The New York Times reported today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) “is said to be considering whether to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status” after the Trump administration said it is cutting off $2.2 billion in federal funding for the university which refused to comply with a list of the government’s demands.
Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, responded to the report on X.
He wrote: “Any self-respecting Treasury Secretary would resign rather have the Department be complicit in the weaponization of the IRS against a political adversary of the President. Harvard will endure and it is far, far from perfect, but if this directive is not withdrawn, the Administration will have taken another substantial step away from the rule of law and democracy.”
Any self-respecting Treasury Secretary would resign rather have the Department be complicit in the weaponization of the IRS against a political adversary of the President. Harvard will endure and it is far, far from perfect, but if this directive is not withdrawn, the…
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) April 17, 2025
Summers added: “@SecScottBessent is derelict with respect to what may be his most important duty—maintaining law-based rights respecting our tax collection system. DOGE violating privacy rules, evisceration of enforcement capacity, politicization of leadership and now political intrusion into a specific taxpayer’s status.”
Summers also noted that fellow former Treasury Secretary “George Shultz met his test by facing down President Richard Nixon when his staff tried to interfere with the IRS. Tragic that @SecScottBessent has not protected the IRS.”
Note: President Richard Nixon threatened to fire Shultz if he tried to stop the Nixon from using the IRS to carry out political vendettas. In a recorded conversation in the Oval Office, Nixon also talked of having Shultz fire everyone at the IRS so he could install loyalists, “and if he doesn’t do it, he’s out as secretary of the Treasury. And that’s the way it’s going to be played.”
“An economist’s lag is a politician’s nightmare.” – George Shultz pic.twitter.com/JVsmpp4zLz
— Hunter
(@rhunterh) April 28, 2024