On Trump enemies of course
Another good insight from Josh Marshall on BlueSky (who is really tearing it up right now. You should subscribe to TPM if you can.)
Soon after DOGE landed at IRS very early in the admin their first demand (which wasn’t just DOGE but the immigration folks at the WH) was let’s let the ICE folks come over here and cross reference with their target lists. This was both to target individuals for …
The first and most important thing to know about last night’s Exec order is that it’s intended to break current law and allow people throughout the federal gov look at yr tax returns. Beyond that it’s intended to compel states to turn over all their data to the fed govt. deportation but also to request audits of companies or individuals ICE suspected of hiring or shielding undocs.
The lawyers at IRS/Treasury were like, that’s literally against the law.
DOGE: don’t be so uptight and literal.
LAWYERS: No, really, that’s literally against the law.A few people got bounced and new appointees started trying to become more creative. This set of conversations was at the root of most of the resignations and firings. This part is from memory but I think IRS staff is legally obligated to report when they get individual requests like this let alone mass requests and I *think* IRS staff can be individually legally responsible in these cases.
Those last two points are from memory abt legal culpability. But the overall point is that these are hard laws, not interpretations or regs. They seem to be moving to more and more creative interpretations of the law under more and more cooperatives appointees and lawyers. But one thing to remember is that all of this stuff is done in secret. If someone is sharing your tax info illegally you’re not going to know it unless someone leaks the info.
To the extent anyone’s going to get in trouble it’s not going to be from the current DOJ. The point is that this kind of info and action is highly secret. So it can be happening even though it’s remains a federal crime. A more probable scenario is one in which a facially absurd interpretation of the relevant laws gets made inside the IRS and it’s done on that basis. That way no one has to think they’re breaking the law. They’re following the relevant persons guidance/interpretation.
The key point here is that since it’s all secret it’s not that easy to get any of this in front of a judge who says no, stop, that’s clearly not what the law says etc. Obviously these latter points are hypothetical. The point is they’ve already axed most or all of the people who are going to say, no, stop, you can’t do that.
So the law remains the law. But inside the IRS we’re pretty much in choose your own adventure mode.
I think the only thing average folks have to fear is that all the firings will end up delaying refunds and information. But for anyone on the MAGA radar, I suspect there will be eyes on you. I have no idea what criteria they will use since there are millions of vocal Trump critics all over the MSM and social media. But maybe Elon’s AI brain Grok will be able to figure that out.