As Matt Taibbi Testified About Weaponization of the Government, the IRS Made a Housecall

A funny thing happened while journalist Matt Taibbi was testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in Washington, D.C., nearly three weeks ago. Agents from the Internal Revenue Service showed up at his New Jersey residence. Because Taibbi was not at home, they left a note on his door, asking him to contact them the following Monday.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

Mr. Taibbi was told in a call with the agent that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected owing to concerns over identity theft.

Mr. Taibbi has provided the committee with documentation showing his 2018 return had been electronically accepted, and he says the IRS never notified him or his accountants of a problem after he filed that 2018 return more than four-and-a-half years ago.

He says the IRS initially rejected his 2021 return, which he later refiled, and it was rejected again—even though Mr. Taibbi says his accountants refiled it with an IRS-provided pin number. Mr. Taibbi notes that in neither case was the issue “monetary,” and that the IRS owes him a “considerable” sum.

Since when does the IRS make house calls? Typically, when the IRS has an issue with a tax return, the taxpayer or their accountant is contacted by mail. But I suppose the agency has money to burn. After all, its funding was increased by $80 billion over the next ten years by last summer’s ludicrously named Inflation Reduction Act, a figure that is nearly six times its current annual budget of $13.7 billion.

The hopelessly corrupt Biden administration obviously wasn’t too happy with Taibbi’s recent series on the Twitter Files where he and several other journalists, including Michael Schellenberger and Bari Weiss, exposed the FBI’s collaboration with Twitter executives to censor content on the social media platform ahead of the 2020 election.

The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). The Journal reported that upon learning of the IRS visit to Taibbi’s home, Jordan sent a letter to the IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen “seeking an explanation for why journalist Matt Taibbi received an unannounced home visit from an IRS agent. We’ve seen the letter, and both the circumstances and timing of the IRS focus on this journalist raise serious questions … about potential intimidation.”

Jordan joined Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night to weigh in.

It’s [an IRS visit] very rare. They usually call your accountant, call you, first send you a letter. But as you pointed out, while he is testifying, award-winning journalist, New York Times best seller, testifying in front of Congress on the weaponization of the federal government, testifying in that committee hearing, Democrats are asking him who his sources are, violating the First Amendment, attacking the First Amendment. While all that is going on, guess what? The IRS is knocking on his door, left him a note saying we’ll be back in touch with you after the weekend, on the following Monday. Think about that, just a normal American, the IRS leaves a note on your door, we are going to be back in touch with you after the weekend. Think about what you go through over the weekend. Maybe this is one big coincidence, I don’t know, it sure doesn’t seem to be. But it’s pretty darn alarming when you think about it happened exactly while the Democrats were going after the First Amendment, asking him questions, we had him in there testifying. The IRS pays a visit to his home, that is scary stuff.

What Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger conveyed in a hearing a few weeks ago, at the same time the IRS was showing up at his door, was called the Censorship Industrial Complex, where Big Government pressures Big Tech and media to limit information, to restrict First Amendment liberties so we the people don’t get access to the information that we have, certainly in the runup to the most important election we have, election for president of the United States. So, this is scary stuff as I said before and you think about it as you have indicated, Sean, this is almost like the IRS under Obama with Lois Lerner and all that that happened. It looks like they are back.

While Taibbi was testifying about the weaponization of the government, the IRS was providing yet another real-time example.

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