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The IRS has conducted audits in recent years of two of the most frequent targets of criticism from former President Donald Trump, former FBI Director James B. Comey and his deputy, which led Comey to questioning whether the audits were motivated by the political recovery against the law enforcement leaders they investigated. Trump and his campaign.
Trump fired Comey in 2017, intensifying an investigation into Trump’s associates that had begun a year earlier. Following Comey’s dismissal, his deputy, Andrew McCabe, took over the FBI for several months, during which time the office opened an investigation into Trump for possible obstruction of justice.
For years, Trump has publicly and repeatedly attacked the two men, demanding that they be charged with crimes and accusing them of pursuing a witch hunt for political reasons against him. Although both men were investigated and sometimes criticized for their conduct, neither has been charged with any crime.
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These types of IRS audits are designed to be rare and random. The likelihood that two people so hated by the former president would be audited in the space of a few years raised concerns for Comey about a possible political misuse of IRS authority.
“I don’t know if anything inappropriate happened, but after finding out how unusual this audit was and how Trump wanted to hurt me during that time, it made sense to try to figure it out,” Comey said. in a statement. “Maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe someone misused the IRS to attack a political enemy. Given the role Trump wants to continue playing in our country, we should know the answer to that question.”
A McCabe lawyer confirmed that he was also audited.
The New York Times, which first reported on the audits, said Comey’s audit began in 2019, focusing on his 2017 tax return, the year he signed a book deal of seven digits. McCabe’s audit began in 2021, focusing on his tax return for 2019, the Times said.
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The McCabe audit began months in the Biden administration, but the agency is still headed by a Trump-appointed commissioner, Charles Rettig.
Since the abuses of the Nixon administration for political reasons, the IRS has taken pride in systems designed to keep politics or personal motivations out of the agency’s tax review process.
When asked for comments on Comey and McCabe’s audits, the IRS said in a statement that privacy laws prevent them from talking about specific taxpayers.
“Audits are handled by career officials and the IRS has strong safeguards to protect the review process, and against politically motivated audits,” the statement said. “It’s ridiculous and false to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific people for National Research Program audits.”
The IRS statement also suggested that the Inspector General of the Treasury for the Tax Administration could review the matter.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
Lisa Rein contributed to this report.