IRS Chief Counsel Represented Jeremiah Wright's Church in Tax Case

In a post I authored on May 12, just two days after Lois Lerner's contrived news release at an ABA tax conference, I closed with the following question:

Place your bets. Will Wilkins' name surface in this scandal? Try this.
Obama appointee knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general's report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner."

Suddenly Wilkins has become something of an online celebrity though I doubt that he is much pleased about his new found fame, or if you will, infamy. I noted that Wilkins was a Washington player.

Wilkins is not exactly a Washington outsider nor is he apolitical. A little bit of snooping around the web reveals that he accepted a staff position on the Senate Finance Committee in 1981 when it was chaired by Democratic Senator Russell Long. He then became director and chief counsel of the committee staff under the chairmanship of Senator Lloyd Bentsen.

It has come to light that Wilkins and Obama go back to Obama's Senate days when Wilkins and his law firm, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, won the dismissal of an IRS case against the Trinity United Church of Christ, whose pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, later became a clergyman of national repute. From the American Lawyer, May 22, 2008:

The IRS initiated an investigation early this year after a speech by Obama at a 50th anniversary celebration of the church last June. It was a reference by Obama to his presidential candidacy in a talk otherwise focused on faith that caught the agency's attention. Tax laws prohibit non-profits--including churches--from engaging in political speech or promoting candidates. The IRS can withdraw an organization's tax-free status if the organization is found to violate the rule.

Reuters reports that Wilkins' office was made aware of the targeting of conservative groups as early as August 2011, according to the inspector general report. Now Wilkins' computer is among those being examined by investigators probing the IRS scandal. Are we to believe that it is coincidence that Obama appointed the lawyer who defended his church to be chief counsel of the IRS? Are we to believe further the Wilkins did not let the White House and Obama know of the Tea Party targeting which the IRS was engaged in a year before the election? Are we going too far to suspect that Wilkins had a hand in the targeting, virtually making the IRS the political action wing of the Obama campaign?