According to an NPR report, Donald Trump and his administration are reportedly putting heavy pressure on the IRS, the U.S. tax agency, to target his enemies. For the news outlet, moreover, the way the U.S. leader is allegedly using the agency is reminiscent of that enacted by another past president, Richard Nixon, best known for the Watergate scandal.
“From utilizing tax data to tracing immigrants without legal status, to threatening Harvard University’s tax exemption, President Trump has been trying to use the IRS for his own political purposes, in ways that may seem unprecedented,” said NPR’s Scott Horsley, “but they’re not. Former President Richard Nixon laid the groundwork more than four decades ago, when he tried to use the tax collector to punish his enemies and assist his friends”.
Horsley went on to list other parallels between the two Republican leaders, explaining: “Nixon was angry at universities for not cracking down on Vietnam War protesters; Trump has similarly complained about Harvard and other Ivy League schools not doing more to silence protests against the war in Gaza”. According to the journalist, therefore, Trump is simply taking a cue from the “script” of his predecessor, “despite laws put in place after Watergate to prevent that kind of meddling by the White House.”
“One of the things that Nixon did consider was threatening the tax-exemptions of universities” Joseph Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project, reiterated to NPR’s microphones, “And that sounds very familiar if you’re reading the paper these days…. Nixon tried very hard to misuse the IRS. Congress certainly saw that as a danger afterwards. If the president is developing enemies lists and sending them to the IRS and essentially saying, ‘I want you to audit all these people I don’t like,’ that’s worrisome.”
Horsley also noted how records at the Oval Office in 1971 reveal that Nixon sought to install at the tax agency a trusted man of his own, personally chosen to carry out his political duties. “I want to be sure he’s a ruthless son of a bi***, that he will do what he’s told”, he Republican leader said at the time.
Returning to the present, since being re-elected Trump has already fired four agency commissioners in less than four months, and cut thousands of jobs, including nearly a third of auditors, making it harder for the IRS to target big tax collectors.
