Treasury Dept. turns to high schools, colleges to groom students to become armed special agents

08/21/2022 / By JD Heyes

As Democrats celebrate their recent legislative victory — another massive spending bill that is laughingly referred to as the “Inflation Reduction Act” — critics have glommed onto a portion of the measure that should frighten every taxpayer in the country, regardless of which political party they support.

The bill contains the first funding for hiring, over the course of the next 10 years, 87,000 new IRS employees, many of whom will become armed enforcement agents as our spendthrift government plans to clamp down on virtually all earners in order to service the massive $30 trillion-plus debt Congress and presidents for decades have wracked up.

And the Treasury Department, under which the IRS falls, has already established a recruitment program that essentially grooms older high school and college students to become agency enforcers.

American Military News reports:

For years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has run a recruitment program called the Adrian Project during which high school and college students are given tactical vests and fake guns to carry out mock arrests of individuals who are wanted for tax-related crimes.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) brought renewed attention to the IRS this week amid criticism over the IRS’s plan to hire 87,000 new agents, who are expected to carry guns, and conduct criminal investigations and arrests. Massie also tweeted a video showing the IRS demonstrating its criminal investigation activities to college students on campus via the Adrian Project.

In case you thought the IRS needed 87,000 more agents to help you with your tax returns and audit billionaires, watch this: Highlights from the IRS Adrian recruiting project.

Link to original video: https://t.co/jgCluHuvvM pic.twitter.com/QXlHmDBR6D

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) August 17, 2022

The IRS website goes on to point out that students involved with the Adrian Project are “‘sworn in’ as special agents” before donning protective vests, fake guns, handcuffs and radios to engage in a mock case and suspect takedown.

“The students sharpen their forensic accounting skills and are introduced to interviewing suspects, conducting surveillance and document analysis. The day ends when the students solve the crime and arrest the mock offender,” says the website.

Dixie State University hosted the program in April, American Military News reported, and it involved students acting through an arrest for a suspect who was wanted for allegedly evading taxes. In one scenario students faced, they took down the owner of a small landscaping company.

WATCH:

Indiana State University and Walsh College in Michigan also hosted the program in 2019, the outlet reported, noting that the special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Division then said that the project helps “get the message out” about the Internal Revenue Service’s role in enforcing tax laws.

According to a video posted in 2018, Rowan University in New Jersey also hosted the program. In the video, students are using fake handguns to arrest a man suspected of being a tax cheat.

“I like that it’s not just bookkeeping. We learned how to carry firearms. We learned how to enter a room,” Jose Paredes, an accounting major at the time, ” said in the video.

Massie, in a separate tweet, essentially put the lie to the Democrats’ claims that thousands of new enforcement agents were being hired in order to go after the wealthiest Americans.

“Notice the scenario in this IRS recruiting program is taking down a landscape business owner who failed to properly report how he paid for his vehicles,’ not ‘taking down a billionaire who uses the corporate jet for private trips,'” Massie tweeted.

Notice the scenario in this IRS recruiting program is “taking down a landscape business owner who failed to properly report how he paid for his vehicles,” not “taking down a billionaire who uses the corporate jet for private trips.”pic.twitter.com/QXlHmDCoWb

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) August 19, 2022