Exclusive: Conservative groups urge Senate to finally confirm Trump’s IRS chief, root out Obama-era Deep Staters

A coalition of conservative government accountability advocates penned a Wednesday letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune calling for the immediate confirmation of former Republican Missouri Rep. Billy Long as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The coalition cited studies that suggest left-wing activists run the IRS, noting that these findings underscore the need for Long to lead the controversial federal agency. The letter’s signatories include representatives of over half a dozen groups such as the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), the Article III Project, the Center for Renewing America, and the American Principles Project (APP).

“As a congressman, Long witnessed the abuses of the IRS in 2013 and will not tolerate the bias currently infecting the agency,” the letter stated. “We call on the United States Senate to confirm Congressman Long and restore faith in an agency that has long been the subject of distrust among the public.”

Long represented Missouri’s 7th congressional district from 2011 to 2023. President Donald Trump nominated him to serve as Commissioner of the IRS in December 2024. Long’s nomination is currently pending confirmation by the Senate, which Republicans control under Thune’s leadership.

The coalition wrote in the letter that a report from the AAF released in April “showed that over 60% of the top brass in the commissioner and deputy commissioner’s offices” of the IRS “could be identified as Democratic or liberal.”

“Perhaps even more disconcerting, not a single Republican could be identified from either office,” the letter continued. “The [AAF] has also uncovered that there are three IRS employees leading key divisions that were directly involved in the Obama administration’s IRS targeting scandal.”

The letter also noted that Holly Paz, a former top deputy to former IRS official Lois Lerner, still works at the IRS, leading the Large Business and International Division (LB&I). Paz was put on administrative leave following the Obama-era scandal, in which Lerner was the main figure behind the IRS’s alleged targeting of conservative organizations.

The coalition further noted in the letter that Robert Choi, another key figure in the targeting scandal, “now
runs the entire Tax-Exempt and Government Entities division, the same division that was used to target conservatives.”

“Elizabeth Kastenberg is another Lerner employee and now leads the Office of Professional Responsibility,” the letter added.

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