Hawkeye Reporter

WASHINGTON – Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, are raising the alarm about a recent IRS email instructing employees on how to report potential wrongdoing. In a pair of letters, one to the Justice Department Inspector General and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and another to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Daniel Werfel, the lawmakers express the need to protect whistleblowers and inform them of their rights.

The May 23, 2023 email from IRS Deputy Commissioner Doug O’Donnell to employees failed to include the “anti-gag” provision, which informs federal employees of their right to make protected disclosures.  It also failed to inform IRS employees of their Constitutional and statutory right to make protected disclosures to Congress.  These omissions raise concerns particularly in light of recent reports that IRS employees were removed from the Hunter Biden investigation by the IRS at DOJ’s request as retaliation for making protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress. 

The senators called on the inspectors general to “fully investigate the allegations of whistleblower retaliation, and the IRS’s failure to include the anti-gag provision in the Deputy Commissioner’s email to IRS employees.” 

“The DOJ and IRS must be held accountable for all instances of whistleblower retaliation and misconduct, and federal agencies cannot conceal their wrongdoing behind illegal nondisclosure agreements and related documents,” the senators wrote.

In the letter to IRS Commissioner Werfel the senators demanded that, “you immediately transmit an updated guidance informing IRS employees of their Constitutional and statutory rights to make protected disclosures to Congress.”

Full text of the letter to Inspectors General Horowitz and George can be found here.

Full text of the letter to Commissioner Werfel can be found here.

Full text of Deputy Commissioner O’Donnell’s email to IRS employees can be found here.

Original source can be found here.