus.

Harvard’s challenge against the president’s demands led the Trump administration to block $2 billion in federal grants for the school. Harvard has since filed a lawsuit to unlock the grants.

On Friday, Harvard said that there is “no legal basis” to revoke its tax-exempt status.

“Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission,” the school said in a statement. “It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation. The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”