DAVID MARCUS: From IRS to FBI - alphabet agencies will destroy America - and time is running out

As Americans recover from the shock of revelations that the FBI opened a full blown, counter-intelligence investigation into Donald Trump's presidential campaign for no good reason – the IRS chimes in to say, 'hold my beer.'

On Friday morning, Gary Shapely, a 14 year-veteran of the Internal Revenue Service testified behind closed doors to Congress. He alleges that a sensitive political probe he was managing was impeded and interfered with by his superiors and, ultimately, the Department of Justice itself.

What case you ask?

It is reportedly none other than the five year-long probe into the shady finances of President Biden's star-crossed son, Hunter. Given its duration this must be the most complicated tax case in history, or maybe, just maybe, something else is afoot?

Here is what Shapely, who is still employed by the IRS, told CBS News: 'There were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice'.

'When I took control of this particular investigation,' he added, 'I immediately saw deviations from the normal process. It was way outside the norm of what I've experienced in the past.'

Are we honestly supposed to believe it's just a big coincidence that in a career spanning more than a decade the first time Shapely every witnessed this kind of special treatment is in a case against Hunter Biden?

What are the odds? Why in the world would such an inquiry be 'slow walked'?

On Friday morning, Gary Shapely, (above, left) a 14 year-veteran of the Internal Revenue Service testified behind closed doors to Congress.

Shapley alleges that a sensitive political probe he was managing was impeded and interfered with by his superiors and, ultimately, the Department of Justice itself.

We know that the tax-collecting leviathan can move quickly when it wants to. Just ask independent journalist Matt Taibbi.

Taibbi was just now revealed that on Christmas Eve 2022, a Saturday no less, a dubious IRS case was opened against him.

It just so happened that this was the exact same day that Taibbi released his ninth edition of The Twitter Files – a deeply reported dive into Twitter's internal coordination with U.S. law enforcement agencies and left-wing politicians and organizations to censor the speech of ordinary Americans.

Must have been a coincidence.

Though do you think you'd be able to get someone on the phone at the IRS on Christmas Eve?

And these strokes of serendipity don't end there.

Guess who ominously appeared on Taibbi's doorstep, just a few months later in March, on the same day that he was testifying before Congress about the federal government's game of footsie with the social media giant.

An IRS agent.

You'd assume that Matt was in deep trouble. But no, in the end we learned that it was the government who owed Taibbi money, not the other way around.

Even Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin, who oversees the FBI, found that a bit odd. 'I'm not aware that IRS agents do that except… in cases where there's an investigation for law breaking that's underway,' she told a House committee in March.

This isn't even subtle; semaphore flags couldn't send the message more clearly.

If you dare speak the truth, if you dare impugn government agencies there will be a target placed squarely on your back. But if you're one of them – well, kid gloves for you.

Of course, this is not new. But what is incredibly troubling – to the point of being existentially terrifying – is that the federal government seems completely unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

We all recall the targeting of conservatives and right-leaning organizations by the IRS during the Obama administration.

The IRS said it was just a mistake (another darn coincidence) that any organization applying for tax exempt status that had 'Tea Party' or 'patriots' in their titles were selected for extra scrutiny.

Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner took the fall and after that – we we're told – it would be all cleared up.

Taibbi (above) was just now revealed that on Christmas Eve 2022, a Saturday no less, a dubious IRS case was opened against him.

It is reportedly none other than the five year-long probe into the shady finances of President Biden's star-crossed son, Hunter.

How's that working for Matt Taibbi?

For their part, the FBI has also promised Americans that they made changes after a DOJ Inspector General's report revealed that government lawyers lied and mislead the powerful, secret FISA courts to obtain permission to spy on Trump campaign associates.

And after Special Counsel John Durham released his damning report into the FBI's slapdash handling of the bogus Russian collusion investigation, the FBI said – there's nothing to see here.

'Leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time,' their statement claimed.

But if that's the case, then why did we just learn that the agency improperly spied on Americans more than 278,000 times in 2021 alone?

All of this is still happening in plain sight. The claims of reform are clearly a laughable attempt to pat the American people on the head, as if we're good little children. Just believe what you're told, they say.

But we don't.

Increasingly, Americans are waking up to this corruption of our alphabet of agencies that somehow only seem to harm those on the right and help those on the left.

We want it fixed – permanently.

But not only do Biden and the Democrats have no interest in addressing corruption at the IRS, they want to spend $80 billion more to hire 87,000 tax agents.

Is it any wonder why Biden is flashing cash at the very organization that's alleged to be protecting his own son?

In no sane world would we give an agency with such a long history of malign bias so much as an extra dull penny, let alone tens of billions of dollars.

That is until and unless the rot at the core is cut out.

Is it any wonder why Biden is flashing cash at the very organization that's alleged to be protecting his own son?

This is why House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is right to demand that this ludicrous IRS windfall be clawed back in the debt ceiling negotiations.

This is not a swamp, but an ocean of corruption and McCarthy and Republicans know that the ship of state - and Americans' trust in it - is taking on water like the Titanic. There can be no more important issue to the country's future than getting these agencies, be it the IRS, the DOJ, the FBI or a host of others, cleaned up from the top down.

This is not just a few bad apples, it's a system of inequity. It's a culture of bias.

Every GOP candidate for president should put this at the top of their agenda, as Ron DeSantis did by promising to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray. Every candidate should lay out specific plans to restore basic fairness to a federal bureaucracy that in recent history has answered to nobody and nothing.

No more slow walking the cases of powerful Democrats, no more IRS agents knocking on the doors of political dissidents, no more raids on Mar-a-Lago, no more Catholics targeted in their churches by the DOJ, no more parents' license plates being recorded at school board meetings.

All of it has to stop now. Because honestly, if it doesn't it won't matter who we vote for, it won't matter what courts determine is or isn't legal, left unabated this tyranny of the unelected will destroy America.

There is still time to fix this. The sun has not yet set on a federal government that treats its citizens equally regardless of politics. But it's getting pretty dark, and the time for action is upon us.