The minuscule chances of the two highest-ranking FBI officials being randomly subjected to a detailed scrub of their tax returns a few years after leaving their posts presents extraordinary questions. From The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Among tax lawyers, the most invasive type of random audit carried out by the IRS is known, only partly jokingly, as “an autopsy without the benefit of death.”
McCabe was later dismissed by the Trump Justice Department after its watchdog accused him of misleading internal FBI investigators. Like Comey, he had come to be perceived as an enemy by Trump, who assailed him, accused him of treason and raised questions about his finances long after pushing for his dismissal and prosecution, a pattern that continued even after Trump lost the 2020 election and began trying to overturn the results.
Or did someone in the federal government or at the IRS — an agency that at times, like under the Nixon administration, was used for political purposes but says it has imposed a range of internal controls intended to thwart anyone from improperly using its powers — corrupt the process? Asked about the audits, Trump, through a spokesperson, said, “I have no knowledge of this.” He went on to point to reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general that were critical of Comey and McCabe.
Andrew McCabe, then acting director of the FBI, testifies at a Senate hearing in Washington on May 11, 2017. In many instances, the agency catches taxpayers who undergo the audits understating their incomes and overstating their deductions, forcing them to pay penalties and interest. Even if a person has done nothing wrong, the process can take months and cost thousands of dollars in accountant fees.
Along with having to produce all of his personal financial information, such as brokerage and bank statements, Comey gave the IRS a copy of his family’s Christmas card that had a photograph to prove that he had the children he had claimed as dependents.The audit went so deeply into his finances that his accountant had a back and forth with the agency about how much the Comeys had spent on office supplies purchased more than two years earlier.
The agent said that she explained to the accountant that this was how the audits were conducted if someone like Comey, who had business expenses, did not keep formal books.Comey and McCabe generated ire across partisan lines during their tumultuous tenures at the FBI. Along with being atop Trump’s list of enemies, Comey in particular was blamed by many Hillary Clinton supporters for the election of Trump because of how he handled the investigation of her emails during the 2016 election.
“Was Andy McCabe ever forced to pay back the $700,000 illegally given to him and his wife, for his wife’s political campaign, by Crooked Hillary Clinton while Hillary was under FBI investigation, and McCabe was the head of the FBI??? Just askin’?” Trump tweeted in September 2020. The IRS audit of the Comeys’ 2017 return started in 2019, three months after Trump blew up at his attorney general at the time, William Barr, over his decision to not charge Comey with a crime for how he handled memos that Comey kept on his interactions with the president. Comey had signed a lucrative book deal in 2017.
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