Donald Trump Promises to Repeal Amendment Used by IRS Against Pasadena’s All Saints Church in 2006

Donald Trump once again promised Evangelicals that he would empower them by repealing the Johnson Amendment and, he said, by bringing back their political voice. Trump spoke Thursday before a gathering of pastors and their spouses in Orlando, Florida.

The Johnson Amendment, named after then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, bars religious organizations and charitable organizations, who enjoy tax-exempt privileges, from endorsing candidates or opposing them.

The Amendment played a central role in a 2006 investigation of All Saints Church in Pasadena by the Internal Revenue Service after Rev. George F. Regas delivered a guest sermon questioning the Iraq War two days before the 2004 presidential election.

In the sermon, Regas depicted Jesus in a mock debate with then presidential candidates George W. Bush and John F. Kerry. The sermon did not endorse either candidate.

The sermon prompted a letter from the IRS stating that “a reasonable belief exists that you may not be a tax-exempt church.”

The case was the last significant instance that the IRS investigated a church for political speech.

At the time, church leaders and parishioners said the probe was an assault on their constitutional rights because the IRS wanted all materials [newsletters, e-mails and other records] with political references created in the 2004 election year given to them and for then Rev. Ed Bacon, rector, to appear before tax investigators.

A spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a watchdog group, told the Los Angeles Times he had “never heard of a church being asked to undergo such a sweeping, broad and deep investigation on the basis of a complaint about a single sermon by a guest speaker.”

The IRS dropped the investigation in 2007.

At the Rediscovering God in America conference in Orlando Thursday, Trump said the Johnson Amendment has held back Evangelical leaders from going all out in endorsing him as the next U.S. president, a report on Christian Times said.

“We’ll get it out,” Trump spoke before the gathering of Evangelical pastors. “We’ll be able to terminate the Johnson Amendment. And you’ll have great power to do good things and religion will start going instead of this way (motioning with his hand downward).”

Trump also made the same promise when he accepted his nomination at the Republican National Congress in Cleveland last month.

“I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans,” he said at the convention.

In Orlando, Trump said he became aware of the Johnson Amendment after his first meeting with religious leaders months ago.