‘Does That Bother You?’: Rep. Chris Stewart Confronts Yellen Over IRS Agent Showing Up To Journalist’s Home

Republican Utah Rep. Chris Stewart confronted Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen on Wednesday as to why IRS agents reportedly showed up at the home of a journalist while he testified before Congress.

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi alleged he received an unannounced home visit from an agent on the same day he testified before the House Weaponization Subcommittee about the weaponization of the federal government and the Twitter files. The agent left a note for Taibbi to call the agency and was later told his 2018 and 2021 tax returns were rejected because of identity theft concerns.

Stewart confronted Yellen about her knowledge of the situation, noting it raises concerns.

“A couple of weeks ago we had a journalist before us, Matt Taibbi, who by the way is not a conservative, he is an independent journalist but is known to be progressive, to the left not to the right” Stewart said. “During the few hours that he’s appearing before Congress, an IRS agent appears at his home and leaves him a note. Are you familiar with this? Are you aware of this?”

“No, I’m not,” Yellen said.

“It’s been well reported and I could tell you more details but here it is: a journalist is appearing before Congress to talk about the weaponization of the federal government and during that time an IRS agent goes to his home. I gotta tell you, I have never heard of an IRS agent making appearances at someone’s home, short of them being under investigation for fraud” Stewart said.

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“You’re an economist, you’re a mathematician, what are the chances of that being just luck that the IRS appeared at someone’s home while he’s testifying about the weaponization of the federal government before Congress? Cause I think it’s minuscule, I think it’s one in a million or less. And you weren’t aware of that and now I told you about it, I need to ask, as direct oversight of the IRS, does that bother you?” (RELATED: ‘State-Sponsored Thought Policing’: Matt Taibbi Tells Congress About Vast Online Censorship Network)

“It’s certainly something I would want to look into, I’m not aware that IRS agents do that except as you said in cases where there’s an investigation for law breaking that’s underway,” Yellen said.

“It seems remarkable that this was a coincidence, this seems nearly impossible,” Stewart said.

Taibbi testified before Congress that there was extensive pressure on Twitter by government agencies, Democrats and outside groups to censor speech, which ultimately led to Twitter censoring the New York Post report about Hunter Biden’s laptop in October, 2020.