IRS Agent Visits Journalist Matt Taibbi's Home on Day He Testifies Before Congress
On March 9, 2023, the same day journalist Matt Taibbi testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about Twitter's content moderation practices, an IRS agent visited his New Jersey home. The House Judiciary Committee investigated the coincidence as potential retaliation.
Matt Taibbi, the journalist who published the 'Twitter Files' reporting on government-platform coordination beginning in December 2022, testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on March 9, 2023. On that same day, an IRS agent visited Taibbi's New Jersey home and left a note requesting contact about his 2018 taxes. The House Judiciary Committee, in a May 2023 letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, revealed that the IRS had opened an examination of Taibbi's 2018 return on December 24, 2022 — three weeks after his first Twitter Files publication. The committee noted that Taibbi had previously filed his 2018 taxes electronically and that the IRS had initially accepted the return, only to re-examine it after his high-profile reporting. The IRS denied any improper coordination, and no charges were filed. Press freedom organizations called the timing deeply troubling, regardless of intent, given its potential chilling effect on national security and government accountability journalism.