The Trump administration is overhauling the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division, making it easier to launch probes into Democratic groups and donors, and compiling a list of potential targets.
The overhaul includes installing President Donald Trump’s allies at the IRS-CI and weakening the role of IRS lawyers assisting agents with cases, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Gary Shapley, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, has told staff he plans to replace the IRS-CI’s long-time chief Guy Ficco, and that has he has put together a list of investigation targets that includes Democratic donor George Soros and his affiliated groups, sources told the Journal.
The move comes after Trump has said in interviews that Soros “should be in jail,” and posted on social media that Soros and his son Alex should face federal charges under the RICO Act.
A senior Justice Department official has also urged several U.S. attorneys’ offices to investigate Soros’s Open Society Foundations, according to the Journal.
The administration claims its goal is to crack down on “left-wing violence.”
This week, Bessent told MAGA pundit Andrew Kolvet, who took over murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s eponymous show, that Kirk’s death was “like a domestic 9/11” and that his department was involved in an “ongoing process” of dismantling financial networks that supposedly support violent radical-left groups.
There is no evidence, however, that Kirk’s shooter, who grew up in a conservative Mormon home, was involved with any liberal groups. Trump’s own officials have admitted that the vast majority of political violence over the past 30 years was committed by people who leaned to the political right.
Federal law also makes it a felony for anyone in the White House, executive office of the president, or Cabinet (excluding the attorney general) to directly or indirectly request an investigation into a specific taxpayer.
That includes the president or an executive office employee instructing a third party to request or interfere with an audit, according to The Tax Law Center at New York University.
Congress passed many of the tax code’s protections in response to former President Richard Nixon’s failed attempts to use the IRS to investigate, audit, and harass his political enemies, according to The Tax Law Center.
One of the abuses of power in the articles of impeachment drafted against Nixon was his attempt to use the IRS to initiate tax audits and obtain confidential tax information for political purposes.
Lawmakers took the issue so seriously that any IRS officer or employee who receives such a request must report it to the inspector general, or else they’re also committing a crime and could face jail time, according to The Tax Law Center.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the IRS for comment.
The Trump administration nevertheless zeroed in on using the IRS-CI after hitting a wall during its attempt to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status, according to the Journal.
The agency’s lawyers warned that revoking Harvard’s 501(c)3 status would take years.
Shapley—who previously served 72 whole hours as the IRS’s acting commissioner—then proposed restructuring the criminal investigations division, including reducing the role that IRS lawyers play in criminal investigations.
The current policy requires lawyers to work with IRS-CI agents as they conduct search warrants and bring cases to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.
Sensitive cases—including those involving federal elected officials and non-profits—are also subject to additional steps that Shapley plans to eliminate.
Bessent confirmed during his interview with Kolvet that the Treasury department was moving ahead with a list of left-wing targets.
“We have started to compile lists of the other networks, and there’s a long record here,” he said. “This is mission-critical for us now… We are operationalizing this here at Treasury.”
He made no mention of investigating right-wing violence. In any case, the treasury secretary is one of those Cabinet members who are legally barred from ordering tax audits.
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