Mid-July, 2006: Wilsons Audited by IRS; ‘Political Payback’ Suspected

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, have their 2004 tax returns audited by the IRS. Their accountant informs them that there was nothing in their returns that would have triggered an audit. In 2007, Plame Wilson will write: “I am not conspiratorially minded, but after talking to [our accountant] I really had dark thoughts about Nixonian ‘enemies lists’ (see June 27, 1973). Didn’t [former President] Nixon use the power of his office to unleash IRS audits on those he deemed to be his enemies (see August 9, 1972 and March 12, 1974)?… My concerns that we were the targets of yet another political attack were strengthened several months later when we learned that a journalist friend of ours had been also singled out for an audit. He had just published a book highly critical of the Bush administration and it felt like payback. But, then again, maybe the audits were just a strange coincidence.” The Wilsons’ audit turns up nothing. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 250-251]