Head of I.R.S. Being Ousted Amid Treasury's Power Struggle With Elon Musk

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

April 18, 2025, 11:58 a.m. ET


The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is being replaced after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent complained to President Trump that the latest leader of the agency had been installed without his knowledge and at the behest of billionaire Elon Musk, according to five people with knowledge of the change and the sensitive discussions that precipitated it.

Mr. Bessent believed that Mr. Musk had done an end run around him to get Gary Shapley installed as the interim head of the I.R.S., even though the tax collection agency reports to Mr. Bessent. Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency pushed the appointment through White House channels, but Mr. Bessent was not consulted or asked for his blessing, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.

Mr. Bessent got Mr. Trump’s approval to unwind the decision. The next acting head of the I.R.S., which has seen a conveyor belt of temporary leaders under Mr. Trump, is expected to be the deputy secretary of the Treasury, Michael Faulkender. He would hold the role until the president’s nominee for the permanent role, former congressman Billy Long, if approved by the Senate, takes over. Mr. Shapley, a longtime I.R.S. agent, was lauded by conservatives after he publicly argued that the Justice Department had slow-walked its investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes.

Mr. Trump picked Mr. Shapley on Tuesday to run the agency after the previous I.R.S. interim head, Melanie Krause, decided to resign. Ms. Krause quit after the Treasury Department agreed to use I.R.S. data to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport undocumented immigrants. After telling colleagues on April 8 she would take the administration’s deferred resignation offer, Ms. Krause remained in the role until Mr. Musk forced the change on Tuesday.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/us/politics/irs-scott-bessent-elon-musk.html

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No paywall (gift)

[progree]

1. Here's an interesting one on Bessent, the "odd man out"

Top Trump official 'planning to cut and run' as 'civil war' engulfs Cabinet, David Badash, Alternet, 4/17/25
https://www.alternet.org/trump-cabinet-civil-war/

My (Progree) quick summary and mpressions on the article:

Treasury Sec. Bessent is the odd man out, a relatively rational one tired of defending Trump tariff policies, and looking for an escape hatch, while Commerce Secretary Lutnick (Lunatic?) is all gung-ho on the tariffs, urging Trump to go big. Bessent is also warning Trump about firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I was thinking of some of his GOP predecessors

like Mnuchin and Paulson and if anything, he has been forced to be the ultimate sycophant to Navarro (who is probably the real problem when it comes to the idiotic tariffs). At least the other 2 had some semblance of their own policy ideas, regardless of how theatric they were promoting them.

[mahina]

4. Navarro literally cited a fictitious character Ron Vara as a source for the economic theories he pulled right out of his

wherever
https://www.yahoo.com/news/rachel-maddow-explains-ridiculous-true-175426436.html
To say the origins of Trump’s sweeping international tariffs are dubious is an understatement, Rachel Maddow said on her MSNBC show on Friday night as she outlined exactly how we got here. Trump “came up with the idea” after the circulation of a “fake memo from a fake person with a fake email address,” she explained.

The memo in question was the brainchild of author and economist Peter Navarro — also the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing for the administration — who entered the Trump sphere after Jared Kushner found his book “Death by China” and asked him to join Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as an economic adviser.

In his books, Maddow continued, Navarro often cited the work of a so-called economics expert named Ron Vara. “V-A-R-A, Ron Vara,” Maddow said. “Vara” shared a memo in Washington D.C. circles after Trump won the presidency

“At one point, Ron Vara wrote in the memo that Trump could, quote, ‘Ride the tariffs to victory,'” Maddow said. The problem is, Ron Vara doesn’t exist. He never has. The economics expert that Peter Navarro has long cited to explain why he’s so gung-ho on tariffs, this person, Ron Vara, is a made-up person.”

“He is a fictional person. Peter Navarro invented Ron Vara as his expert source, so he could quote this expert source over and over and over again in his crackpot books,” she continued. “Who is Ron Vara? Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro, which is his last name.”

“I mean, my name anagrams to Macho Waddler, but I don’t see myself trying to talk you into doing what Macho Wattler wants, right?” Maddow said.

At the beginning of the segment Maddow pointed to two previous peaks in the VIX index, which measures stock market volatility. The two most recent were in 2008, during the global recession, and in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

...

[BumRushDaShow]

5. Yup

and someone needs to send "Ron" himself, back to that FL prison.

[nitpicked]

2. Link to ABC News

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-replaces-acting-irs-commissioner-days-after-appointing/story?id=120959980