This week, former president Donald Trump criticized the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after they visited journalist Matt Taibbi’s home on the same day he was testifying before the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government earlier this month.
Matt Taibbi was selected by Elon Musk late last year to release several installments of the Twitter Files, which exposed conspicuous relationships between Twitter and the federal government. It also revealed unfair content moderation and censorship, which many conservatives feel was disproportionately targeted at them.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, “So interesting to see the IRS “MAKE A STRANGE HOUSE CALL” (WSJ) ON MATT TAIBBI DURING HIS HOUSE TESTIMONY ON TWITTER AND ALL SORTS OF BAD GOVERNMENT ACTS. THAT IS NOT A COINCIDENCE, IT IS JUST PLAIN BRAZEN & STUPID! BUT EVEN MORE BRAZEN & STUPID IS THE WAY THEY HAVE HANDLED ME, LEAKING INFORMATION (WHICH IS ILLEGAL!) &, MAKING A DEAL & THEN BREAKING IT FOR STRICTLY POLITICAL REASONS. I HAD A “DONE DEAL” BEFORE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT-THEY BROKE IT! TREATED WORSE THAN TEA PARTY & EVANGELICALS…”
The former president continued, “I could have easily made a very good deal with the IRS during my 4 years as President, but thought it inappropriate to do so. Besides, I already had a deal from before my Presidency-A deal which they choose not to honor. So now I am demanding the original deal, without late changes in the rules & regulations so that deal would be harder to make. Most people would say that after watching the Biden family take advantage of government, I should have made deal during my term. To me, CONFLICT.”
The New York Post reports that the IRS agent who visited Taibbi’s house left a note instructing the journalist to contact the government agency. Upon calling the agent, Taibbi was informed that his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected over identity theft concerns. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter to the IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and the Department of Treasury demanding answers on the unusual timing of the visit to Taibbi’s house. According to Jordan’s letter:
The Committee recently learned that during this hearing, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent visited, unannounced and unprompted, the home of one of the hearing witnesses, Matthew Taibbi, an independent journalist who has reported extensively on government abuse. In light of the hostile reaction to Mr. Taibbi’s reporting among left-wing activists, and the IRS’s history as a tool of government abuse, 2 the IRS’s action could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate a witness before Congress. We expect your full cooperation with our inquiry.
…The circumstances surrounding the IRS’s unannounced and unprompted visit to Mr. Taibbi’s home, at the exact time that he was testifying to Congress about “the most serious” government abuse he has witnessed in his career as a journalist, are incredible. The IRS’s visit is all the more concerning in light of Mr. Taibbi’s assertions that the IRS informed him the problems were not “monetary” and he had never received any prior indication of any issues with his 2018 return. These facts demand a careful examination by the Committee to determine whether the visit was a thinly-veiled attempt to influence or intimidate a witness before Congress.
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