There is an unfortunate political history in the United States involving presidential administrations trying to misuse the Internal Revenue Service. One president, however, stood out as uniquely corrupt when abusing the agency.
It was during Richard Nixon’s term when there was a Special Services Staff at the IRS, which specifically targeted the White House’s perceived political enemies. It was also an era in which the Republican’s team provided the IRS with an “enemies list,” filled with Nixon’s foes.
A Mother Jones report added several years ago, “When the IRS audited Billy Graham, a Nixon ally, the president responded with force: ‘Get the word down to the IRS that I want them to conduct field audits of those who are our opponents, if they’re going to do in our friends.’”
A half-century later, history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
The New York Times reported overnight on a specific kind of invasive IRS audit — known as “an autopsy without the benefit of death” — that most Americans never experience. In fact, in 2017, out of 153 million who filed tax materials to the agency, only 5,000 taxpayers were chosen for this highly invasive audit. One of the 5,000 was a familiar name.
One of the few who received a bureaucratic letter with the news that his 2017 return would be under intensive scrutiny was James B. Comey, who had been fired as F.B.I. director that year by President Donald J. Trump. Furious over what he saw as Mr. Comey’s lack of loyalty and his pursuit of the Russia investigation, Mr. Trump had continued to rail against him even after his dismissal, accusing him of treason, calling for his prosecution and publicly complaining about the money Mr. Comey received for a book after his dismissal.
Trump famously fired Comey, admitting that it was intended to undermine the investigation into the Russia scandal. The then-president even boasted to Russian officials soon after the firing that the move was intended to relieve the pressure caused by the scandal.
Comey was succeeded by his FBI deputy, Andrew McCabe, who served as the bureau’s director for several months. This was the same McCabe who authorized investigations into Trump’s Russia ties.
Trump condemned both Comey and McCabe as "dirty cops" and practically begged the Justice Department to prosecute both men for imagined wrongdoing.
Guess who also was singled out for an unusual, invasive IRS audit. If you said, “Andrew McCabe,” you’re right.
As the Times’ Michael Schmidt, who wrote the article, summarized, “The minuscule chances of the two highest-ranking F.B.I. officials — who made some of the most politically consequential law enforcement decisions in a generation — being randomly subjected to a detailed scrub of their taxes presents extraordinary questions.”
Those questions deserve answers.
Postscript: If recent history is any guide, many of Trump’s defenders will take this opportunity to play a round of whataboutism, insisting that Barack Obama’s White House had its own IRS scandal.
The main problem with this response is that the Obama-era controversy was a mirage. As regular readers may recall, the “scandal” collapsed when reality showed that the tax agency hadn’t singled out conservatives for unfair scrutiny; there was no conspiracy; and the smoking gun was a water pistol.
Congressional Republicans held hearings, which offered no evidence of wrongdoing. The FBI launched its own probe, and federal law enforcement didn’t uncover anything, either. The entire faux-scandal died with a whimper because it wasn’t real.