Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused the departing Biden administration of being the target of a politically motivated IRS audit.
Hegseth, who was confirmed last month in a 51-50 Senate vote, posted a photo on X showing a letter informing him that he was being audited and owed the IRS a balance of $33,558.16.
“Of course the outgoing Biden IRS rushed an ‘audit’ of the incoming SecDef. Total sham,” Hegseth wrote. “The party of ‘norms’ and ‘decency’ strikes again. We will never back down.”
The announcement came as President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project began evaluating the IRS for potential waste and abuse.
“DOGE is seeking help from the public! Please DM this account with insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud and abuse relating to the Internal Revenue Service,” the X account for the DOGE team looking at the IRS posted on Monday.
One unnamed former Biden official claimed to POLITICO that Hegseth’s announcement was a “vain attempt to distract from how the richest man in the world is rifling through Americans’ personal finances and Social Security information.”
The White House said that DOGE needed access to the IRS system to address issues at the federal tax-collecting agency.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields said Monday.
Michelle King, the acting head of the Social Security Administration (SSA) quit her job after becoming the latest government worker to butt heads with the Elon Musk-led DOGE over efforts to access certain sensitive government records, according to reports.
The Washington Post reported that three people familiar with King’s departure said on Monday that she stepped down from her position after the disagreement.
In response to King’s departure, President Donald Trump reportedly appointed Leland Dudek to lead the agency as the president’s nominee to serve as commissioner of the SSA, Frank Bisignano, is vetted by federal lawmakers.
Principal Deputy Press Secretary at the White House, Harrison Fields, said they expect Bisignano to be “swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks.”
“In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner,” Fields said without naming the replacement. “President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long.”
READ NEXT: Boston Boos Canadian National Anthem During Hockey Game
I worked as a senior executive in the securities industry for many years. The SEC would occasionally show up at the door to conduct surprise audits. Since I had never done anything wrong and any issues they ever cited us for was something innocent like a form missing a signature, I never felt the need to resign. Audits were a pain in the butt because they redirected our resources for a week or so and sometimes made me change travel plans, but they were a fact of life and necessary to make sure the industry’s participants played by the rules. Put on your big boy pants and work WITH DOGE unless of course you need to quickly relocate to a country that doesn’t have extradition agreements with the US.
REF. “In response to King’s departure, President Donald Trump reportedly appointed Leland Dudek to lead the agency as the president’s nominee to serve as commissioner of the SSA, Frank Bisignano, is vetted by federal lawmakers.
Principal Deputy Press Secretary at the White House, Harrison Fields, said they expect Bisignano to be “swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks.”’
Well, that is confusing! Who is the nominee, Leland Dudek or Frank Bisignano?