John Koskinen, the new IRS commissioner, is on the hot seat and would do well to follow the example of Johnnie Mac Walters, who held the same post when President Nixon occupied the Oval Office. After Nixon aide John Dean handed Walters an envelope with a list of some 200 individuals the president considered political enemies, Walters refused to go along with the request for audits. He locked the list in his safe without ever opening the envelope. He subsequently gave the envelope to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Considering Nixon’s paranoid penchant for revenge, Walters’ decision to defy him was not without risk.
Nixon wasn’t the first president to try to use the federal tax agency as a political weapon, and President Obama surely won’t be the last chief executive to do so. That is why what Koskinen does in coming months is crucial to restoring the agency’s credibility as an uncompromisingly nonpartisan arm o
