Federal Appeals Court Slams IRS, Demands Documents

In a blistering rebuke of the IRS, a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court has ordered the tax-collecting agency to quit stalling and produce the names of organizations it targeted based on their political leanings.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit gave the IRS two weeks to turn over the documents sought as part of a class-action lawsuit brought by the NorCal Tea Party Patriots.

“The lawyers in the Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation’s interests and enforcing its laws … The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside that tradition,” the opinion said.

Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Self-Governance which is funding the class-action lawsuit, applauded the court's bold comments.

“We are very pleased that the 6th Circuit had smacked down the IRS and its thuggish DOJ lawyers,” Meckler told FoxNews.com.

Tuesday’s angry reprimand by the federal appeals court is in response to the IRS’s writ of mandamus.

“The district court ordered production of those lists, and did so again over an IRS motion to reconsider. Yet, almost a year later, the IRS still has not complied with the court’s orders. Instead the IRS now seeks from this court a writ of mandamus, an extraordinary remedy reserved to correct only the clearest abuses of power by a district court,” Judge Raymond Kethledge wrote.

“We deny the petition.”

The panel of judges gave the IRS two weeks to start handing over the documents.

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