Jim Jordan, who is in charge of the House Judiciary Committee, says that an IRS agent went to the home of Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi on the same day he testified to Congress about the government’s use of weapons. Jordan wants to know why the visit happened so close to Taibbi’s testimony.
Jordan sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and the Department of Treasury on Monday to find out why a federal agent showed up at Taibbi’s New Jersey home on March 9 and left a note, according to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal that quoted the letter.
According to reports, the note told Taibbi to call the IRS four days later.
When he did, an agent told him that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected because of concerns about identity theft.
Taibbi has spent a lot of time researching and writing about the Twitter Files, which are based on a trove of internal documents at the social media giant and are meant to show how the company’s past content moderation was unfairly biased and how the company used to talk to government officials.
The journalist told Jordan’s committee about the IRS agent’s visit, which happened the same day he testified to House members before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned from the Twitter Files.
According to the Journal, Taibbi gave the committee paperwork that showed his 2018 tax return had been accepted electronically and that the IRS had never told him or his accountants there was a problem with it in the past 4 1/2 years.
Even though his accountants re-filed it with an IRS-issued PIN number, his 2021 tax return was rejected at first and then again after he tried again.
Taibbi said that neither time was about money, and that the IRS owed him a “considerable” amount, the Journal reported.
Taibbi made it clear in a tweet on Monday night that he didn’t want to say anything about the letter.
“For those asking, I don’t want to say anything about the IRS issue until chairman Jim Jordan’s letter is answered,” Taibbi wrote. “I’m not worried about myself, but I thought the Committee should know about the situation.”
After Taibbi and Democrats on the subcommittee got into an argument during his and fellow Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger’s hours-long testimony, details about the IRS visit came out.
Longtime Rolling Stone reporter Taibbi answered a jab from Virgin Islands Rep. Stacey Plaskett by listing his career achievements and saying, “I am not a’so-called’ journalist.”
