Does this look like a dangerous man to you? Well it does to the District’s local Republican party.

The DCGOP continues to try and make things less pleasant for Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., whose youth sports non-profit Team Thomas is under investigation for allegedly raising $200k during the last two years without a proper license. Yesterday, the GOP asked the city’s Office of Campaign Finance to force Team Thomas to disclose its donors and its expenses.

Today the GOP submitted Form 3949a to the IRS, telling the feds they think Team Thomas broke federal tax laws. (Nobody likes a tax snitch, DCGOP!)

Thomas lawyer, Fred Cooke Jr., said he hasn’t seen the GOP’s complaint but doesn’t think there’s much there there. Team Thomas has never held itself out to be a tax-exempt non-profit, according to Team Thomas’s response to Attorney General Peter Nickles‘ first subpoena.  “The organization applied for the tax exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). However, the decision was made to discontinue the application process,” the letter to Nickles’ reads.

And “just because I raise money doesn’t mean it’s [taxable] income,” says Cooke, who correctly notes that the GOP’s complaint is politically motivated.

LL will leave the tax questions to the IRS. What’s funny about the GOP’s complaint is that on IRS Form 3949a there’s a box that asks, “Do you consider the taxpayer dangerous?” And the GOP checked the box “Yes.”

Now, a councilmember running a mysteriously financed nonprofit without disclosing any potential conflicts of interest is a lot of things, but dangerous isn’t one of them. The proper word is “questionable.”

LL asked DCGOP Executive Director Paul Craney what was up with the danger box. His reply: “He continues to mislead people on the subject of Team Thomas and that [endangers] our trust in our elected officials.”

Only if you trusted them in the first place.

Here’s the form:

[scribd id=45344924 key=key-20yu8yfqtckvhgovqrnz mode=list]

Photo by Darrow Montgomery