Liberal Forum

Blackvegetable » 14 Aug 2025, 2:04 pm » wrote: ↑

14 Aug 2025, 2:04 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/us/p ... asury.html

For Mr. Trump, the ceremonial swearing-in of Mr. Long to his role as the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service underscored that he at last had a political loyalist and friend, rather than the typical technocrat, at the head of the powerful tax agency. For Mr. Long, a former Republican congressman from Missouri, it signified the completion of a political comeback. After Mr. Long suffered a dismal showing in Missouri’s 2022 Republican Senate primary, his unwavering and, at times, over-the-top support for Mr. Trump had finally panned out.

 As members of his family and close aides from his time in Congress looked on, he was put in charge of one of the federal government’s most visible and fundamental agencies, responsible for collecting roughly $5 trillion in tax revenue each year. By all appearances, Mr. Long had the full support of the president, who had also invited him to a private lunch that day and structured the July 18 swearing-in around it.

But within days, Mr. Long began to lose his grip on a job that he had held for barely a month. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had already ousted one White House-installed I.R.S. commissioner this year. He would soon orchestrate the removal of another, culminating in the agency having its seventh leader since January.

Soon after the lunch, the working relationship between Mr. Bessent, a multimillionaire former hedge fund manager, and Mr. Long, a former auctioneer without a college degree, began to break down.

Treasury officials, after some public gaffes from Mr. Long, began to doubt that he possessed the basic discipline to do the demanding and heavily scrutinized job. Several people in the president’s orbit also questioned whether Mr. Long was up to the task.

  Over several weeks, Trump administration officials discussed alternative roles for Mr. Long, and eventually, Sergio Gor, the White House personnel director, informed Mr. Long that he would be moving to a new job, two people briefed on the matter said. Last Friday, Mr. Long said he would leave the I.R.S. and be nominated to become the next ambassador to Iceland.

Leave it to Grifty..

A clown without a college degree running the IRS...

He must have looked out of place at the ball.