President Trump sent shockwaves throughout Washington, DC after making Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the acting IRS Commissioner. Now, we may know why.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Trump removed Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Billy Long from the position and installed Bessent. Long had been in the job for less than two months.
As a consolation, Long was awarded the U.S. Ambassadorship to Iceland, not exactly a plum position.
But it was either Iceland or the unemployment line. The Washington Post reported Saturday that Long was booted from his position after he refused to hand over certain taxpayer data on suspected illegal aliens.
The paper says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent the IRS a list on Thursday containing 40,000 names of people DHS officials believed were in the country illegally. They reportedly asked the IRS to use ‘confidential’ taxpayer data to verify their addresses.
The Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, previously agreed with the DHS to facilitate such data sharing. Long and other IRS officials, though, claimed they were able to verify fewer than 3% of the names.
Then, White House officials requested additional information on the taxpayers the IRS identified, specifically the earned income tax credit. Long refused to cough up this information, telling officials that his agency would not provide such taxpayer information outside of the IRS’s agreement with DHS.
He previously warned officials that such a request would not be acceptable to him.
Several hours later, Trump removed Long as IRS Commissioner.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson issued the following statement in response to the Washington Post report.
The Trump administration is working in lockstep to eliminate information silos and to prevent illegal aliens from taking advantage of benefits meant for hardworking American taxpayers.
Any absurd assertion other than everyone being aligned on the mission is simply false and totally fake news
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