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tax returns
'Extremist and Sloppy': GOP Congressman Hectored at Town Hall Over Trump Cuts
"What's not reasonable is taking this chainsaw approach," said one attendee speaking of federal cuts.
Feb 21, 2025
Rep. Rich McCormick, a Republican representing Georgia, faced a tough crowd during a town hall Thursday, during which constituents questioned him sharply about his support for U.S. President Donald Trump agenda during his first month back in office.
McCormick faced boos and catcalls, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,including when answering questions about the administration's targeting of federal workers.
In reference to personnel cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and elsewhere, one speaker asked why the approach has been so "radical and extremist and sloppy."
McCormick responded that he's been in "close contact" with the CDC and—speaking of the over 1,000 probationary employees targeted for removal by the Trump administration—"a lot of the work they do is duplicitous with AI," a remark that prompted an audible negative reaction from the crowd.
Another person said that trying to do more with less was a reasonable goal, but "what's not reasonable is taking this chainsaw approach."
"My understanding is when you say you have this many employees that you have to cut, that organization decides who to cut,” McCormick said.
In the past month, the Trump administration, with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, has moved to carry out personnel cuts at various agencies—impacting workers who do everything from conduct independent audits of federal agencies to assisting with processing Americans' tax returns. Many of the administration's measures have been challenged in court, with mixed success for the plaintiffs.
Separately, constituents in Republican districts in other parts of the country targeted GOP lawmakers over the Trump administration's cuts and other issues this week.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein wrote that the town hall, which took place in Roswell, was so well attended that local authorities turned away some would be town hall goers.
"The rowdy town hall was one of the first examples in Georgia of Trump-driven backlash trickling down to the grassroots," wrote Bluestein in his write-up of the town hall. Bluestein also posted multiple times on X about the event, and some observers on the social media platform, which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk, said Bluestein's posts were not viewable to them.
The town hall crowd peppers Rep. Rich McCormick with boos and catcalls as he struggles to answer a pointed question from a resident who says she's a descendant of Patrick Henry who pressed him on whether Trump was moving toward "tyranny." #gapol https://t.co/gicXVC7AFJ pic.twitter.com/BkSIaxtgQb
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) February 21, 2025
"X appears to be censoring Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter [Greg Bluestein's] posts covering Rep. Rich McCormick's (R-Ga.) town hall. The now 'unavailable' posts, which per Bluestein were not deleted, showed McCormick being booed after he defended DOGE," posted Aaron Fritschner, a deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).
Fritschner included screenshots of the posts showing up as "unavailable." Some of Bluestein's posts also appeared that way for Common Dreams.
Only a month into the Trump administration's efforts to radically reshape the federal government, how the public views these efforts—especially those who voted for Trump and other GOP lawmakers—is still coming into focus.
According to the findings of a Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday, 45% of voters approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, while 49% disapprove. Ninety percent of Republican voters said they approve. Meanwhile, 38% of voters had a favorable view of Elon Musk, and 50% had an unfavorable view. Seventy-five percent of Republican voters had a favorable view of him.
When it comes to impact, the advocacy organization Americans for Tax Fairness released an analysis on Thursday suggesting that proposed cuts by Republicans could lead to electoral pain for the GOP.
According to the group, a "dozen Republican House members won their seats by margins smaller than the number of constituents who could be affected by proposed cuts to federal jobs, Medicaid, and food assistance."
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Senate Democrats Say DOGE Has 'No Right to Hoover up Taxpayer Data' at IRS
Operatives of Elon Musk, warned Sen. Elizabeth Warren, "are attempting to access confidential tax information—tax returns, bank data, Social Security numbers—for millions of Americans."
Feb 17, 2025
As Americans prepare to file their taxes ahead of the April 15 deadline, two Democratic senators warned Monday that billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk's arrival at the Internal Revenue Service raises serious privacy concerns and could significantly impact the tens of millions of people who count on their tax refunds each year to pay bills, pad their emergency savings, and afford other essentials.
The Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), the advisory body created by President Donald Trump and headed by Musk, has set its sights on the IRS as it works to gut agencies across the federal government—with the data of millions of ordinary taxpayers now among the troves of personal information DOGE is trying to seize.
As The Washington Postreported, the IRS is considering a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to give DOGE employees access to agency systems and datasets including the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS).
The system allows a limited number of IRS employees to access IRS accounts of every individual taxpayer, business, and nonprofit in the country, including people's personal identification numbers and bank information, and enables them to change transaction data.
DOGE's "meddling with IRS systems in the middle of tax filing season could, inadvertently or otherwise, cause breakdowns that may delay the issuance of tax refunds indefinitely," said Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
The MOU states that Gavin Kliger, a software engineer working with DOGE, should have access to the IDRS, enabling DOGE to "eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, and improve government performance to better serve the people."
