DAVID MARCUS: From the IRS to the FBI – Alphabet agencies will destroy America – and time is running out

As Americans recover from the shock of revelations that the FBI, without good reason, launched a full intelligence investigation into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the IRS steps in and says, “Hold my beer.”

On Friday morning, Gary Shapely, a 14-year-old Internal Revenue Service employee, testified behind closed doors before Congress. He alleges that a sensitive political investigation he was leading was hampered and disrupted by his superiors and ultimately by the Justice Department itself.

Which case are you asking?

It is reportedly nothing more than the five-year investigation into the shady finances of President Biden’s hapless son, Hunter. Given its length, this has to be the most complicated tax case in history, or maybe, just maybe, is something else afoot?

Here’s what Shapely, who is still employed by the IRS, told CBS News: “There were several steps that were being taken slowly at the direction of the Justice Department — just weren’t being taken at all.”

“When I took charge of this particular investigation,” he added, “I immediately saw deviations from the normal process.” “It was far outside the norm of what I’ve experienced in the past.”

Are we really to believe that it’s just a grand coincidence that Shapely witnessed this kind of special treatment for the first time in a career spanning more than a decade, and it was in a case against Hunter Biden?

What are the odds? Why on earth should such an investigation be “slow”?

On Friday morning, Gary Shapely (above left), a 14-year veteran of the Internal Revenue Service, testified behind closed doors before Congress.

Shapley alleges that a sensitive political investigation he led was obstructed and disrupted by his superiors and ultimately by the Justice Department itself.

We know that the tax collector can act quickly if he wants to. Just ask independent journalist Matt Taibbi.

Taibbi was just announced that a dubious IRS case was opened against him on Christmas Eve 2022, a Saturday that was no less.

Coincidentally, on the very same day, Taibbi released his ninth installment of The Twitter Files — a widely publicized look at Twitter’s internal coordination with US law enforcement, left-wing politicians, and organizations to censor the speech of ordinary Americans.

Must have been a coincidence.

But do you think you could get someone on the phone at the IRS on Christmas Eve?

And these happy coincidences don’t end there.

Guess who ominously appeared on Taibbi’s doorstep just months later in March, the same day he testified before Congress about the federal government’s game with the social media giant.

An IRS agent.

You’d assume Matt was in big trouble. But no, in the end we learned that it was the government that owed Taibbi money and not the other way around.

Even Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin, who oversees the FBI, thought it was a bit odd. “I’m not aware of IRS agents doing this except … in cases where a violation of law investigation is ongoing,” she told a House committee in March.

That’s not even subtle; Semaphore flags could not convey the message more clearly.

If you dare to tell the truth, if you dare to question government agencies, a target will be put squarely on your back. But if you’re one of them – well, kid gloves for you.

Of course this is nothing new. But what’s incredibly troubling – to the point of existential dread – is that the federal government seems utterly unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

We all remember the IRS’s attacks on conservatives and right-wing organizations during the Obama administration.

The IRS said it was just a mistake (another bloody coincidence) that any organization applying for tax-exempt status and whose title included “Tea Party” or “Patriots” was selected for additional testing.

Lois Lerner, director of Exempt Organizations, took the fall and after that, we were told, everything would be settled.

Taibbi (above) was just announced that a dubious IRS case was opened against him on Christmas Eve 2022, a Saturday no less.

It is reportedly nothing more than the five-year investigation into the shady finances of President Biden’s hapless son, Hunter.

How does this work for Matt Taibbi?

For its part, the FBI has also promised Americans they will make changes after a report by the US Department of Justice’s inspector general revealed that government lawyers lied and misled the powerful, secretive FISA courts to get the permit to spy on Trump campaign officials.

And after Special Counsel John Durham released his scathing report on the FBI’s shoddy handling of the fake Russian investigation, the FBI said, “There’s nothing to see here.”

“The leadership has already implemented dozens of corrective actions that have been in effect for some time now,” the statement said.

But if that’s the case, why did we just learn that the agency spied on Americans more than 278,000 times in 2021 alone?

All of this is still happening in front of everyone. The reform claims are clearly a ridiculous attempt to pat the American people on the head like we’re good little kids. Just believe what you’re told, they say.

But we don’t.

More and more Americans are becoming aware of this corruption of our alphabet of agencies that somehow only harms those on the right and helps those on the left.

We want it fixed – permanently.

But not only do Biden and the Democrats have no interest in fighting corruption at the IRS, they also want to spend $80 billion more to hire 87,000 accountants.

Is it any wonder that Biden is flaunting cash to the organization that supposedly protects his own son?

In no sane world would we give an extra penny, let alone tens of billions of dollars, to an agency with such a long history of malicious bias.

This applies until the rot in the core is removed.

Is it any wonder that Biden is flaunting cash to the organization that supposedly protects his own son?

That’s why House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is right when he calls for this ridiculous IRS windfall to be undone in the debt ceiling negotiations.

This is not a swamp but an ocean of corruption, and McCarthy and Republicans know that the ship of state – and Americans’ faith in it – deals with water like the Titanic. There can be no more important issue for the future of the country than cleaning up these agencies, be it the IRS, the DOJ, the FBI, or many others, from the top down.

It’s not just a few bad apples, it’s a system of inequality. It’s a culture of bias.

Every Republican presidential candidate should put this high on their agenda, as Ron DeSantis did by pledging to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray. Each candidate should come up with concrete plans to restore basic justice to a federal bureaucracy that in recent history has answered no one and nothing.

No more slow-moving the cases of powerful Democrats, no more IRS agents knocking on the doors of political dissidents, no more raids on Mar-a-Lago, no more Catholics targeted by the Justice Department in their churches, no more scrutiny of parents’ license plates recorded more at school board meetings.

All of this has to stop now. Because frankly, if that’s not the case, it doesn’t matter who we vote for, and it doesn’t matter what the courts think is legal or not, if this tyranny of the unelected remains unabated, it will destroy America.

There is still time to fix this. The sun has not yet set on a federal government that treats its citizens equally regardless of politics. But it’s getting pretty dark and the time for action has come.