The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the IRS supposedly performed random, thorough audits of two former top FBI officers who angered former President Trump.
The IRS was conducting National Research Program audits of their 2017 and 2019 tax returns, respectively, according to letters that former FBI Director James Comey and Andrew McCabe, who was Comey’s deputy and took over as acting director after Trump fired Comey, received.
Both letters state, “We must analyze randomly chosen tax returns to better understand tax compliance and enhance the fairness of the tax system.”
Trump has regularly blasted both men for their roles in looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, both while they were working for the bureau and afterwards.
The Times said that the chances of getting chosen for the particular audit were extremely slim, with the IRS having targeted roughly 1 in every 30,600 tax returns for the close examination in 2017.
Comey told the Times that it might be a coincidence or that someone intentionally used the IRS to target a political adversary. We ought to be aware of the response given the part Trump wants to keep playing in our nation.
According to the Times, Comey was given a $347 refund following the audit, whereas McCabe, who expressed similar concerns over his audit, was left with a tiny debt.
According to McCabe, who spoke with a revenue agent, she was courteous and professional. “However, I have serious concerns about how or why I was chosen for this,” the speaker continued.
Throughout both audits, the IRS was led by Trump appointee Charles Rettig.
However, the IRS claimed that charges of impropriety are “routinely” forwarded to the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration for additional consideration. The IRS denied that the audits were politically motivated in a statement to The Hill.
According to the IRS, discussing specific taxpayer situations is prohibited by federal privacy rules.
The statement continued, “Audits are performed by career civil servants, and the IRS has significant safeguards in place to protect the examination process — and against politically-driven audits.” “It’s absurd and false to claim that senior IRS officers in some way singled out certain people for National Research Program audits.”
Throughout his presidency, Trump frequently attacked Comey and McCabe.
Many Democrats believed that Hillary Clinton’s final defeat was influenced by Comey’s decision to reopen an investigation into her private email server two weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
But roughly four months into his presidency, Trump sacked FBI Director James Comey. At the time, Trump cited Rod Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions’ recommendations to fire Comey as justification for his dismissal.
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Trump, though, has provided several justifications for why he fired the former FBI director over the years, and he has occasionally conceded that the Russia probe played a factor.
Robert Mueller was appointed as a special counsel to look into probable ties between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as potential justice-related obstructing activity after Comey was fired in May 2017.
In response to accusations that McCabe had lied about disclosing details regarding Clinton’s personal email server, Sessions sacked McCabe one day before he was set to retire.
In 2019, McCabe asserted that his termination was motivated by politics in a lawsuit.
