Republicans Move from Targeting FBI, to IRS
Rhetoric includes a "strike force" with AR-15s
Republicans and others on the political right have been relentlessly attacking and threatening the FBI and other US law enforcement, since agents executed a fully lawful search warrant on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in search of classified and other national security materials.
These threats have become unprecedented, as the FBI and the federal Department of Homeland Security felt compelled to issue an advisory about those threats.
Those threats began spilling over when an armed man tried to breach the FBI field office in Cincinnati Ohio recently, resulting in the man's death.
Meanwhile, armed pro-Trump demonstrators were also outside the FBI field office in Phoenix, Ariz.
Republicans and other right-wingers are now expanding their wrathful rhetoric to include IRS tax agents.
Their anger stems from the $80 billion in IRS funding for high-income and corporate tax enforcement, included in the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law this week by President Biden.
Republicans, essentially, are staking out a position of being in favor of Americans cheating on their taxes.
They are making wild — and baseless — claims that the new funding will hire an astounding 87,000 new IRS agents to somehow harass the American people.
“There’s not going to be 87,000 new IRS agents, the basic premise of this is B.S., but how much has that lit up?” political analyst John Heilemann said in an appearance on MSNBC. “… Should people at the IRS be as afraid as some people are in law enforcement of what’s about to happen to them?”
Separately on MSNBC, Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough complained about the treatment IRS agents are facing.
“I know this all sounds melodramatic until you have the head of the FBI saying we’re facing unprecedented threats. And people that I know, people that I’ve known my entire life are texting me and talking about replacing the U.S. government, talking about civil war. You go, 'What’s wrong with you?' They say, 'The IRS agents are coming with AR-15s and they’re coming to our doors. They’re going to kill us. Or they’re saying, 'The FBI is coming to raid our house and take our guns away from us,’” Scarborough said. “These are the lies that have been spread not by — this is what is so disturbing — not by back-benchers. These lies have been spread by [Republican Sen] Chuck Grassley, by [House Republican Leader] Kevin McCarthy, by top news hosts at Fox News. This is not Infowars. This is mainstream, pro-Trump rhetoric.
“They are deliberately trying to get Americans to a position of where they’ll do harm to IRS agents. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? I just want to say — I just — I don’t — do I have the quote here? I think I saved the quote in my iPad,” he said. “Can you imagine Chuck Grassley talking about the IRS having a strike force, quote, 'that goes in with AR-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small business people.' A top Fox News host saying that the IRS is coming to, quote, 'hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers.' IRS coming to hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers.”
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