Internal Obama Regime Emails Reveal Deliberate Targeting Of Catholics With Contraceptive Mandate

I Will Crush Them

Shocker, huh?

Next Monday I will file an amicus brief in Zubik v. Burwell, the contraceptive mandate case that Ed Whelan has so thoroughly discussed in this space this week. My brief will criticize the Administration for adopting an irrelevant tax provision that exempts some entities from filing tax returns (26 U.S.C. § 6033) as the mechanism for determining which religious groups are exempt from the contraceptive mandate and which must beg the Department of Health and Human Services for an “accommodation.” 

Structuring the exemption this way was always puzzling, and now we know why. As the brief will explain, internal government emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act demonstrate precisely what the government was thinking. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t because they wanted to accommodate religious interests. 

Administration health policy officials were downright obsessed with figuring out which Catholic institutions would fit within the section 6033-based exemption. As early as October 2011, the White House was trying to figure out how to structure the exemption so that Catholic universities would be forced to provide student contraceptives in student health plans.

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.