The Court Says They’re Pirates, the IRS Says They’re a Nonprofit

Daniel Greenfield February 26, 2023 @ Sultan Knish Blog

In Front Page Magazine’s extensive series on the leftist organizations that the IRS has allowed to keep their tax deductible status, we have covered Chinese Communist front groups, art vandals, domestic terrorists, pedophiles, illegal alien smugglers and the enablers of murderers.

Every time we dive deeper into these investigations, someone asks if there’s anywhere that the IRS will draw the line. A few weeks ago, someone suggested pirates. Surely there couldn’t be nonprofit pirates with tax deductible donations that the IRS has decided is a legitimate charity.

Not only is there a pirate nonprofit, but it’s been denounced by the court, described as eco-terrorists by the FBI, and has shown up on Interpol’s Red Notice while being the subject of international incidents without ever persuading the IRS to drop its 501(c)(3) status.

A decade ago, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling stated that, “you don’t need a peg leg or an eye patch. When you ram ships; hurl glass containers of acid; drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders; launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate.”

The group in question was Sea Shepherd: a trendy anti-fishing organization whose celebrity supporters included Pamela Anderson, Martin Sheen and Sean Penn. And a decade after the Court of Appeals stated that Sea Shepherd’s alleged acts were “clear instances of violent acts for private ends, the very embodiment of piracy”, Sea Shepherd maintains a presence on Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and other Big Tech platforms that purged conservations for “extremism”,where it sells merchandise featuring its version of the skull and bones pirate flag.

And it has retained its status with the IRS as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charity for over 40 years.

In 2002, the Domestic Terrorism Section Chief of the FBI told the House Resources Committee that Sea Shepherd was an example of “eco-terrorism”. The IRS took no action even when it was caught harboring a nonprofit that federal law enforcement had described as eco-terrorists.

Unlike many of the other leftist groups we previously profiled, the IRS did begin an audit of Sea Shepherd a few months after the Court of Appeals ruling. The token IRS effort was likely in response to pressure from Japan whose whaling ships faced harassment from the group.

While the IRS has ignored conservative protests over tax deductible status being granted to domestic terrorist groups, the Japanese government spent years lobbying to suspend Sea Shepherd’s nonprofit status. After a court ruling described the group as pirates, the Japanese could not believe that the Obama administration still refused to take action. Finally the Japanese embassy turned directly to the IRS, including contacting Lois Lerner, who would become infamous for her role in the IRS targeting of conservative and Jewish opponents of Obama.

The IRS went through the motions of auditing Sea Shepherd, then it dispatched a letter claiming that “our examination of the information return(s) indicated above disclosed that your organization continues to qualify for exemption from Federal income tax.” The Internal Revenue Service does not however seem to have consulted the Court of Appeals, the FBI or the law.

As the Freedom Center’s pamphlet, Internal Radical Service by David Horowitz and John Perazzo, discusses, regulations state that “exempt purposes may generally be equated with the public good, and violations of law are the antithesis of the public good”. They warn that, “violation of constitutionally valid laws is inconsistent with exemption under IRC 501(c)(3)” and that “planned activities that violate laws are not in furtherance of a charitable purpose”.

Is piracy not the antithesis of the public good? Which part of ramming ships or hurling containers of acid would the IRS consider to be in the furtherance of a charitable purpose?

Some years earlier, the IRS had demanded that the Coalition for Life of Iowa explain “how all of your activities, including the prayer meetings held outside of Planned Parenthood, are considered educational as defined under 501(c)(3).” Did the IRS ask Sea Shepherd how “hurling fiery and acid-filled projectiles” is considered educational?

To the IRS, praying outside abortion clinics might be a violation, but not sinking ships.

Until its recent makeover, Sea Shepherd was not shy about its activities.

“I’ve sunk ten whaling ships and destroyed tens of millions of dollars’ worth of illegal fishing gear, and I’m not in jail,” Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd’s founder and until its recent pivot, a leading figure in the group, had boasted. The IRS was surely aware of such statements.

While the IRS failed to take action, the Court of Appeals issued a permanent injunction in 2016 barring Sea Shepherd from “physically attacking” ships from Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research. The IRS did not believe that “physically attacking” was a problem for a nonprofit.

The IRS not only shrugged off accusations of piracy and eco-terrorism, it also ignored the attempted murder charges. Watson had been arrested in Germany a year before the audit for an outstanding charge of “causing a danger of drowning” in Costa Rica over a confrontation with shark hunters that was later dropped. Interpol issued a Red Notice for Watson over the incident.

