Two FBI Directors Fired by Trump Each Faced 1 in 31,000 Chance of Being Audited by the IRS – But Both Were

Former FBI Director James Comey and former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe were each audited by the IRS after being let go by former President Donald Trump.

The odds of their audits were statistical longshots, according to the New York Times.

Comey was removed from his position at the bureau in 2017, less than four months after Trump took office. His tax return for that year was selected for a random audit. The Times reported,

Among tax lawyers, the most invasive type of random audit carried out by the I.R.S. is known, only partly jokingly, as “an autopsy without the benefit of death.”

The odds of being selected for that audit in any given year are tiny — out of nearly 153 million individual returns filed for 2017, for example, the I.R.S. targeted about 5,000, or roughly one out of 30,600.

In 2018, Trump fired McCabe two days before his retirement. The Times reported,

Mr. Comey was informed of the audit in 2019. Two years later, the I.R.S., still under the leadership of a Trump appointee after President Biden took office, picked about 8,000 returns for the same type of audit Mr. Comey had undergone from the 154 million individual returns filed in 2019, or about one in 19,250.

Among those who were chosen to have their 2019 returns scrutinized was the man who had been Mr. Comey’s deputy at the bureau: Andrew G. McCabe.

Trump was not in office when McCabe was audited, and he said in a statement he had nothing to do with either former FBI head’s audit.

“I have no knowledge of this,” he said through a spokesperson.

Additionally, a statement on behalf of IRS commissioner Charles Rettig denied he was involved in the audits.

“Commissioner Rettig is not involved in individual audits or taxpayer cases; those are handled by career civil servants,” the IRS said in a statement. “As I.R.S. commissioner, he has never been in contact with the White House — in either administration — on I.R.S. enforcement or individual taxpayer matters. He has been committed to running the I.R.S. in an impartial, unbiased manner from top to bottom.”

McCabe, now a CNN contributor, told host Laura Coates he would like to know how both he and Comey were chosen for the audits.

“The coincidence of the two former top officials in the FBI, both of whom were very clearly considered to be enemies by the former president and his supporters, both being subjected to this incredibly invasive process that supposedly random, was it actually random?” he asked. “I’d like to hear the answer to that question.”

Watch above, via CNN.