Comment The commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is facing a new onslaught of questions after a report showed on Wednesday that two enemies of President Donald Trump had been singled out for a rare audit. Charles Rettig, whose 2018 nomination by Trump to lead the agency surprised many tax professionals when it was announced, has faced new scrutiny after the New York Times revealed that both former FBI Director James B. Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, were the issues. of highly unusual checks that the IRS says were randomly selected. The Washington Post confirmed the checks. Former FBI leaders who drew Trump’s ire were both audited by the IRS Rettig was a tax attorney in Beverly Hills, Calif., when Trump tapped him to head the agency, which has about 71,000 full-time employees. He defended a billionaire accused of hiding money in offshore accounts, a businessman who used false accounting to protect assets and the heirs of a millionaire defense contractor trying to dodge inheritance taxes. He began as a Trump ally when his four-year term began in 2018, shielding the former president’s tax returns from public view in the face of a House Democratic lawsuit. But Retting has proven a willing partner for the Biden administration as well, supporting its efforts to close the gap between what taxpayers owe and what they pay, and implementing new expansionary stimulus measures. The IRS commissioner’s term is set to expire in November, and Biden administration officials had already begun interviewing potential candidates to replace him before this week’s news, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. of anonymity to describe private conversations. Rettig has expressed his desire for a second term, said another person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason. Asked Thursday whether the president is confident in Rettig’s leadership, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly declined to answer, telling reporters at her briefing: “He’s going to wake up in November, so I’ll leave it at that.” Jean-Pierre said the White House does not otherwise comment on “enforcement actions taken by the IRS.” But the revelation about the Comey and McCabe audits will revive difficult questions about the commissioner and his legacy. Retting has won praise from Democratic lawmakers under Biden for his outreach and responsiveness on Capitol Hill, but his respect for Trump has come under scrutiny given the nonpartisan role the IRS is supposed to play. The disclosure will also bring new scrutiny to Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the Treasury Department oversees the IRS. A Mnuchin spokesman told The Post that “it is unlawful for the Treasury Secretary to ‘request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer as to tax liability of that taxpayer, with limited exceptions that do not apply.” In a statement, Trump said, “I’m not aware of anything like that,” and pointed to a 2019 Justice Department oversight report that was critical of the earlier investigation of Comey and McCabe. The IRS is adamant that there is no political interference in its audit process. Comey and McCabe were selected for the National Investigative Program, which typically selects about 13,000 individuals and companies annually from hundreds of millions of tax returns for the intensive audit program. McCabe’s scrutiny began months before the Biden administration, though it was still under Rettig’s tenure. He focused on his 2019 tax return. The audit program is run by the IRS Division of Research, Applied Analysis and Statistics. A team of career workers — statisticians and data scientists — administer a computer program that randomly selects taxpayers across the income spectrum to determine levels of compliance with the nation’s tax codes, according to John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner under Obama administration and at the beginning of the Trump administration. Once names are selected in that random drawing, they are forwarded to the IRS division that handles the audits, according to Koskinen. IRS spokeswoman Jodi Reynolds said in a statement that Retting personally referred the matter to the inspector general for review after details of the Times report emerged. He also called it “ridiculous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials were somehow targeting specific individuals for National Research Program audits,” while adding that the IRS was prohibited from commenting on specific taxpayer situations. “Commissioner Rettig is not involved in individual audits or taxpayer cases. these are handled by career civil servants. As IRS Commissioner, he never had contact with the White House—in either administration—on IRS enforcement or individual taxpayer matters. He is committed to running the IRS in an unbiased, impartial manner from top to bottom,” Reynolds said. Trump’s pick to head the IRS now faces the implementation of Biden’s economic agenda Former IRS officials expressed disbelief that there could have been political interference in the audit program, as there are federal criminal penalties for interference. There is no way Rettig could have ordered or executed the audit without the support of career staff, said Mark Everson, who served as the agency’s commissioner under the George W. Bush administration. “I would be surprised if there was any deliberate selection of either McCabe or Comey for scrutiny under this program. That would be really shocking. I don’t see that,” Everson said. Everson added that even if he had been chosen at random, Comey should have been excluded from scrutiny because of his high political position. “Someone should have exercised more judgment before they proceeded to audit Comey. I would hope so. Even if it’s randomly selected, I think a supervisor should have said, “We can just knock it out.” “ But former IRS officials, including Everson, said the matter should be investigated. The Treasury Department’s inspector general did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether that office had opened an investigation into the selection of controls. “For two guys who are enemies of President Trump to be elected together, albeit in different years, should be considered unusual,” Koskinen said. “In light of everything else that’s been going on in recent years, it’s worth a look to reassure the public that the IRS is treating all taxpayers fairly.” Some House Democrats began calling for Rettig’s firing over the matter. “If you think Donald Trump’s vetting of supposed enemies was a random act of God, then I have a bridge in North Jersey I’d like to sell you,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (DN.J.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee. “There may not be a group on the face of this earth less deserving of the benefit of the doubt than Donald Trump and his governors. Charles Rettig has destroyed the public’s trust in the IRS, and I repeat my calls for President Biden to fire Mr. Rettig immediately.” Tony Romm and Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.
