“It just defies logic to think that there wasn’t some other factor involved,” McCabe told CNN’s Laura Coates on “Don Lemon Tonight” of his purportedly random selection for the audit, which he characterized as an “incredibly rigorous” and “nerve-wracking” process.
“I think that’s a reasonable question. I think it should be investigated. People need to be able to trust the institutions of government and so that’s why there should be some — we should dig through this and find out what happened,” he continued.
McCabe told CNN he had not known of Comey’s audit when he received notice from the IRS.
Comey told the Times his audit, which he was made aware of in 2019 when Trump was in office, concluded that he and his wife overpaid their 2017 federal income taxes and he received a $347 refund. McCabe said that his 2021 audit, which focused on his 2019 return, found that he and his wife owed a small amount of money for an “oversight,” which they paid.
Charles Rettig, a Trump appointee, has lead the IRS since 2018. The agency said in a statement to the Times he has no role in selecting candidates for audits.
“I don’t know whether anything improper happened, but after learning how unusual this audit was and how badly Trump wanted to hurt me during that time, it made sense to try to figure it out,” Comey said in a statement to the Times. “Maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe somebody misused the I.R.S. to get at a political enemy. Given the role Trump wants to continue to play in our country, we should know the answer to that question.”
The IRS denied any “politically motivated audits” in a statement to CNN Wednesday evening. “Federal Privacy laws preclude us from discussing specific taxpayer situations. Audits are handled by career civil servants, and the IRS has strong safeguards in place to protect the exam process — and against politically motivated audits,” the statement said.
“It’s ludicrous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific individuals for National Research Program audits,” the tax agency added.
CNN has reached out to representatives for Trump for comment. The former President, through a spokesman, said in a statement to the Times: “I have no knowledge of this.”
McCabe told CNN in a statement that “while the IRS investigator I dealt with was professional and responsive at all times, I have questions about how I was selected for this audit.”
CNN’s Gabby Orr and Mary Kay Mallonee contributed to this report.
