Trump says he wants retribution. Some critics fear he will use the IRS to get it.

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

55% : Several American administrations in the 20th century misused the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. tax collection agency, to target opponents by ordering audits of their tax filings, historians say.
53% : "We are hoping to settle with the IRS before Trump takes office," the strategist told Reuters.
48% : "Audits and collections are handled by career, non-partisan civil servants, and the IRS has safeguards in place to protect the exam and collection process," the IRS said.
46% : Brennan headed the CIA during an intelligence community investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election that concluded in a January 2017 report that the effort was aimed at swaying the vote to Trump.
46% : A 2018 bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report and Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2019 reached similar conclusions and found contacts between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials.
40% : The FBI leaders infuriated Trump during his first term over their handling of the Russia investigation.
38% : McCabe was audited in 2021, after Trump left office, but when the IRS was still under the leadership of Trump's choice to head the agency, according to The New York Times.
37% : In a post on his Truth Social site on Wednesday, Trump said the FBI should investigate Cheney for her role in the Jan.6 investigation.
37% : Comey was subjected to an IRS audit in 2019, when Trump was still in office.
30% : Cheney was vice-chair of the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters and voted to impeach the former president.
29% : Some prominent critics of President-elect Donald Trump - including three officials in his first administration - are instructing their accountants to safeguard against the possibility of Trump ordering investigations into their tax records after he returns to the White House, according to interviews with Reuters.
28% : This week Trump filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register newspaper and its former top pollster, alleging interference in the Nov. 5 election.
24% : On the campaign trail Trump repeatedly called for the prosecution of perceived enemies, including Democratic President Joe Biden and his family, prosecutors who brought criminal cases against him while he was out of power, and former intelligence officials who investigated alleged ties between his 2016 election campaign and Russia.
23% : Last year, Trump reposted on his Truth Social platform a fabricated image of Brennan, Clapper and others behind bars with a caption suggesting they be tried for treason.
22% : While Trump has not spoken publicly about using the IRS as an instrument of revenge, Mark Zaid, a whistleblower attorney representing two of the Trump critics who spoke to Reuters, said many such clients fear that they could be targeted by the IRS with groundless audits.
21% : "Since he won the election, Trump has been less vocal about going after his enemies.
20% : A Trump spokesman referred Reuters to an interview that aired on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Dec. 8.'THEY WENT AFTER ME'Asked if he wants to see investigations of his political enemies, Trump told the interviewer: "No, I don't think so."
19% : In his first term Trump repeatedly called both men corrupt and said they should be investigated.
9% : Jamie Raskin, a senior House Democrat who was a lead prosecutor in Trump's second impeachment, said many members of Congress are keeping a close eye on who Trump will target, and how.
5% : In June 2024, Trump reposted a warning by his former White House advisor Steve Bannon that McCabe should be worried about being targeted if Trump wins reelection.

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