Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the Biden administration IRS “rushed” an audit of his and his wife’s finances after he was nominated for the role.

Hegseth, 44, made the accusation Monday afternoon on X. Few details were immediately available, but he posted a photo of what appeared to show the IRS telling him that he and his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, owed the IRS a balance of more than $33,500.

“Of course the outgoing Biden IRS rushed an ‘audit’ of the incoming SecDef. Total sham,” Hegseth said in the post accompanying the photo. “The party of ‘norms’ and ‘decency’ strikes again. We will never back down.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to the IRS and Pentagon for comment.

During the Obama administration, the IRS generated a wave of controversy after it was found to be improperly singling out conservative groups, with the agency apologizing for the aggressive scrutiny of the groups in 2017.  

During the Biden administration, Republicans pushed back on efforts to give the IRS more money for audits out of fear that agents would not just target the wealthy but also go after middle-class taxpayers.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Democrats gave the IRS tens of millions of dollars more in funding as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, arguing that the funding would be used to close the tax gap by going after wealthy tax cheats.

Republicans have sought to claw back that funding.



Comment on this Article Via Your Disqus Account