The Trump administration’s ouster of a top Internal Revenue Service attorney might have created a “new potential whistleblower” who could reveal “what is really going on in the White House,” a legal expert warned Saturday.
Legal AF analyst Michael Popok, responding the Wall Street Journal report that top Treasury Department tax policy official Kenneth Kies had been forced out of his job, noted he “used to be Donald Trump’s personal tax lawyer and lobbyist.”
Kies had since become an assistant Treasury secretary and acting chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, who, according to Popok, resigned “rather than allow the White House to violate a federal criminal statute.”
The statute in question prevents the White House from directing who gets audited, Popok said.
Kies departed “moments” after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche executed a settlement agreement that gave President Donald Trump and his family a “super pardon against all tax liability and tax audits,” Popok said.
That blanket immunity arose out of Trump’s IRS lawsuit, which also created the defunct anti-weaponization fund, reports show.
“[Kies] was okay with that,” Popok claimed. “But he’s not okay with then turning the weaponry of the Internal Revenue Service on to Donald Trump’s political enemies.”
This corresponds with Wall Street Journal reporting that Kies recently “clashed behind the scenes” over “a potential White House request would violate Section 7217 of the Internal Revenue Code.”
Popok urged Democrats to seek Kies out.
“He’s not yet a whistleblower, but he’s definitely somebody who, if I were a Democrat, I would be trying to subpoena,” Popok said. “Bring him in for testimony, to an oversight committee hearing, [ask] about what is really going on in the White House.”
Why? Said Popok, “This White House, as we know, is very leaky.”
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