According to the memo reviewed by the Post, Kliger—who sources said had not officially been granted the access mentioned in the MOU as of Sunday night—will be tasked with consulting on modernizing the IRS' systems.
Even though outside contractors are used for technical upgrades or fixes to a system widely recognized as "antiquated," the Post noted that it is "highly unusual" for a political appointee of partisan body like DOGE to obtain access to the IDRS.
"The information that the IRS has is incredibly personal," Nina Olson, who served as the agency's national taxpayer advocate for nearly two decades, told the newspaper. "Someone with access to it could use it and make it public in a way, or do something with it, or share it with someone else who shares it with someone else, and your rights get violated."
In their letter to acting IRS Commissioner Douglas O'Donnell, Warren and Wyden (D-Ore.) noted that the tax code has long prohibited "executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations."
"These prohibitions have long prevented political appointees in previous administrations from accessing the private tax records of hundreds of millions of Americans, and allowing DOGE officials sweeping access these systems may be in violation of these statutes," said Warren and Wyden, who serve as ranking members of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and Senate Finance Committees, respectively. "Violations of these taxpayer privacy laws, including unauthorized access to or disclosure of tax returns and return information, can result in criminal penalties, including incarceration."
Without naming Trump, the lawmakers referenced Charles Littlejohn, the IRS contractor who was sentenced last year to five years in federal prison for leaking the president's tax returns to The New York Times after Trump refused to publicly disclose them.
"Until we fought to the Supreme Court and won, the president shielded his tax returns from the people," said the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee in a social media post. "Now, he's given yours to the richest man in the world."
Warren and Wyden wrote that "software engineers working for Musk seeking to gain access to tax return information have no right to hoover up taxpayer data and send that data back to any other part of the federal government and may be breaking the law if they are doing so."
In addition to seeking access to the personal financial data of millions of Americans, DOGE is reportedly preparing to oversee the firing of 10,000 probationary employees at the IRS.
"Any delay in refunds could be financially devastating to millions of Americans who plan their budgets around timely refunds every spring," said Warren and Wyden. "We demand that the IRS immediately clarify the extent to which DOGE team members may have inspected or be seeking to inspect the private tax return information of millions of Americans and whether taxpayer privacy laws are being enforced to prevent unauthorized disclosure and intrusions."
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'The Guy Is a Hero': IRS Contractor Who Leaked Trump Tax Returns Gets Max Sentence
"Billionaires control our lives and our government and pay... lower tax rates than the rest of us, but this is the bad guy who should be punished with a five-year prison sentence?"
Jan 29, 2024
As the U.S. tax season began Monday, a former Internal Revenue Service contractor who leaked to the media the tax records of wealthy Americans including ex-President Donald Trump was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, an appointee of President Joe Biden, handed down the maximum sentence to Charles Littlejohn, who pleaded guilty to unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information in October. Littlejohn gave The New York Timesinformation on Trump—who is expected to face Biden in the November election—and shared with ProPublica data on Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and more.
While Reyes called the decision to release Trump's filings "an attack on our constitutional democracy" and Littlejohn told the court that he "acted out of a sincere but misguided belief that I was serving the public," others framed the 38-year-old's move as heroic.
"This guy is a hero who showed us how the superrich steal from the American public,"
Slate politics writer Alexander Sammon said Monday. "Naturally, the judge gave him a max sentence, claiming it was 'a moral imperative' to punish him as harshly as possible."
Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project noted that "this whistleblower's cause has been ignored by a LOT of people who have defended much more intrusive leaking. (Tax returns were public in the past, are in some countries now, and should be fully transparent—they're inherently public information, unlike, e.g., John Podesta's emails)."
People's Policy Project founder Matt Bruenig similarly pointed out that "in Finland, these returns are public record available to anyone who wants to see them."
After decades of presidential candidates voluntarily releasing income tax returns, Trump declined to do so—breaking his promise to make them public. The Republican also unsuccessfully fought to block Congress from receiving some of his tax records.
After the sentencing on Monday, Littlejohn's attorney told reporters that his only statement was to thank the court for consideration of the case. Meanwhile, Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Criminal Division said that his "sentence sends a strong message that those who violate laws intended to protect sensitive tax information will face significant punishment."
When Littlejohn pleaded guilty last year, ProPublicadeclined to comment other than reiterating that the news outlet "doesn't know the identity of the source who provided this trove of information on the taxes paid by the wealthiest Americans."
Charlie Stadtlander,a spokesperson for the Times, said last year that "we remain concerned when whistleblowers who provide information in the public interest are prosecuted. The Times' reporting on this topic played an important role in helping the public understand the financial ties and tax strategies of a sitting president—information that has long been seen as central to the knowledge that voters should have about the leader of our government and the candidates for that high office."
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