When is it going to end?
Following reports that the IRS conducted audits on former FBI Director James Comey and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, who later served as acting FBI Director after Comey was fired, the IRS has had to deal with a political storm.
Comey and McCabe had high-profile fights with former President Donald Trump, with both men later being selected for a rare — and random — audit after Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig took the reigns.
With news about the audits still swirling, lawmakers were quick to call for a comprehensive investigation into if the two men were targeted with the audits and — if they were — how.
In a statement published on Thursday (July 7), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said: “The possibility that the former President or someone in the White House, his cabinet, his appointees, or leadership working under the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner may have requested an audit of those deemed disloyal is alarming.”
Neal continued his statement, saying the possibility someone within the IRS acted on a request “out of loyalty to the Trump administration or fear of retaliation for failing to act” was “unconscionable.”
Comey earned Trump’s ire for the bureau’s probe into a link between Trump’s 2016 campaign team and the Russian government. He was fired in 2017.
McCabe, who replaced Comey as acting director of the FBI, was fired by Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018. Following this, McCabe became an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, becoming a contributor on CNN following his firing.
According to the New York Times, which first reported on the coincidental tax audits, the odds of being selected for the highly demanding audit was one in 30,000.
