Jenny Beth Martin

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Jenny Beth Martin

Defamation Suit Against Tea Party Group Part Of Ongoing 'Family' Feud

Jillian Rayfield | October 20, 2011, 6:05AM

All is not well in Tea Party country.

The Tea Party Patriots say that a defamation lawsuit filed against them is just part of continued "animosity" from Amy Kremer, now the chair of the Tea Party Express, who was ousted from the Tea Party Patriots in 2009.

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Topics: Amy Kremer, Jenny Beth Martin, Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots

Two Tea Partiers Sue Tea Party Patriot Founders For Facebook Defamation

Jillian Rayfield | October 18, 2011, 2:14PM

Two tea partiers have sued the founders of the Tea Party Patriots for defamation, alleging that they posted false information about one being a child molester and the other being a victim of rape and child molestation, under the Facebook alias "Dale Buttersworth."

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Topics: Jenny Beth Martin, Tea Party Patriots

Jenny Beth Martin

Tea Party Patriots Leader Named To Time's Top 100

Zachary Roth | April 30, 2010, 10:21AM

Jenny Beth Martin

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have gotten more coverage for it, but another conservative member of Time's 100 most influential people is a more interesting inclusion...

That's Jenny Beth Martin, the Georgia-based co-leader of the Tea Party Patriots -- perhaps the Tea Party faction with the strongest claim to grassroots authenticity.

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Topics: Glenn Beck, Jenny Beth Martin, Sarah Palin, Tea Parties, Tea Party Patriots

Mark Meckler

Tea Party Leader Was Involved With GOP-Tied Political Firm

Zachary Roth | March 2, 2010, 11:13AM

Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler

Mark Meckler, a top Tea Party leader, has worked hard to position the movement as a grassroots uprising, independent of both political parties. But just a few years ago, Meckler was involved in an online political consulting firm with ties to the GOP -- a fact that could intensify the fears of some Tea Party activists that their movement is being hijacked by Republican political operatives.

Since last year, Meckler, a northern California lawyer, has emerged as one of two national leaders and spokespeople for the Tea Party Patriots, giving frequent interviews to national news outlets. Working closely with the Atlanta-based Jenny Beth Martin, Meckler has helped build TPP into perhaps the largest and most prominent of the various Tea Party factions. If the notoriously decentralized Tea Party movement can be said to have a spokesman, Meckler has as good a claim to the title as just about anyone.

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Topics: Jenny Beth Martin, Mark Meckler, Michael Steele, Republican National Committee, Tea Parties, Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots

Tea Parties

Tea Partiers Now Forming Circular Firing Squad

Zachary Roth | February 17, 2010, 2:54PM

Tea party in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009

The level of internal tension within the always fractious Tea Party is reaching a boiling point, in the wake of yesterday's meeting with RNC chair Michael Steele and amid early efforts to build a third party out of the grassroots movement.

A major Tea Party group has announced its opposition to the idea of creating a third party -- drawing scorn from at least one activist. And a new anti-Steele website warns of the "'hijacking' of the Tea Party Movement by the GOP." Taken as a whole, the infighting suggests intense and fundamental philosophical differences among Tea Party factions, just as the movement is being hailed as a political force.

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Topics: Everett Wilkinson, Jenny Beth Martin, Michael Steele, Republican National Committee, Robin Stublen, Tea Parties, Tea Party Patriots

Michael Steele

Tea Party Leader On Steele Meeting: 'We Will Not Allow Our Movement To Be Hijacked'

Zachary Roth | February 16, 2010, 1:14PM

RNC Chairman Michael Steele

RNC chair Michael Steele may be touting his big sitdown today with Tea Party leaders, but a significant swathe of the grassroots movement is not on board with the meeting.

Jenny Beth Martin, a leader of the Tea Party Patriots, which helped organize well-attended rallies in Washington last September, told TPMmuckraker in an email that her group is not involved with the Steele pow-wow, and disavowed other efforts to work closely with the GOP. "One hundred percent of our local coordinators are committed to our core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets over any particular political party," said Martin.

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Topics: Jenny Beth Martin, Michael Steele, Republican National Committee, Sarah Palin, Tea Parties, Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots

Jenny Beth Martin

Top Tea Partier, Husband, Owed IRS Half A Million Dollars

Zachary Roth | October 8, 2009, 2:36PM

Jenny Beth Martin

A top activist with the anti-tax Tea Party movement has had a personal brush with federal tax collectors. Jenny Beth Martin, a co-founder and national co-ordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, owed, with her husband, over half a million dollars to the IRS when the pair filed for bankruptcy last year, according to filings examined by TPMmuckraker.

The couple's bankruptcy filing, made in August 2008 to the US Bankruptcy Court for Georgia's Northern District, stated that Martin and her husband Lee Martin, of Woodstock, Georgia, owed the IRS $510,000, after making a payment of $16,640 that June. The couple also owed just over $71,000 to Ford Motor Credit, the automaker's financing arm.