In a subpoena sent August 9, the U.S. Justice Dept. informed Eagle Forum of Alabama the federal agency wants possession of documents related to Eagle Forum’s support for state legislation to ban hormone treatments and surgeries for children who identify as transgender. That bill, the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, is now state law after Gov. Kay Ivey signed it in April, now five months ago.
But the law was immediately challenged in court, and has now been blocked by a federal court, and the far-left Biden administration has filed an amicus brief to fight the law on behalf of transgenders. That effort mirrors the strong-arm tactics of the transgender-defending White House to upend Title IX federal law on behalf of biological men who say they are women.
According to an article by AL.com about the subpoena, Birmingham-based Eagle Forum is not named in that federal lawsuit. So the legally recognized, politically active 501 (c) (4) non-profit says the federal government’s subpoena is nothing less than political thuggery to intimidate it because the federal government views it as an enemy of the state.
In a court motion to quash the subpoena, filed Sept. 7, Eagle Forum’s general counsel Margaret S. Clark warned that complying with the subpoena will “have a chilling effect on me and other citizens who choose to engage in our constitutional rights to free speech, free association, and freedom to petition the government, when our views happen to be contrary to the political views of the current Administration in Washington.”
According to the news article, Clark is the volunteer counsel at Eagle Forum of Alabama, which suggests the organization doesn’t employ a full-time attorney on staff. According to IRS.gov, the group files an annual “e-Postcard,” which is filed electronically by organizations with less than $50,000 in contributions, according to the IRS website.
AFN did not ask Eagle Forum about its financial contributions or size of its staff during a phone interview.
Becky Gerritson, who is executive director of Eagle Forum of Alabama, tells AFN the government subpoena states the non-profit “may have had some involvement” in drafting the current legislation, or working on previous bills, as if that is even controversial since every politically active group – on the left and the right - lobbies legislators with policy positions and proposed legislation.
In the case of Eagle Forum of Alabama, the federal government is demanding everything from its private communications with legislators to the meetings from board meetings. None of that is related to the federal lawsuit, Garritson says, so the only reason is a simple and sinister one: Using the power of government to go after its political enemies.
“This is sort of a shot across the bow,” she warns. “If this is allowed to stand, then everyone who does what we do is going to be subject to government digging in the records and trying to intimidate them into silence.”
