Franklin Graham: IRS targeted ministries

(CNN) — Franklin Graham, one of the country’s most prominent evangelicals, says the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service included two of his ministries.

“I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” Graham wrote in a letter Tuesday to President Barack Obama. The evangelical leader is the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham.

Graham said the IRS contacted the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, a North Carolina-based ministry, after it ran newspaper ads in that state in April encouraging support for an amendment against same-sex marriage. The group also bought newspaper ads in November encouraging Christians to vote for candidates who oppose same-sex marriage, support Israel and “base their decisions on biblical principles.”

Graham said the ads were purchased by funds donated by “friends of our ministry.”

In September, the IRS informed the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, an international aid group, that it would review the groups’ records for the tax year ending in 2010, according to Graham. IRS agents conducted the review in October, Graham said.

The organizations, both of which are run by Graham, later received notice that they remain eligible for federal tax exemptions, he said.

“I do not believe the IRS audits of our two organizations last year is a coincidence — or justifiable,” Graham said in the letter to Obama.

The IRS did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. The agency has acknowledged that it gave extra scrutiny to tea party groups applying for federal tax exemptions. The Treasury Department’s inspector general said in a report that the IRS’ use of “inappropriate criteria” ended in May 2012.

Obama said Tuesday that he has directed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to hold IRS employees accountable for “these failures.”

“But regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong,” Obama said.