President Trump withdrew his nomination of Donald L. Korb, a veteran tax attorney, to serve as the top lawyer at the Internal Revenue Service after Mr. Korb came under fire from the far-right activist Laura Loomer, deepening a leadership crisis at the tax agency.
The Senate had been preparing to vote to confirm Mr. Korb to be chief counsel of the I.R.S., a powerful post that oversees how the government interprets the tax code and defends those views in U.S. Tax Court.
This year, the I.R.S. legal office has been at the center of the Trump administration’s attempts to use tax information to help deport migrants. It has also been caught up in Mr. Trump’s efforts to strip liberal organizations, and universities like Harvard, of their tax-exempt status. Some I.R.S. officials have worried that following through on those initiatives could violate federal tax law.
Mr. Trump, in his social media post announcing the decision, did not provide a reason for withdrawing Mr. Korb’s nomination. In recent days, Ms. Loomer criticized Mr. Korb, arguing that he was too friendly to Democrats and would not use the power of the I.R.S. to aggressively pursue left-wing groups. After Mr. Trump pulled the nomination, Ms. Loomer, who has helped orchestrate the ouster of other Trump-appointed officials, took credit, writing “#LOOMERED” in response to a photo of the announcement on social media.
Mr. Korb, who was the I.R.S. chief counsel during the George W. Bush administration, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The I.R.S. has seen an assembly line of leaders under Mr. Trump. The president fired his handpicked I.R.S. commissioner, Billy Long, this summer, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been serving as the acting commissioner since then, becoming the seventh person to lead the I.R.S. this year. Several I.R.S. officials have also rotated through the chief counsel job.
Andrew Duehren covers tax policy for The Times from Washington.
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