Biden Admits IRS Spy Army “Probably” Not a Good Idea

Senator Joe Manchin told President Biden that the IRS snooping plan is wrong. We told you this provision would include allowing the IRS to investigate a bank account if you transact more than $10,000 in a year – total. Sen. Joe Manchin’s vote and support are key in the Senate. The result of the conversation between President Biden and Sen. Manchin shows that we are in a better position today than yesterday when it comes to this provision being passed.

Senator Manchin recalled the conversation he had with President Biden:

"I said, Mr. President, I don’t know who put this out or how it got screwed up, but they said basically, we’re going to start looking at $600 transactions. Even if it’s $10,000, okay, that’s only $800 — or $900 a year. And I said, do you understand how messed up that is? To think Uncle Sam’s going to be watching transactions? I said, I don’t know how this happened, but this cannot happen. This is screwed up."

Sen. Manchin also suggested that President Biden agreed with him on this IRS provision when he said: “I think Joe’s right on that.”

ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett explained what it means to gain Senator Manchin and President Biden’s support:

"This is a hugely significant development. . . . This is a testament to the ACLJ members who have engaged on this in a loud way. The idea is not just that a Senator, I know Joe Manchin has been at the center of this debate for a long time. But you cannot afford to lose a vote in the United States Senate if you are the Democrats. And he has now said he will not go along with this snooping provision. I think the thing that makes this more significant is he said this directly to the President of the United States, and what did he say he thinks the President responded to him? He said he thinks the President responded to him by saying, I think Joe is correct on this. I don’t know how, if you are Democrats, how you back away from Joe Manchin and Joe Biden now being on the record that this is a bad idea to give the IRS this authority. . . . If this provision comes out of this bill, Democrats have a major problem. Because they have promised that they are going to “pay for all the spending” that they do in this bill. . . . This is a ton of money to replace. If this provision comes out of the bill, they’ve got a big problem pulling this package together."

To do the proposed spying in this legislation, the IRS would need to hire 80,000 more employees to have the bandwidth to virtually track every single American. ACLJ Senior Military Analyst and retired Colonel Wes Smith discussed why the IRS is the most distrusted department in the U.S.:

"This all comes at a time when trust in the Federal Government by the average American is at an all-time low. And there is a reason why the IRS is the most distrusted department in the nation. And that is with good reason. They have targeted Christians and conservative groups and have been caught doing that and had to admit that. There is little oversight and control. The tax code is so large and complicated so actually it doesn’t actually allow for any meaningful oversight. . . . The administrative rules they put in place have the force of law without any input from our elected representatives virtually. If you like an enlarged federal government and you want to enlarge the IRS, this bill is for you. If we don’t rein in the Internal Revenue Service and these proposals in this crazy bill that is before Congress, then we will need to apologize to King George III and for the big revolution we caused when we revolted against his own tax policies for the American colonies. This is a federal government that is already out of control. But these proposals by the Democrats in Congress would make it even more out of control. It wouldn’t be just targeting corporations and rich people; it would be targeting every single American in the country."

Now that we have Senator Manchin saying he does not support this IRS provision, we are moving in the right direction. We are all over the IRS. We’ve already fought and won against the IRS many years ago for targeting conservatives. ACLJ Chief Counsel and my dad Jay Sekulow has already testified before the House Ways and Means Committee over the weaponization of the IRS by targeting Christian and conservative groups. We’ve filed a FOIA lawsuit against the IRS again. We are prepared to go to court again if we need to.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of Sen. Joe Manchin opposing the IRS provision to spy on your bank accounts.