Buck Compares IRS to a 'Mobster’ Who Just 'Stands There Behind You, Waiting for You to Slip Up’

TheBlaze's national security adviser Buck Sexton on Tuesday excoriated the Internal Revenue Service as an out-of-control agency that protects its corrupt employees and strikes fear into the hearts of law-abiding Americans.

"What happens, my friends, if you decide that you're not going to answer the questions posed to you by Congress?" Sexton asked while guest hosting Glenn Beck's radio program. "If you lie, if you destroy evidence? Well, for most of us, that would mean you would be in a whole lot of trouble. But if you're a very senior IRS official, it wouldn't mean much at all. You wouldn't be fired. You wouldn't be brought up on charges."

Sexton said that with a tax code of roughly 70,000 pages, the IRS "can decide to find some means, some rationale to make your life very difficult," even if you pay your taxes and follow the law.

"Remember, the process is the punishment, even if you in the end are found to be guilty of absolutely nothing," he said. "Nobody writes you a check, pats you on the back and says, 'Well done, citizen. You've paid your taxes.' No. The audit, the whole process that you go through, the lost nights of sleep, the anxiety, that moment of panic if they come to your place of business to have a discussion about one thing or another, none of that goes away."

Sexton said the government's entire attitude could be summarized as: "You should be thankful that it's not worse."

FILE - In this May 22, 2013 file photo, Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner refuses to answer questions as the House Oversight Committee holds a hearing to investigate the extra scrutiny the IRS gave Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Lerner, a former IRS official at the heart of the agency's tea party controversy, called Republicans "crazies" and more in newly released emails. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

"There are no real safeguards. And as we see now, there's really no accountability either," he continued. "It's one thing to think that there should be prevention of that kind of targeting. ... But it's a different thing entirely, isn't it, to say that they can get away with this violation as well?"

Sexton said the IRS, like all bureaucracies, exists primarily to enlarge itself. But unlike other branches of the federal government, the IRS is present in your life every day.

"Every financial transaction and every business decision, the IRS is like the guy in the mobster movies hanging out in the background. 'OK, you paid up? You paid up? You better pay...'" Sexton remarked. "[It] stands there behind you, waiting for you to slip up. Because then you and Tony T. are going to have to have a discussion."

Sexton said House Republicans' call for the removal of Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen from his position wouldn't be controversial if the man worked anywhere else.

"You would think someone who has presided over an agency that destroyed evidence, lied, failed to inform Congress of what it was doing with regards to the investigation, hasn't done anything meaningful itself and has stonewalled at every opportunity, that there would be consequences for the person that was in charge of that organization," he summarized. "If you thought that, you would be wrong."

But Sexton said firing Koskinen doesn't go far enough when it comes to reining in the IRS.

"By their own admission, the IRS targeted people in this country for harassment or 'special treatment,' as you can call it," he remarked. "It has a Soviet feeling, doesn't it? They can give you 'special treatment' if you're a dissident or somebody who doesn't do what we want you to do. ... But the IRS doesn't reform. The IRS doesn't change. And now we see there's no accountability even when they've stepped well over the line."

"Lois Lerner pleads the fifth and the DOJ decides not to prosecute ... because then they would have to investigate," Sexton concluded. "And if they investigate, they're responsible for finding out how far up the chain this targeting effort was."

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