The Internal Revenue Service is launching a full security review of its facilities nationwide, Commissioner Charles Rettig announced Tuesday.
It comes after Congressional Republicans and right-wing voices online drummed up fears over the decade-long $80 billion cash infusion the agency was allotted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law last week.
‘We see what’s out there in terms of social media. Our workforce is concerned about their safety,’ Rettig told The Washington Post Tuesday. ‘The comments being made are extremely disrespectful to the agency, to the employees and to the country.’
Rettig, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, had sent out a letter to employees, which was obtained by The Post, informing them that the IRS would be undertaking a risk assessment for each of the IRS’s 600 faciliies – the first of its kind since the Oklahoma City federal building bombing in 1995.
‘For me this is personal,’ Rettig said. ‘I’ll continue to make every effort to dispel any lingering misperceptions about our work. And I will continue to advocate for your safety in every venue where I have an audience. You go above and beyond every single day, and I am honored to work with each of you.’
The Internal Revenue Service is launching a full security review of its facilities nationwide, Commissioner Charles Rettig announced Tuesday
Republicans and their right-wing allies have turned IRS employees into political punching bags in the run-up and the aftermath of the $370 billion bill’s passage.
‘Abolish the IRS,’ Republican Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted Sunday.
Earlier in the month, Cruz claimed that ‘Schumer-Manchin would fund 87,000 IRS agents.’
‘Just imagine THOUSANDS of IRS agents descending upon America like a swarm of locusts!’ he tweeted.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley asked on Fox: ‘Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded ready to shoot some small business person in Iowa?’
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, has been among the members of his party hammering the IRS
In a Sunday morning tweet, Sen. Ted Cruz said: ‘Abolish the IRS’
On the House floor arguing against passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Rep. Lauren Boebert – usually a Second Amendment enthusiast – also brought up agents being armed.
‘This bill hires 87,000 new IRS agents and they are armed and the job description tells them that they need to be required to carry a firearm and expected to use deadly force if necessary,’ she said.
‘Excessive taxation is theft,’ she added.
The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Rick Scott, wrote an open letter to job seekers last week encouraging them not to apply for positions at the IRS.
New hires, Scott argued, would ‘need to be ready to audit and investigate your fellow hardworking Americans, your neighbors and friends, you need to be ready and, to use the IRS’s words, to kill them,’ he said.
Armed IRS agents became part of the threat after a job description was passed around the internet saying that applicants must be comfortable with using deadly force.
The ad was for the agency’s Criminal Investigation Division.
In a MarketWatch explainer of IRS hiring practices, a spokesperson explained that this was the norm for the small amount of law enforcement hires within the government agency.
‘The job description is consistent with previous special-agent announcements for the same position and consistent with announcements from other federal law-enforcement agencies,’ a spokeswoman said.
During her floor speech ahead of the Inflation Reduction Act vote, Rep. Lauren Boebert – usually a Second Amendment advocate – yelled that new IRS hires will be ‘required to carry a firearm and expected to use deadly force if necessary’
She added that the IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division is the federal government’s sixth largest law enforcement agency.
Other Republicans drew comparisons betweetn the IRS and the FBI, in the aftermath of ther raid of Trump’s Florida home and club, Mar-a-Lago.
In his floor speech before the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested that no part of the federal government could be trusted.
‘This is just a trainwreck waiting to happen,’ the California Republican said. ‘And with this new power, the IRS will snoop around in your bank account, your Venmo, your small buinsess, then the government will shake you down for every last penny.’
‘In light of this week’s events, let me ask you can you really trust this administration?’ McCarthy said, referencing the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago property. ‘I’ve watched Democrats weaponize the government before.’