Twitter Files Journalist Reveals He Was Likely Targeted By IRS After Criticizing Government
Twitter files journalist Matt Taibbi revealed some concerning information on Wednesday regarding IRS overreach.
Taibbi appeared on Fox News on Wednesday and discussed the timing of the opening of an IRS investigation.
Turns out, the IRS decided to launch their investigation as Taibbi was preparing to testify before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Government Weaponization.
A letter from Committee Chairman Jim Jordan referenced the timeline in a letter to Danny Werfel, the head of the IRS.
According to Jordan, the examination into Taibbi's finances was opened on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2022. Beyond the curious timing on a major holiday, Christmas Eve in 2022 fell on a Saturday.
During the interview on Fox, Taibbi confirmed the timeline is accurate, implying potential political motivations.
While Werfel didn't take office until March 2023, the acting commissioner at the time was named by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
John Roberts, the host of the interview, correctly observed that it would be extraordinarily rare for the IRS to engage in something this important on a holiday and a Saturday.
Taibbi agreed with that assessment, especially considering he'd just recently published a report on the FBI's cozy relationship with Twitter.
IRS Targeted Taibbi?
As Taibbi noted, the "optics" of this are suspicious, to say the least.
" was a three-year-old case, and I didn't owe them any money. So all of those factors combined to make the optics of this really strange," Taibbi explained.
"You would wonder what supervisor would be calling an agent on a Saturday and asking him to come into work to open up a case," he continued.
The day that Taibbi actually testified before the committee, the IRS assigned an agent to his case.
The agency later assigned an agent to engage face-to-face taxpayer contact on January 27, 2023; about a month later. That was the day Taibbi testified before Jordan and Plaskett's panel.
And sure enough, the investigation found the government actually owed Taibbi money, not the other way around.
Despite his initial reluctance, he now believes it was obviously political in nature.
"But now I don't think there's really a whole lot of doubt that this was somehow politically motivated. At least it has the appearance of that. And I think they need to answer some questions about why they made this decision," Taibbi said.
Political Motivations Par For The Course
The entire reason the House Committee exists is because of government overreach against American citizens.
Taibbi could be just the latest in a long line of victims. Just recently the FBI appeared to retaliate against agents testifying about potential wrongdoing in the organization.
FBI REMOVES SECURITY CLEARANCE FROM THREE AGENTS SET TO TESTIFY AGAINST FBI
The Department of Justice famously went after parents who spoke out at school board meetings. Among many other mistakes.
Perhaps the most egregious example is the Durham Report, which pointed out immense wrongdoing at the FBI in their handling of the Russian collusion investigation.
It's terrifying to consider the possibility that the government is happily weaponizing their power to target anyone who criticizes them. But that's the implication from these stories and others like them.
Taibbi exposed inconvenient wrongdoing, and the IRS apparently stepped in.
How many more times will this happen before government bureaucracies are finally held accountable?