Trump Brings Back Nixon’s Dirtiest Trick: Weaponizing the IRS
Like the original paranoid advocate for an imperial presidency, Trump wants to use tax records to punish enemies.
Unlike Nixon, Trump isn’t hiding it. In his second-term drive to create a truly imperial presidency, Donald Trump is expanding many paths first blazed by his discredited predecessor, Richard Nixon.
It’s no accident that Trump’s power-hungry budget director, Russell Vought, has championed the audacious Nixonian doctrine of unlimited presidential power to “impound” (i.e., refuse to spend) money appropriated by Congress.
Trump’s insistence on personal diplomacy as the key to American power and world peace is reminiscent of the Nixon-Kissinger era of alliances made and unmade and wars launched and ended by secret presidential deals.
Trump wants to use tax records to punish enemies.
Author summary: Trump revives Nixon's imperial presidency tactics.