Former President Donald Trump repeatedly told former White House chief of staff John Kelly that he wanted the Internal Revenue Service to investigate his political enemies, Kelly told The New York Times.   

  Among the people Trump wanted to “let the IRS in on” were former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Kelly told the paper.   

  “I would say, ‘It’s inappropriate, it’s illegal, it’s against their integrity, and the IRS knows what they’re doing and it’s not a good idea,'” Kelly told Trump, according to the Times.   

  “Yeah, but they write bad things about me,” Trump replied, according to Kelly.   

  McCabe and Comey, both staunch Trump critics, were eventually singled out by the Internal Revenue Service for an intensive tax audit.  The Times noted earlier this year that the odds of a person being selected for the audit are about one in 30,600, raising questions about how two of Trump’s most visible critics were both chosen.   

  The IRS denied any “politically motivated audits” in a statement to CNN earlier this year, and Kelly told the Times that she believes she guided Trump not to seek such investigations during his tenure as chief of staff.   

  But IRS chief Charles Rettig asked a watchdog to investigate the decision to audit the couple earlier this year.   

  McCabe, now a CNN law enforcement analyst, was one of the central leaders of the early Russia probe that dogged Trump advisers and questions about whether the then-president had obstructed justice.   

  In March 2018, two days before McCabe’s scheduled retirement date, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired him from the FBI.   

  Trump and Comey had a similarly tumultuous relationship.  In a stunning move, Trump fired Comey as FBI director in May 2017, prompting the appointment of a special counsel.  Trump called Comey a “liar” and a “hack” and suggested his actions were treasonous.  Comey blasted Trump as a stain on American democracy.   

  “It just defies logic to think there’s not another factor involved,” McCabe told CNN’s Laura Coates in July about his alleged random selection for the audit, which he called an “incredibly strict” and “disastrous” one. procedure.  .   

  “I think it’s a reasonable question.  I think it should be investigated.  People have to be able to trust the institutions of government and that’s why there have to be some – we have to dig into it and find out what happened,” he continued.