With Donald Trump’s announcement of his new presidential campaign comes a timely reminder of what kind of a man is asking Americans to put him in charge again: Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, now confirms that Trump, while in office, routinely sought to use and abuse the powers of government agencies against perceived enemies in clearly illegal ways.
Among Trump’s demands as president, Kelly says, were that two former FBI leaders he hated should face audits by the Internal Revenue Service. And lo and behold, both did.
Kelly’s comments, reported by The New York Times, bring new context to previous revelations that former FBI Director James Comey and acting Director Andrew McCabe both faced an especially intense form of personal tax audit under a Trump-appointed IRS director, after what the agency continues to maintain were random selections. That claim, which sounded statistically unlikely from the start, completely strains credulity now, in light of Kelly’s confirmation that Trump specifically pressed him to launch audits against the two.
