Trump Tried To Use IRS To Target His Political Enemies

According to former Chief of Staff John Kelly, Donald Trump wanted to use the IRS to target his political enemies at the FBI to make their lives hell. Specifically, Trump wanted to initiate audits against Peter Strzok and Lisa Page for investigating him, as Kelly recently claimed in a sworn deposition. But there's an interesting angle that few have noticed about this story, and Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains why Trump wanted to go this route.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Jim Jordan has been leading his Republicans in the House of Representatives since they gained power earlier this year on a crusade to put an end and expose, of course, all of the corruption of the Biden administration, specifically of course, president Biden's weaponization of federal agencies to go after his so-called political enemies. But if Jim Jordan really wanted to find out who was weaponizing the federal government to go after their political enemies, he's looking in the wrong spots because according to John Kelly, the former chief of Staff who Donald Trump, it was Trump who attempted on multiple occasions to use the federal government to make the lives of his political enemies a living hell. According to a recently unveiled transcript of John Kelly, giving a sworn deposition under oath, under penalty of perjury, John Kelly says that Donald Trump wanted to use the IRS to investigate F b I agents, Peter Str and Lisa Page, the two individuals that Donald Trump repeatedly throughout his administration, referred to as the Levers Lisa Page.

And Peter struck, you know, because they were investigating his, you know, alleged ties to Russia. They were le uh, Peter struck, by the way, was leading that investigation. So where's that investigation, Jim? Huh? You're sitting there looking for the weaponization of the federal government. You now have the former chief of staff to the former president of the United States saying, Trump asked us to do this. He asked us to have the IRS investigate these people and several others. And I am saying this, John Kelly under oath, under penalty of perjury, because it actually happened. So what happened was that Donald Trump, according to Kelly, I believe this was, uh, uh, 2018, um, had asked about using the IRS to investigate Peter STR and Lisa Page. He also, according to Kelly, wanted to use the IRS to investigate James Comey, Andrew McCabe, uh, former CIA director, John Brennan, Hillary Clinton, and, uh, Jeff Bezos, cuz he was unhappy with the Washington Post coverage of his administration. So Trump wanted to use it against everybody he hated. It wasn't just the people investigating him, it was anybody that he didn't like. He wanted to use federal agencies, the IRS and DOJ specifically, to investigate these people.

Now, here's the interesting part. First of all, why is there no investigation into this? Because there are specific laws saying that the President of the United States cannot direct any government agency to investigate their rivals. That law was enacted by Congress after Nixon resigned for obvious reasons. So we do have a very specific law that, based on John Kelly's sworn statement under oath, it seems like Trump violated it. Um, so first of all, we need an investigation into that right now. But second of all, and I think this is the thing that everybody has missed, cuz I haven't seen it anywhere. So let me throw it out there first. Why does Donald Trump think that having the IRS investigate you is such a bad thing?

Isn't that kind of admitting that, oh, when the IRS looks at you, they'll find illegal stuff? No, most people, you know, you watching this, me sitting here saying this, if the IRS were to investigate us, it'd be like, all right, I gotta go sit for an audit. That's annoying, but it, it's not gonna make my life a living hell. I don't cheat on my taxes. But I can see how somebody who does cheat on their taxes would think that the IRS looking at your finances would be the worst thing in the world.