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Rettig Requests TIGTA Investigation of Comey, McCabe Audits

By: Wesley Elmore


IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig has requested an investigation into how the agency selected the returns of two top former FBI officials for intensive audits.


“The IRS has referred the matter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration for review. IRS Commissioner Rettig personally reached out to TIGTA after receiving a press inquiry,” the IRS said in a July 7 statement.


The referral for an investigation comes a day after The New York Times reported that both former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe — who also briefly served as acting FBI director — faced a rare type of intensive IRS audit conducted as part of the agency’s National Research Program. That the two would both be subject to those audits has led to questions over whether they were actually chosen at random — especially after former President Trump had called for both men to be prosecuted and accused them of treason.


In a separate July 7 article, the Times tried to calculate the probability that both Comey and McCabe would be chosen for the audit program, estimating that the odds of those two specifically being selected are about 1 in 82 million.


The IRS in its statement dismissed accusations of “politically motivated audits,” saying that audits are conducted by career civil servants and that safeguards exist to protect the process. “It’s ludicrous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific individuals for National Research Program audits,” it added.


Not Convinced

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., expressed skepticism that the two FBI officials were chosen at random, calling it “an unlikely coincidence” that “reeks of political targeting.”


Neal also sent a letter to TIGTA requesting an investigation of the audits and comparing the situation to former President Nixon using the IRS to target his enemies.


“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 wrote in the letter to TIGTA’s J. Russell George. “It is unconscionable that someone within the IRS may have acted on this request out of loyalty to the Trump administration or fear of retaliation for failing to act.”


Neal specifically requested information on how the former FBI officials were selected for audit and whether the process was truly random; whether Rettig or the former IRS chief counsel or their staffs were aware of the audit selections, and if so, what action they took in response; and which IRS or Treasury employees are able to add or remove taxpayers from the National Research Program.


Meanwhile, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said that while he supports the TIGTA investigation, he also plans to look into steps that his committee could take to get to the bottom of the allegations.


“Donald Trump has no respect for the rule of law, so if he tried to subject his political enemies to additional IRS scrutiny that would surprise no one,” Wyden said in a statement. “We need to understand what happened here because it raises serious concerns.”


Like Neal and Wyden, Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chair Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., isn’t buying the randomness argument, but he’s putting the blame squarely on Rettig.


“Charles Rettig has wrecked public trust in the IRS, and I reiterate my calls for President Biden to fire Mr. Rettig immediately,” Pascrell said. “If Mr. Rettig cared at all about this agency, he would hand in his resignation today. And if he doesn’t go, Mr. Rettig should be impeached.”


Asked at her July 7 press briefing whether Biden would consider dismissing Rettig, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded, “That is a decision for the president to make, and I’m not going to get ahead of the president.” However, she also noted that the commissioner’s term is set to expire in November.


The Washington Post reported July 7 that the Biden administration has already been interviewing potential candidates to replace Rettig.


Pascrell previously called for Rettig’s firing in May, after TIGTA reported that the IRS had destroyed an estimated 30 million unprocessed information returns in early 2021.


Shades of the Tea Party Scandal

Ways and Means ranking member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, defended Rettig in a release, saying that the commissioner “has stated unequivocally he has had no communication with President Trump, and the research audits are statistically generated.”


Comparing the situation with the allegations that the IRS targeted the exemption applications of conservative Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny during the Obama administration, Brady said he supports investigating allegations of political targeting — “consistent with the precedent set by the House Ways and Means Committee when investigating President Obama’s disgraced former IRS director Lois Lerner, who the committee confirmed had engaged in this abuse.”


Brady also said that any investigation of the Comey and McCabe audits shouldn’t take priority over TIGTA’s ongoing investigation into how news organization ProPublica got its hands on the tax documents of some of the highest-net-worth individuals in the country.

Company Tax Notes
Category FREE CONTENT;ARTICLE / WHITEPAPER
Intended Audience CPA - small firm
CPA - medium firm
CPA - large firm
Published Date 07/07/2022

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