Biden can't preemptively protect Trump's enemies from IRS audits

The best agencies to exact political retribution are the FBI and the IRS. The men running them have terms that don't end until 2027. But Trump doesn't want any goody-goodies to get in his way.

Twitter page for the next IRS commissioner: “DM me to save 40% on your taxes.”

“I am your warrior,” Donald Trump said last year at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” Then he said it again: “I am your retribution.”

For a certain kind of president—Richard Nixon was one—the two best federal agencies with which to exact retribution are the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service. Both of these agencies happen at the moment to be led by competent officeholders whose terms don’t expire until 2027. But Trump doesn’t want any goody-goodies in those jobs who won’t agree to prosecute and audit his enemies. So he’s nominated to run them Kash Patel (who already has an enemies list of his own) and former Missouri Rep. Billy Long, who cosponsored not one, not two, but three bills to abolish the IRS, and now makes his living peddling advice on how to exploit a highly questionable Covid-era business tax break.

It’s hard to picture Long telling Trump to take a hike when he says I want this or that person audited. And while Biden may protect certain Trump adversaries with pre-emptive pardons (a bad idea, incidentally; I hope he doesn’t), there’s nothing Biden can do to prevent Trump from ordering up audits of his enemies. Indeed, it’s happened before.

“I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch,” Nixon said in May 1971 about choosing a new IRS commissioner. “That he will do what he's told, that every income tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends. It’s as simple as that. If he isn’t, he doesn’t get the job.”

You can well imagine Trump saying something like that, can’t you? He might even say it at a public rally!

The person Nixon chose for IRS commissioner was Johnnie Walters, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s tax division. But contrary to Nixon’s preference for a yes-man, Walters said no to White House counsel John Dean’s demand to target for audits the people on Nixon’s enemies list. “The man I work for doesn’t like somebody to say no,” Dean replied. Walters then consulted with his immediate boss, Treasury Secretary George Shultz. Shultz told Walters to stand firm, and he did.

Perhaps in like circumstances Treasury nominee Scott Bessent would tell Long to stand firm. Or perhaps not; Bessent may feel gun-shy after losing a power struggle to exile Boris Epsheyn that I figured would be a slam dunk.

Anyway, you should read my latest New Republic piece about Trump, Long, and the IRS. You’ll find it here.