Speaker of the House Mike Johnson talks to President Donald Trump following the Annual Friends of Ireland Luncheon in Washington DC on Wednesday. Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI |
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March 13 (UPI) — The Trump administration has demoted its top Internal Revenue Service lawyer and replaced him after the Department of Government Efficiency received pushback while trying to obtain confidential taxpayer information.
William Paul, the IRS’ chief legal counsel, was removed from his position and is expected to be replaced by another IRS attorney, Andrew De Mello, who was nominated to be the Education Department’s inspector general during President Donald Trump‘s first administration, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Paul had been overseeing the IRS’s legal issues since he was appointed near the end of the Biden administration when his predecessor stepped down.
Nearly 7,000 probationary IRS employees who had been working for the agency for a year or less were laid off last month. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday night ordering the administration to reinstate probationary federal employees across a dozen departments and six federal agencies.
