A new report reveals one of President Trump’s top officials at the IRS is developing a list of Democratic groups and donors to target for criminal investigation. According to an exclusive report in The Wall Street Journal, Gary Shapley, an advisor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, developed a list of Democrats to target that includes billionaire donor George Soros.
The report also states that Shapley plans on removing the chief of the investigative unit to give the Trump administration more control over criminal inquiries into left-leaning organizations.
In 2013, Republicans expressed resentment when the IRS targeted conservatives during the Obama administration. SAN obtained their statements and asked members how they feel about today’s news.
Here’s how senators responded.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham
After the Obama scandal came to light, Graham wrote a letter to the former president calling the news “chilling.”
“This type of purely political scrutiny being conducted by an executive branch agency is yet another completely inexcusable attempt to chill the speech of political opponents,” Graham wrote.
SAN asked Graham how he feels about the IRS targeting Democratic donors.
“Depends if they got a good reason,” Graham said. “I don’t like the idea of targeting political people.”
Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn
Cornyn is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, more specifically, a member of the Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight. So he has direct supervision over the agency.
Cornyn said of the targeting in 2013, “Today’s revelation that the IRS targeted average Americans using taxpayer dollars solely for disagreeing with them politically is completely unacceptable from this Administration.”
He told SAN that today’s news is something the Finance Committee ought to look into.
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
The IRS handles approximately 360 tax fraud cases per year. The median amount is $491,302.
SAN followed up and asked if he was concerned that the IRS was going on a fishing expedition against the president’s political opponents.
“Well, unfortunately, it’s happened in the past, and usually Republicans and conservatives have been the target,” Cornyn said. “But I think the government should not be used, the IRS should not be used for political purposes.”
Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley
In 2021, nearly every Senate Republican sponsored the Don’t Weaponize the IRS Act, including Sen. Hawley.
When the legislation was introduced, the lead sponsors stated, “The IRS should never target an American because of his or her political beliefs.”
Here’s Hawley’s response to the Trump administration.
“Well, they have the right to change personnel. But listen, I mean, here’s the deal – We just learned that under Joe Biden, the FBI targeted 92 conservative organizations for investigation for no other reason, that they were conservative organizations at the same time that they were monitoring my phone calls and tapping my phone, so I have some personal experience with this,” Hawley said.
“For the last four years, the last administration turned every arm of our law enforcement into their personal plaything. And I think that needs to stop, period. I don’t think anybody should be doing it. I don’t think this administration has,” Hawley continued.
Hawley is referring to an FBI document obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee that revealed, under former President Joe Biden’s watch, the FBI obtained the data of eight Republican senators’ personal cell phones. The data shows who the senators spoke with and when, how long the call lasted and where they were when they made the call. It does not include what they talked about.
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal
SAN spoke with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal about the IRS’s current plan to target these organizations. He decided not to compare it to former President Barack Obama; he went all the way back to Nixon.
“We’ve been through this kind of abuse of power before in the Nixon administration. It’s the reason that we have safeguards and guardrails that protect privacy in the IRS,” Blumenthal said. “[It’s] why no political figure, whether it is a member of the U.S. Senate or the president of the United States, can intervene in the IRS process, even to find out certain information. We need to insist that those guardrails be observed.”
