WASHINGTON — Some prominent critics of President-elect Donald Trump — including three officials in his first administration — are instructing their accountants to safeguard against the possibility of Trump ordering investigations into their tax records after he returns to the White House, according to interviews with Reuters.

Several American administrations in the 20th century misused the Internal Revenue Service, the US tax collection agency, to target opponents by ordering audits of their tax filings, historians say.

Six Trump critics, including two national security officials and one CIA officer in his first administration, told Reuters they fear a malicious IRS audit. Five are taking protective measures in response to the former president's vows to seek retribution against perceived enemies. "We are going through our finances with a fine-tooth comb," one of the former national security officials told Reuters.

On the campaign trail Trump repeatedly called for the prosecution of perceived enemies, including Democratic President Joe Biden and his family, prosecutors who brought criminal cases against him while he was out of power, and former intelligence officials who investigated alleged ties between his 2016 election campaign and Russia.

This week Trump filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register newspaper and its former top pollster, alleging interference in the Nov 5 election.

While Trump has not spoken publicly about using the IRS as an instrument of revenge, Mark Zaid, a whistleblower attorney representing two of the Trump critics who spoke to Reuters, said many such clients fear that they could be targeted by the IRS with groundless audits. Even if no issue is found with their taxes, he said, an audit would force them to spend money on legal and accounting fees and stress them emotionally.

A Trump spokesman referred Reuters to an interview that aired on NBC's Meet the Press on Dec 8.

'They went after me'

Asked if he wants to see investigations of his political enemies, Trump told the interviewer: "No, I don't think so." He then added: "If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably. They went after me. You know, they went after me and I did nothing wrong."

Since he won the election, Trump has been less vocal about going after his enemies. He has not named any of the individuals who spoke to Reuters.

The critics Reuters interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity. They fear that talking publicly will make them more likely to be targeted.

Another of the former national security officials told Reuters they have directed their accountant that there can be no "grey areas" in their tax returns and they must be audit-proof.

A Republican strategist said he and his accountant are in negotiations with the IRS over more than US$100,000 (S$136,000) in back taxes. "We are hoping to settle with the IRS before Trump takes office," the strategist told Reuters.

Fifteen other prominent Trump critics did not respond to interview requests or declined to be interviewed.

They include two senior officials in Democratic President Barack Obama's administration, former CIA director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney.

Brennan headed the CIA during an intelligence community investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election that concluded in a January 2017 report that the effort was aimed at swaying the vote to Trump.

A 2018 bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report and Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2019 reached similar conclusions and found contacts between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials. Both probes, however, found that the campaign did not conspire in Moscow's interference operations.

Last year, Trump reposted on his Truth Social platform a fabricated image of Brennan, Clapper and others behind bars with a caption suggesting they be tried for treason.

Cheney was vice-chair of the congressional committee that investigated the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters and voted to impeach the former president. During the election, she campaigned for his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a post on his Truth Social site on Wednesday, Trump said the FBI should investigate Cheney for her role in the Jan 6 investigation. "Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble."

A spokesperson for Cheney did not respond to requests for comment.

Complex tax systems

The US has one of the most complex tax systems in the world. But, in general, tax audits are rare. For all returns filed for tax years 2013 through 2021, the most recent long-term data available, the IRS audited just 0.44 per cent of individual returns.

An audit typically requires a taxpayer to produce receipts, bank statements or other documents and can involve costly accountants' fees. A major audit can last months and even years with the possibility of a fine. In extremely rare cases — less than 400 in 2023 — people can be jailed for wilful criminal tax evasion.

The IRS said in a statement to Reuters that they operated without political bias.

"Audits and collections are handled by career, non-partisan civil servants, and the IRS has safeguards in place to protect the exam and collection process," the IRS said.

Three of those who told Reuters they were worried about the prospect of heightened IRS scrutiny of their finances cited the cases of former FBI director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe, who were selected for the most intrusive type of examination, called a National Research Programme audit.

"Would I be surprised if I got an IRS audit? No." said the former CIA official.

The FBI leaders infuriated Trump during his first term over their handling of the Russia investigation. In his first term Trump repeatedly called both men corrupt and said they should be investigated. In June 2024, Trump reposted a warning by his former White House advisor Steve Bannon that McCabe should be worried about being targeted if Trump wins reelection.

Comey was subjected to an IRS audit in 2019, when Trump was still in office. McCabe was audited in 2021, after Trump left office, but when the IRS was still under the leadership of Trump's choice to head the agency, according to The New York Times.

The audits concluded that the IRS owed Comey and his wife US$347, according to The New York Times. McCabe and his wife owed a small amount, which they paid, The Times reported.

A 2022 IRS inspector general's report cleared the IRS of wrongdoing in the Comey and McCabe audits. The IRS is barred by law from discussing individual audits.

Nixon and the IRS

Several previous US administrations have used the IRS to seek retribution against political enemies, according to the 1989 book "A Law Unto Itself: Power, Politics, and the IRS," by former New York Times investigative journalist David Burnham, who died in October.

Those presidents include Calvin Coolidge, a Republican, and Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat.

Richard Nixon, a Republican, also ordered the agency to audit people on his enemies' list — but the IRS commissioner at the time refused, said Timothy Naftali, a historian and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library in California.

"There's certainly a lot of people in the Nixon era who were quite convinced that Nixon had audited them," Naftali said.

Brian Davis, an accountant in Virginia who has handled audits for clients, said under US laws put in place after Nixon left office a president cannot directly order an audit.

However, "the fact that Comey and McCabe got those audits, it certainly raised some questions," he added.

Comey and McCabe declined requests for interviews.

Jamie Raskin, a senior House Democrat who was a lead prosecutor in Trump's second impeachment, said many members of Congress are keeping a close eye on who Trump will target, and how.

"Everybody is clearly following the various threats being levelled against private citizens and public officials," Raskin said.

Source: Reuters