Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaks during the Ohio March for Life rally at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. Carolyn Kaster/AP

JD Vance says conservatives doing ‘effective work’ need to be ‘looking around your shoulder’

Asher Notheis November 21, 10:38 AM November 21, 10:38 AM Video Embed

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has warned that anyone who is doing “effective work” for the conservative movement needs to be “looking around your shoulder” for the Internal Revenue Service, which some politicians have accused of targeting conservatives.

Vance’s statement comes in the wake of a letter he and Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) sent to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, in which the two senators said they were concerned that a recent investigation by the group was politically motivated. The IRS had been investigating the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog group, which Vance said had been “extremely effective” at showing the past statements and views of nominees of the Biden administration.

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“What the IRS is trying to do is basically send a signal that if you are doing effective work on behalf of the conservative movement, you got to have your head on a swivel,” Vance said. “You got to be looking around your shoulder to make sure that the IRS isn’t going to come after you.”

JD Vance on Ingram Angle (11/20/2023)

Vance claimed that potentially politically motivated investigations by the IRS are “an assault on people’s First Amendment rights,” along with the United States government weaponizing itself against political opponents. The Ohio senator described this as “very dangerous” and called for others to “fight against this.”

The senator stated that he and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) tried to cut $14 billion out of additional IRS funding on the Senate floor a few days ago. However, every Democratic senator, along with “the so-called moderates,” voted to block the bill.

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“What we’re seeing here with the weaponization of the IRS is that no Democrat is willing to stand up and say enough is enough,” Vance claimed. “So long as you, with the one hand, give these guys tons of money, and with the other hand, empower them to target their political opponents, you’re going to have a fundamentally distorted political system, a lack of justice in this country. That is unfortunately what we have. We are trying to push back against it, Laura, but unfortunately, with Chuck Schumer and Democrats in the majority, there’s only so much that we can do.”

Prior to the bill being voted down in the Senate, Democrats implied that the bill would be dead on arrival. The $14 billion cut from the IRS was intended to be redirected to aid for Israel, which was attacked last month by the terrorist group Hamas.

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