The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly making plans to engage in more aggressive investigations into leftist groups and Democratic donors, "according to people familiar with the matter."
The agency’s criminal-investigative division (IRS-CI) is already installing administration allies, while weakening the role of IRS lawyers in those investigations, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The Journal's headline announced that "Trump Team Plans IRS Overhaul to Enable Pursuit of Left-Leaning Groups."
The effort is reportedly spearheaded by Gary Shapley, an advisor to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
He's reportedly compiled a list of potential targets, including billionaire donor George Soros and his affiliated groups, including his Open Society Foundations, according to a senior IRS official.
Shapley also told others at the agency that he intends to replace the chief of the investigative unit, Guy Ficco, with someone friendlier with the administration.
Ficco has been with the agency for decades.
The administration also intends to target any groups that finance organizations that promote anarchy in Democratic-run cities.
"Scott will do that. That's easy for Scott," Trump said during a recent cabinet meeting about Bessent’s helping with the investigation.
PJ Media released its own take on The Wall Street Journal story under this headline, "The Trump Administration Might Shake Up the IRS and the Left Is Freaking."
In truth, if the story is accurate, everyone should be "freaking."
PJ Media’s Tim O’Brien makes a strong argument that the Journal's report is nonsense, citing, for example, that it relies exclusively on unnamed sources.
Without question that should make the reporting suspect.
However, the Journal also noted that President Trump promised to crack down on the "radical left" after the Sept. 10 murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Also, it's not as though the IRS hasn't gone after the administration's enemies before, despite the agency’s efforts to steer clear of political controversies.
In 2013, the Obama administration went to extraordinary lengths to deny tax-exempt status to conservative non-profit organizations.
Lois Lerner, the IRS official in charge of granting tax-exempt status at that time, was found to have shown poor judgment by the use of keywords such as "tea party" to choose targets for further scrutiny.
Although Lerner was not charged with any crime, this is not the way things are supposed to work in the United States.
Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria, working under Josef Stalin, famously remarked, "Give me the man and I will give you the crime against him."
In a similar fashion, New York Attorney General Letitia James ran for office on the promise to get Trump.
But we don't investigate people that we don't like with the intention of finding a crime — we investigate crimes in order to find the person responsible.
It was wrong for the New York attorney general to have done it, and if The Wall Street Journal's reporting is accurate, it's just as wrong for President Trump to engage in it.
And in that event, it would only give a later Democratic administration license to once again target conservatives.
The late, great President Ronald Reagan once remarked that "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."
That's just as true today as it was on Aug. 12, 1986 when he made that observation.
However, we can add to that the following: The 10 most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the IRS, and I'm here to serve you.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and is a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He's also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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