Trump is pulling a Nixon – but somehow making it worse.
The administration is gutting the IRS Criminal Investigation division and installing loyalists who’ve already drawn up hit lists of Democratic donors to go after. The guy leading the charge is Gary Shapley – the Hunter Biden whistleblower who became a conservative hero and got elevated through six different IRS commissioners in less than a year before landing in a position with direct control over criminal tax investigations.
This is the first time since Watergate that political appointees have had a direct line to tax investigations. You know – the thing that was literally one of the articles of impeachment against Nixon in 1974. Congress was so concerned about Nixon weaponizing the IRS that they passed bipartisan legislation making it illegal for the president or his staff to request audits of specific taxpayers or interfere with investigations. Any IRS officer who receives such a request and doesn’t report it to the inspector general can face jail time.
Shapley’s plan strips IRS lawyers of their oversight role in criminal investigations. These lawyers normally work with agents on search warrants and bringing cases to the Justice Department. There are extra safeguards for sensitive cases involving elected officials and tax-exempt groups. Shapley wants all of that gone so Trump’s people can go after whoever they want with minimal interference from actual legal experts who might point out that what they’re doing is vindictive prosecution.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed they’re “operationalizing” lists of left-wing networks to target. George Soros tops the list – not surprising since Trump has repeatedly said Soros “should be in jail” and posted that he and his son should face federal RICO charges. No specific crimes mentioned of course. Just vibes and vendettas.
Senior IRS lawyers have already privately warned that at least one case appears to be politically motivated. That’s the kind of thing you say when you’re trying to distance yourself from what’s about to become a massive scandal.
The whole scheme started after Trump’s attempt to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status hit a wall. IRS lawyers told the administration it would take years to revoke a 501(c)(3) status through proper channels. So naturally – instead of accepting that the law requires due process – they decided to restructure the entire criminal investigation division to bypass those pesky legal requirements.
What makes this particularly galling is that Trump’s own vice president JD Vance warned last year that this exact type of IRS activity would mean “we don’t live in a free country anymore.” He said that before the election.
Now that they’re in power and doing exactly what he warned against? Crickets.
The implications go way beyond George Soros or major Democratic donors. If the IRS can be weaponized against billionaires with armies of lawyers, what happens to churches, synagogues, nonprofit hospitals, charter schools, or any organization that pisses off Trump? They either shut up and accept whatever the administration demands or face an organizational death sentence.
Between Nixon’s resignation and now, there was a bipartisan understanding that the IRS should be walled off from political interference. It held for fifty years. Trump dismantled it in less than one.
The scariest part is how efficiently they’re moving.
Shapley was promoted from overseeing 75 employees to controlling over 2,000 IRS criminal investigators in a matter of months. He served as acting IRS commissioner for exactly 72 hours in April before getting shuffled around in a power struggle between Bessent and Elon Musk over who gets to control the agency. But he’s still there as deputy chief of IRS Criminal Investigation, still pushing his restructuring plan, still maintaining his enemies list.
When historians compare Trump to Nixon, they often conclude Trump’s abuses are worse. This is why. Nixon tried to weaponize the IRS but his own IRS commissioner Donald Alexander shut it down and refused to be fired. The safeguards held. With Trump, those safeguards are being systematically dismantled by people who see them as obstacles rather than protections.
You want to know how much this violates norms?
The IRS has historically had exactly two political appointees – the commissioner and chief counsel. Everyone else was career staff insulated from political pressure. Now political appointees have direct control over criminal investigations. That’s not a small shift. That’s tearing down the walls between politics and law enforcement.
And while they’re busy compiling enemies lists, IRS Criminal Investigation agents – who are supposed to be investigating tax crimes, money laundering, and major fraud – are being pulled away to help with immigration enforcement. So rich people can cheat on their taxes with less scrutiny while the agency hunts down undocumented immigrants and Trump’s political opponents. What could possibly go wrong.
The most infuriating part is how predictable this was. Trump openly mused about using the IRS to go after enemies in his first term but Chief of Staff John Kelly talked him down. This time there’s no Kelly. No guardrails. No adults in the room. Just Gary Shapley with his lists and Scott Bessent confirming they’re making this “mission-critical.”
This is authoritarianism 101. Control the tax agency and you control everyone. You can bankrupt opponents, tie them up in legal proceedings, destroy their organizations, and make examples out of anyone who resists. And you can do it all while claiming you’re just enforcing tax law.
When people say we’re living through a constitutional crisis, this is what they mean. Not dramatic coups or tanks in the streets. Just the quiet dismantling of institutional safeguards that took decades to build and protect us all from exactly this type of abuse.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-irs-criminal-investigation-democratic-donors-5c8f9d5e
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/02/trump-administration-irs-politicization/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-plots-major-irs-overhaul-to-ramp-up-probes-of-his-enemies/
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-irs-2674203430/
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/as-trump-administration-cruelly-and-unjustly-weaponizes-harvards-nonprofit-status-leader-schumer-senate-democrats-demand-treasury-ig-investigate-irs-and-administrations-potential-criminal-activity-against-harvard