Donald Trump last week officially ousted his handpicked choice to lead the Internal Revenue Service after only two months on the job. On Monday, Rachel Maddow explored the potentially dark reasons that could be behind Billy Long’s sudden departure.
As Maddow laid it out, the former Republican congressman from Missouri wasn’t exactly an obvious choice to lead the IRS. “Billy Long is not a tax lawyer. He is not an accountant. He has no background in bookkeeping — or even math,” she said. “Nevertheless, Donald Trump picked Billy Long to be in charge of one of the most consequential agencies in the whole U.S. government.”
The MSNBC host noted that Long’s “crowning achievement” during his time at the agency was sending “jolly all-staff emails.” Last week, Long sent a message to employees that read, in part, “With this being Thursday before another FriYay, please enjoy a 70-minute early exit tomorrow. That way you’ll be well rested for my 70th birthday on Monday.”
Just hours after he sent that email, Long’s short tenure at the IRS came to an end, when he announced the president intended to nominate him to serve as ambassador to Iceland.
“Happy birthday, Billy. Pack for Reykjavik,” Maddow quipped.
While Maddow acknowledged the optics of Long’s departure may seem amusing, she told viewers there was “something else going on here” that she said was a “big deal.”
Maddow referenced reporting from The Washington Post in April, that detailed Trump’s plan to use the IRS in the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to find and arrest immigrants. “Homeland Security told the IRS to go into private tax information and hand over not just names, but home addresses and phone numbers and email addresses — all this specific private information — so Homeland Security could use that information to go find people and arrest them,” Maddow explained, citing the Post’s reporting.
Lawyers and career employees at the agency resisted the effort. The New York Times later reported that several IRS officials resigned because of the push.
“But now something new appears to be happening,” Maddow said, citing a new report from the Post. According to the paper, DHS sent the IRS last week a list of 40,000 people it wanted personal information about from tax documents. The IRS reportedly responded by sending back only some of the information, about 3% of what was requested.
White House officials then asked for more identifying information, according to the Post, specifically about whether anyone on that list had taken advantage of a particular tax credit. The IRS refused to give that information, citing taxpayer privacy rights.
“It was after that dispute,” Maddow noted, “that the White House reportedly decided to remove Billy Long from his job running the IRS, to instead ship him to Iceland.” “Now, we do not know whether Billy Long himself was involved in this clash. We don’t know if this clash was even the reason he was pushed out to Iceland,” Maddow continued. “But if you put him aside, what remains is this very clear understanding we have now, which is that the U.S. government is now using sensitive, private information from people’s taxes, including names and addresses and phone numbers, to help Trump’s immigration police track people down and arrest them.” Maddow called the situation “truly unprecedented” in the United States. “This is stuff Nixon only dreamt of,” she added, referencing the former president’s attempts to weaponize the IRS. “We don’t know what else they might do with this kind of detailed personal information extracted from the IRS, nor do we know what an IRS minus Billy Long might newly be willing to hand over,” Maddow concluded. “But that is where Trump has now taken this country, with or without sad, old Billy Long.” You can watch Maddow’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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