Comey, McCabe audits were likely random, IRS watchdog finds

An IRS watchdog said Thursday that it “did not place misconduct” successful the rare, invasive audits of erstwhile FBI Director James Comey and his apical deputy, some of whom President Donald Trump saw arsenic governmental enemies.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said successful a review of the audit process that the IRS enactment successful complaint of the hyperselective programme chose tax returns for audit correctly and did not usage malicious codification that would person cherry-picked a circumstantial taxpayer.

The reappraisal was done for taxation years 2017 and 2019 — periods successful which some Comey and his one-time deputy, Andrew McCabe, were chosen for elaborate audits that took a heavy dive into everything from Comey’s bureau supplies to brokerage and slope statements. The IG’s probe was launched aft the New York Times reported connected the audits successful July.

Comey and McCabe drew a dependable watercourse of aggravated outbursts from the erstwhile president for the FBI’s investigations into Russian interference successful the 2016 predetermination and imaginable obstruction of justness by Trump of those probes. The Times aboriginal reported that Trump repeatedly asked his main of unit to retaliate by getting the IRS to scrutinize the 2 FBI officials.

According to the IG’s report, the IRS hired an extracurricular contractor soon aft the work of the archetypal communicative to replicate the process for the 2017 and 2019 programs. The watchdog said the returns produced by that reappraisal matched the returns that were primitively pinpointed by the program.

Former IRS main Chuck Rettig told the IG that helium was not progressive successful immoderate of the program’s selections, and cardinal officials interviewed by the watchdog denied that immoderate manager asked them to intercede successful the audits to people a circumstantial taxpayer.