Two Trump Foes Faced Intensive IRS Audits

“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,’” the New York Times reports.

“The odds of being selected for that audit in any given year are tiny — out of nearly 153 million individual returns filed for 2017, for example, the IRS targeted about 5,000, or roughly one out of 30,600.”

“One of the few who received a bureaucratic letter with the news that his 2017 return would be under intensive scrutiny was James Comey, who had been fired as FBI director that year by President Donald Trump. Furious over what he saw as Mr. Comey’s lack of loyalty and his pursuit of the Russia investigation, Mr. Trump had continued to rail against him even after his dismissal, accusing him of treason, calling for his prosecution and publicly complaining about the money Mr. Comey received for a book after his dismissal.”

“Among those who were chosen to have their 2019 returns scrutinized was the man who had been Mr. Comey’s deputy at the bureau: Andrew McCabe, who served several months as acting FBI director after Mr. Comey’s firing.”