It’s been a difficult year for the Internal Revenue Service. Over the past several months, the tax agency has struggled with resignations, DOGE-imposed disruptions and the abandonment of a much-needed modernization initiative.
Complicating matters, there’s been a revolving door at the IRS administrator’s office: Seven different people have led the agency over the past 10 months, including the current IRS chief, Scott Bessent, who already has a full-time job leading the Treasury Department. (Bessent recently created a new job — the CEO of the Internal Revenue Service — and filled the vacancy with Frank Bisignano. Of course, Bisignano also already has a full-time job running the Social Security Administration.)
But just because things are awful at the IRS doesn’t mean conditions can’t get worse. The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily, according to people familiar with the matter. A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors, some of the people said.
(A Treasury Department spokesperson didn’t respond to the newspaper’s questions about the changes.)
One of the first signs of trouble came six months ago, when The Washington Post reported that the Republican administration was “amassing influence over criminal investigations at the IRS,” in part by elevating Gary Shapley — whom the White House saw as a political ally because he raised concerns about Hunter Biden’s taxes in 2023.
The Post added in April that developments at the tax agency gave Trump political appointees “a direct line to tax investigations for the first time since Richard M. Nixon was president.”
Six months later, The Wall Street Journal, in a report that has not been independently verified by MSNBC, advanced the story, noting that Team Trump is going forward with plans to install White House allies at the IRS Criminal Investigation division. The outlet reported that the move is in order to “exert firmer control over the unit” and “weaken the involvement of IRS lawyers in criminal investigations,” while opening the door to “politically motivated probes.”
In fact, the Journal added that Shapley is poised to lead the IRS’ investigative unit, and he has already “put together a list” of potential progressive targets.
Reading this, I was reminded of a recent column from The New York Times’ Jeffrey Toobin, who highlighted Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era enemies list. From the piece:
The Internal Revenue Service took some preliminary steps to investigate Mr. Nixon’s enemies, but Donald C. Alexander, who was Mr. Nixon’s commissioner of the I.R.S. in 1973, shut down attempts to use audits and other forms of harassment in that way. Mr. Alexander later wrote that he took the step because ‘political or social views, ‘extremist’ or otherwise, are irrelevant to taxation.’ Mr. Nixon stewed about Mr. Alexander’s intransigence, and Mr. Alexander later wrote that the president had tried to fire him, but the I.R.S. commissioner stayed in place for the rest of the president’s time in office.
When historians and other observers argue that Team Trump’s abuses are worse than what Americans experienced during Nixon’s Watergate era, there are ample reasons to take the assessment seriously.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
