Democrats lost another round of their favorite game, "Stop Donald Trump From Doing Anything," when the Senate Finance Committee shot down their amendment on a party-line vote of 14 to 13, as Conservative Brief reported. The amendment was designed to block a proposal from the Trump administration that would limit specific IRS audit procedures involving the president and his family members. And just like that, the party that built its entire 2024 campaign around being anti-Trump is still running on fumes of pure opposition two years later.
Here is where it gets interesting. After rejecting that amendment, the committee turned around and passed the larger tax administration bill by a vote of 26 to 1. The lone holdout? Elizabeth Warren, who apparently decided the whole thing was rotten because it failed to address Trump's audit situation. Warren declared she could not support legislation that, in her words, rubber stamps corruption. Of course, Trump has never been charged with corruption, and Warren provided zero specifics to back up that spicy accusation. But hey, why let details ruin a good sound bite?
Committee Chairman Mike Crapo from Idaho argued that stuffing the Democratic amendment into this bill would have torpedoed the entire package, which contains over 60 mostly boring but useful provisions to improve how the IRS operates. He basically told everyone this was not the appropriate venue for that fight and warned it would turn a bipartisan piece of legislation into a partisan grenade with a much dimmer chance of ever becoming law.
The backstory here involves an IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn who pleaded guilty to stealing Trump's tax returns and leaking them to The New York Times. He also handed billionaire tax info from Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos over to ProPublica back in 2018. Littlejohn said he was acting for the public good while fully aware he was committing a crime, which is a bold legal strategy. He received five years behind bars and a five thousand dollar fine in January 2024.
The administration rolled out its proposed audit policy back in May after Trump agreed to drop what officials described as a lawsuit against the IRS that was unlikely to succeed. In exchange, certain audit limitations would apply to Trump and family members. Some Republicans have also raised eyebrows over this, including Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who wants protections narrowed to only the people named in the lawsuit and only covering returns already filed, not future ones. Cornyn says acting Attorney General Todd Blanche agreed to those limits during his confirmation hearing but wants the commitment formalized on paper.
The Senate Judiciary Committee even postponed a vote on Blanche's nomination while Cornyn and White House officials keep hashing things out. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, another Republican who has voiced concerns, said he believes the administration is negotiating in good faith to resolve the issue. So even within the GOP, there is some healthy skepticism, which is refreshing in a town where blind loyalty usually wins the day.
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