Democrats warn Trump team against ‘weaponizing’ the IRS

Democrats from the Senate’s powerful tax-writing committee on Wednesday demanded that Trump administration officials drop large-scale changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would make it easier to launch criminal investigations of President Donald Trump’s political opponents.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and senior IRS official Gary Shapley, 14 Democratic lawmakers wrote that attempts to “weaponize the IRS against President Trump’s perceived enemies is against the law, an abuse of power, and a threat to the integrity of our democratic institutions.”

Trump administration officials at the tax agency are pushing to alter internal processes that would expedite the ability to prosecute individuals and left-wing groups for alleged tax crimes, according to two people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Shapley, a former IRS criminal investigator who is now part of the Trump administration’s leadership team at the agency, is aiming to cut out career officials who vet potential cases, creating a direct line between political officials, line investigators and prosecutors without independent oversight in the process, the people said.

Bessent, who is also the acting IRS commissioner, said on a podcast earlier this month that the administration had begun to assemble lists of individuals and groups to investigate after the assassination of conservative political influencer Charlie Kirk.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the developments at the IRS.

“IRS-CI [criminal investigations] cannot be the president’s political attack dog,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Sen. Ron Wyden (Oregon), the top Democrat on the Finance Committee. “You must immediately end all attempts to politicize the agency, including attempts to use the agency to attack Americans with different political views.”

Treasury and the IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Washington Post reported in April that Shapley had told colleagues he expected to lead the IRS’s criminal division. Since then, he briefly served as IRS commissioner; the Trump administration replaced him after three days.

Shapley rose to prominence in 2023 when he told Congress that prosecutors slow-walked an inquiry into then-President Joe Biden’s son for tax offenses. Hunter Biden was ultimately pardoned by his father for those and other charges.

But Shapley’s testimony, along with that of fellow IRS agent Joseph Ziegler, made him a celebrated figure on the right and endeared him to Trump’s advisers. The president in his first term openly mused about using tax investigations to persecute his perceived political enemies.

The tax agency has faced extensive turmoil since Trump took office. It has gone through six leaders, and Trump recently tapped the head of the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano, to serve as “CEO” of the agency, a role that does not formally exist.