WASHINGTON (AP) -- 7/18/00 -- A conservative legal group has asked the Justice Department for a criminal investigation to determine whether the National Education Association violated tax laws by failing to report political expenditures.

In a July 14 letter, Landmark Legal Foundation cited the union's failure to report the expenditures on tax forms since at least 1994. Landmark previously asked the Internal Revenue Service to audit the nation's largest teachers' union.

Asked Tuesday, an NEA spokeswoman described the letter as absurd and denied that the union has broken the law.

The NEA reports to the IRS that it spends no member dues on politics. Its own documents, however, reviewed last month by The Associated Press, show spending of millions of dollars to help elect "pro-education candidates," produce political training guides and gather teachers' voting records.

"The evidence presented in Landmark's complaint indicates that the NEA has failed to comply with its duties under the IRC (Internal Revenue Code) to report fully its political expenditures and, hence, its taxable income," Landmark president Mark Levin wrote Justice Department officials. "Since at least filing its 1994 form ..., the NEA has failed to report fully its political expenditures, thereby using tax-exempt funds for taxable purposes."

The letter asked Justice officials to "initiate immediately a criminal investigation." The request went to the Justice Department's criminal and tax divisions, the FBI and the department's campaign finance task force.

NEA spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons called the Landmark request "absurd and totally without merit. The NEA continues to follow the letter and spirit of the law. Anyone can ask such a thing of Justice, whether it has merit or not."