Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is demanding answers from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Daniel Werfel after the IRS deployed an unannounced visit to journalist Matt Taibbi's home, following his testimony before the panel on the Twitter Files.
Jordan, on Monday, sent a letter to Yellen and Werfel demanding answers in regard to the timing and circumstances surrounding the raid on Taibbi's home on March 9 — "the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter," The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to Jordan's letter, Taibbi notified the congressman that the IRS instructed him to call the federal agency four days after his testimony before the government's weaponization panel, at which point he was told that both his 2018 and 2021 tax filings were requested because of "concerns over identity theft."
As The Journal notes, Taibbi shared his "electronically accepted" 2018 tax submission with the panel and that no problem with it had been reported for "more than four-and-a-half years."
During his testimony before the panel, Democrats derided Tabbi as a direct "threat."
"Mr. Chairman," the panel's Ranking Member, Rep. Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, told Jordan, "I am not exaggerating when I say that you have called before you two witnesses who pose a direct threat to people who oppose them."
Taibbi faced additional hostility from Florida Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who dismissed that his appearance before the panel as "a Republican witness ... certainly" casted "a cloud over" his "objectivity."
Taibbi, who has previously considered himself a Democrat, posted to Twitter on Tuesday that he is "an independent now."
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect that Tiabbi has disassociated himself from the Democratic Party and votes as an independent.