The IRS shrugged at Interpol as it had at the FBI, the Court of Appeals and multiple countries.

Japan however issued its own Interpol Red Notice for Watson which blocked Sea Shepherd’s ability to obtain insurance. Watson was forced out and officially resigned in 2022. Sea Shepherd has rebranded as working with governments to fight illegal poaching and has sued Watson for “infringement, unfair competition, false advertising,” and, ironically, “cyberpiracy” over his use of its ‘Jolly Roger’ pirate flag for his own operation.

Watson, who has pledged to continue the fight, launched his own organization: Sea Shepherd Origins, and he’s raising money through the Paul Watson Foundation. The Foundation’s purpose is to “carry on Captain Paul Watson’s effective agenda” “through a unique strategy of aggressive non-violence.”

Despite everything, the Watson Foundation was approved by the IRS as a 501(c)(3).

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation. Thank you for reading.

House Dems Plot to Use IRS to Suppress Conservatives

Sunday, September 29, 2019 by Daniel Greenfield 0 Comments @ Sultan Knish Blog

"It is important for us to consider how our policies can help reduce hate and violence through any vehicle," Rep. Danny K. Davis insisted. "Any mechanism, any apparatus, any way that we possibly can."

The mechanism and apparatus being considered was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

The Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee was holding a hearing on How the Tax Code Subsidizes Hate. Its theme was removing tax-exempt status from groups it didn’t like.

The Democrats running it didn’t issue a full list of allegedly discriminatory groups they wanted the government to discriminate against, but the Committee’s Twitter list of ‘hate groups’ seem to overlap with a list assembled by the Southern Poverty Law Center and curated by Philanthropy Magazine.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s leadership was recently forced to resign over racism and sexual harassment. Its hate map had inspired a terrorist attack against the Family Research Council in D.C. In the same city where the hearing was taking place, Floyd Corkins had shot Leo Johnson, the African-American building manager, while trying to murder members of the conservative civil rights group.

“Southern Poverty Law lists anti-gay groups. I found them online,” Corkins had told the FBI.

But instead of removing the SPLC’s tax-exempt status, the Democrats on Oversight appeared to be proposing to put the SPLC and its spurious hate lists and maps in charge of tax-exempt status.

The Southern Poverty Law Center had once added a Pennsylvania bar sign to its list of hate groups. It had put an entire Iowa town on its hate map because an online troll had once proposed holding a Neo-Nazi book club there. The SPLC is as qualified to assemble lists of hate groups as Rep. Danny Davis is.

Rep. Davis was an inside expert on hate groups. He had boasted of going to Farrakhan’s home, and participating in meetings and events with him. “I don’t regard Louis Farrakhan as an aberration or anything, I regard him as an outstanding human being who commands a following of individuals who are learned and articulate and he plays a big role in the lives of thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people,” he had said of the racist leader of the Nation of Islam hate group.

Now, Rep. Davis and his fellow Democrat committee members were sanctimoniously lecturing on hate.

“Racism, in and of itself, is a public health crisis,” claimed Rep. Davis, who has collaborated with a racist.

“I disagree with Minister Farrakhan in terms of white people being devils and Jewish people being satanic,” Rep. Davis had once said. “But other than that, I think he does outstanding things for, especially for blacks who are unsure about themselves.”

Rep. John Lewis had called the hearing as chair of the Oversight Subcommittee.

"The (tax) code exempts some charitable and educational organizations from paying taxes. Some of these organizations promote hate based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity," Rep. Lewis said in his opening statement. "I believe that the federal government should not sponsor or support groups whose hatred seeks to divide us."

This was the same man who had been part of a meeting with Farrakhan and commented that, “Minister Farrakhan made a great presentation to us, and the Caucus is going to be very supportive.”

Also participating in the hearing was Rep. Gwen Moore who had failed to denounce Farrakhan.

The Oversight Subcommittee campaigning to fight hate had its own serious hate problem to deal with.

If Farrakhan’s racism and anti-Semitism wasn’t its idea of hate, what sort of hate did it want to fight?

On its Twitter account, the Ways and Means Committee denounced the American Family Association as one of the “over 60 hate groups” while contending that it’s “unacceptable” to allow them to maintain their tax-exempt status. What did the conservative Christian group say to infuriate the House Dems?

