“We are conducting a comprehensive review of existing safety and security measures,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a memo to his 78,600 employees on Tuesday. “This includes conducting risk assessments based on data-driven decisions given the current environment and monitoring perimeter security, identifying restricted areas, exterior lighting, security around our facility entrances and other various protections ». IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig announced the “comprehensive overhaul of existing safety and security measures” in a memo Tuesday to his 78,600 employees. Getty Images The major security review is the first of its kind since 1995, when 168 people were killed in Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Rettig told the Washington Post. It follows the furious reaction to President Biden’s new tax, climate and drug package that gives $80 billion to the IRS to boost enforcement. Rettig’s letter blamed the backlash on “a spate of misinformation and false posts on social media, some of them threatening the IRS and its employees.” Those raising alarm over the agency’s plans include senior Republicans such as House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said the new hires were to help the government “search” into bank accounts and “to shaken to the last cent.” Florida Senator Rick Scott also sent an open letter on August 16 to Americans urging them not to take on new IRS positions. “The IRS makes it very clear that not only must you be prepared to audit and investigate your fellow hard-working Americans, your neighbors and friends, you must be prepared and, to use the words of the IRS, willing to kill them” . he said in the letter. Ronny Jackson, President Donald Trump’s White House physician who is now the Republican nominee for a Texas congressional seat, tweeted last week that “the IRS is recruiting an army of 87,000 SPECIAL AGENTS trained to use “DEADLY FORCE”. “And believe me, they won’t go after the billionaires. They will shake down middle class Americans for EVERY cent they have!”. The IRS is recruiting an army of 87,000 SPECIAL AGENTS trained to use “DEADLY FORCE”. And trust me, they won’t go after the billionaires. They will shake middle class Americans for EVERY cent they have! — Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) August 23, 2022 Florida Republican House candidate Luis Miguel was banned from Twitter after he said he wanted to allow Floridians to “be able to shoot the FBI, the IRS, the ATF and every other federal trooper they see.” The IRS commissioner told the Washington Post that the security review is necessary because “its workforce is concerned about their security.” The “extremely disrespectful” comments and threats have left IRS workers “concerned for their safety,” Rettig said.Bloomberg via Getty Images “We’re looking at what’s out there in terms of social media,” Rettig said. “The comments made are extremely disrespectful to the organization, the workers and the country.” Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said members of retirement age had expressed a greater desire to retire because of the threats. More than half of the IRS’ workforce of 80,000 employees is eligible for retirement. Several workers said the hostility reminded them of the 2010 suicide attack in Austin, Texas by Andrew Joseph Stack III, who crashed a single-engine plane into the Echelon office building, killing himself and IRS Director Vernon Hunter. “The rhetoric we’re hearing now is dangerous,” Reardon said. “It puts these patriotic Americans at risk.” With Post cables
