By Earlier in the year, reports revealed how Biden’s IRS has targeted journalists who have been critical of the president. New Conservative Post wrote, “On the same day that journalist Matt Taibbi was scheduled to testify before a House committee investigating the weaponization of the government, he received a visit from the IRS.”
After a shocking incident of alleged witness intimidation, Jim Jordan, chairman of a committee investigating the “weaponization” of the government, demanded information about the incident.
“House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter Monday to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking an explanation for why journalist Matt Taibbi received an unannounced home visit from an IRS agent. We’ve seen the letter, and both the circumstances and timing of the IRS focus on this journalist raise serious questions.
Mr. Taibbi has provoked the ire of Democrats and other journalists for his role in researching Twitter records and then releasing internal communications from the social-media giant that expose its censorship and its contacts with government officials.”
Jordan got an answer and released the details of his investigation into IRS corruption, and it’s chilling, especially from a president who often calls his political enemies “semi-fascists.”
The Washington Free Beacon writes that “the agency launched an investigation into Taibbi, a liberal journalist who has criticized left-wing censorship of conservative and moderate voices, on December 24, 2022, according to a Wednesday letter from House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio). On that same day, Taibbi was publishing some of the “Twitter Files,” internal Twitter emails that show the company coordinating with the government to censor so-called misinformation.
Just months later, on March 9, 2023, Taibbi was testifying in Congress when an IRS agent visited his home. The agency was performing “an extensive investigation” of Taibbi, looking into the journalist’s “voter registration records, whether he possessed a hunting or fishing license, whether he had a concealed weapons permit, and his telephone numbers,” Jordan’s letter revealed.
The investigation, which ostensibly concerned Taibbi’s 2018 tax filing, ultimately concluded that Taibbi “did not owe the IRS anything,” according to the letter. On the contrary, the IRS owed Taibbi “a substantial refund.”
Taibbi has been critical of Biden, saying last month that the administration’s censorship efforts are “terrifying.” He said Wednesday that the visit to his home appears to be “politically motivated.”
This is not the first time the IRS has come under the microscope from Republicans looking into the agency’s malfeasance to protect Democrats. Recently, the IRS allegedly fired the entire team working on the agency’s examination into tax crimes committed by the president’s son after a whistleblower claimed that the team was dragging its feet to protect the president.
Jordan is fed up with the way the IRS has been acting during his time in Congress. He said, according to The Washington Times, the “IRS has failed to produce key records, but what it has revealed to the committee, with Mr. Taibbi‘s assent, is disturbing. He also claimed “an IRS agent assigned to the case did extensive research before the home visit, including looking at his voter registration records, whether he had a concealed weapons permit and whether he had a hunting or fishing license.
“It has been 10 years, to the month, since Lois Lerner disclosed the IRS‘ infamous targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.”
Jordan sent the IRS a letter demanding to know the decision process for the investigation of a three-year-old return that showed that Taibbi had overpaid on his taxes.
“The IRS asserted to the Committee that it sent a letter to Mr. Taibbi on October 24, 2019—nine days after Mr. Taibbi filed his 2018 tax return—asking Mr. Taibbi to verify his return because it met identity theft criteria and could not be processed until he confirmed,” Jordan wrote. “The IRS alleged that it sent a second letter to Mr. Taibbi on March 23, 2020. However, according to Mr. Taibbi, neither he nor his accountant received either of these letters or any other notification that there was an issue with his 2018 tax return—that is, until the IRS conducted a field visit at Mr. Taibbi’s home three years later.”
The Federalist noted, “Equally alarming, however, is the tactics with which the IRS used to dig up any dirt it could find on Taibbi. Jordan revealed that a month after opening its inquiry, the agent assigned to Taibbi’s case was instructed to perform an “extensive investigation,’ which included ‘using publicly available search engines and commercial investigative software such as Anywho, Consumer Affairs, LexisNexis Accruint, and Google.’ The documents provided to the committee also purportedly show the agency kept a ‘dossier’ on Taibbi that included information such as his phone numbers, voter registration records, whether he had a concealed weapons permit, and whether he possessed a hunting or fishing license.
Taibbi’s Wikipedia page was also examined during the investigation.
Notably, the IRS documents acquired by Jordan reveal that Taibbi ‘did not owe the IRS anything,’ but rather, “the IRS owed Mr. Taibbi a substantial refund.” The aforementioned documents do not, however, provide any information regarding “the IRS’s decision-making process to open a case against Mr. Taibbi, or to conduct a field visit at his home.'”
Taibbi raised the alarm about what an act of corruption and misuse of government power his ordeal is. “When the IRS checks to see if you have a carry permit and visits your home, at a time when they owe you money, it’s time to worry,” the journalist stated in a blog post on Wednesday.
Jordan wants the IRS to forfeit any and all records related to the agency’s investigation into Taibbi no later than May 31.
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