IRS audits of EX-FBI chiefs Comey and Mccabe, called traitors by Donald Trump, prompt probe

WASHINGTON — The odds of matching six numbers in the Texas Powerball lottery are 1 in 25 million. That’s three times better than the odds that two former FBI directors deemed traitors by then-president Donald Trump, James Comey and Andrew Mccabe, were picked at random for an unusually intensive IRS audit known as a “compliance research examination.”

The coincidence is so great that the IRS commissioner appointed by Trump in 2018 asked the department’s inspector general Thursday to investigate, after the audits were uncovered by The New York Times.

Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House committee that oversees the IRS, agreed the audits have the marking of retaliation — though he blunted the criticism by accusing Democrats of weaponizing the IRS too.

“As we learned from the repeated targeting of conservative groups and the dangerous leaking of private tax returns under the Obama and Biden Administrations, the IRS should never be used as a weapon against political opponents,” said Brady, the senior GOP member of Ways and Means who, as chairman, pursued allegations of IRS abuse under Democratic President Barack Obama. “I support investigating all allegations of political targeting.”

The current Ways and Means chairman, a Democrat, said the audits demand a swift and comprehensive investigation.

News that “not just one, but two of former President Trump’s foes were subject to rare, invasive audits under his IRS is an unlikely coincidence, and reeks of political targeting,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-mass. “The public needs to know the extent of this wrongdoing, and bad actors should be held accountable.”