In the Committee’s pull quote, the AFA is accused of saying that, "homosexuality is a poor and dangerous choice." If that’s enough to be labeled a hate group and lose your tax-exempt status, the House Dems have just made a case for stripping away the tax-exempt statuses of the Catholic Church, most traditional Christian and Jewish denominations, and the Mormon Church. Not to mention Islam.

The Catholic Church teaches that, "the homosexual inclination is objectively disordered". Are the House Democrats proposing that it be deemed a hate group and lose its tax-exempt status?

Do they want to explain that to their voters?

The star witness of the How the Tax Code Subsidizes Hate hearing was Brandon Wolf, a gay gun control activist who had survived the Islamic terrorist attack on the Pulse nightclub. Wolf repeatedly spoke about “hate”. And Omar Mateen, the ISIS shooter who shot up Pulse, was certainly hateful.

His hatred however didn’t come from conservative Christian groups, but from the teachings of Islam.

Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS. The Islamic State is not a 501(c) (3) charity registered as a tax-exempt non-profit with the IRS. Bringing Wolf to a hearing about stripping the tax-exempt status of groups the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t like without mentioning ISIS is ridiculously dishonest.

The Pulse massacre could have been prevented if the warnings of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch, the Center for Security Policy, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, and other groups targeted by the SPLC had been listened to, instead of attacked as ‘Islamophobia’.

But it just got worse from there.

Rep. Suzan Delbene had tweeted, “Over five dozen hate groups in the U.S. are paying zero taxes”. But once the hearing began, her idea of a hate group that she wanted the IRS to go after was the NRA.

Delbene was one of several House Dems who were interested in using the IRS to target the NRA.

By that point there wasn’t even a pretext that the How the Tax Code Subsidizes Hate hearing was about hate, instead of using the IRS to suppress the political opposition. The NRA is closely involved in congressional elections. Proposals by members of Congress to use a government agency to go after the NRA is a blatant case of officials suppressing funding and organizations tied to their political opponents.

It’s the stuff of North Korea, Venezuela and the Kennedy administration which was infamous for it.

The Kennedy administration’s abuse of the IRS to target political opponents on the Right and the Left had been headed up by IRS boss Mortimer Caplin. Marcus Owens, the legal expert brought in to argue the Dem case, had formerly worked for Caplin & Drysdale. That would be Mort’s old firm.

JFK’s Ideological Organizations Project had resulted in the mass targeting of conservative groups. Owens has been a reliable attack dog against conservative non-profits and for leftist non-profits.

Owens has attacked the David Horowitz Freedom Center. And it is highly likely that the Freedom Center, which has also been smeared as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, would be one of the targets of House Dems if they continue plotting to use the IRS to suppress the opposition.

The Oversight Committee had invited three witnesses who had been victimized by shootings in some way. The first witness was traumatized after an attack by an ISIS terrorist. The second witness’ daughter had been killed by an unstable man with a history of harassing women. The third dealt with the El Paso shooter. None of the killers were known members of any hate group. Let alone a tax-exempt one.

ISIS is not a tax-exempt group. Neither is 8chan. Membership in a terrorist group is already illegal.

The How the Tax Code Subsidizes Hate hearing was a blatant attempt to build a case for suppressing opposition groups like the NRA that there is no possible way to label a hate group. It echoes the usual SPLC tactic of mixing together Neo-Nazi groups with conservative organizations and calling for a purge.

The same arguments used to attack the Second Amendment were not being used to undermine the First Amendment. It’s bad enough when the SPLC does this, but it’s truly dangerous when elected officials do.

Professor Eugene Volokh repeatedly reminded House members of the First Amendment. As did GOP Subcommittee members.

Rep. Wenstrup, an Iraq War vet, recalled facing fire when a Bernie Sanders supporter shot up a congressional charity baseball game. That, as he said, was "hate".

But not the kind of hate that the SPLC has a problem with.

Hate groups are organizations that refuse to accept coexistence with another group. The hateful rejection of coexistence by leftist has manifested itself in violence and in growing efforts to censor, sanction and destroy political opponents using governments, corporations and any means available.

"Any mechanism, any apparatus, any way that we possibly can,” Rep. Danny K. Davis had said.

How the Tax Code Subsidizes Hate was not about fighting hate. It was hate. This radical hatred is tearing apart the country and destroying the rule of law.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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