In 2019, the IRS notified former FBI director James Comey that his 2017 tax returns would be subjected to the agency's most rigorous type of audit. The odds of Comey being selected for that particular kind of audit — known among tax attorneys as "an autopsy without the benefit of death" — were 1 in 30,600.
Two years later, Comey's FBI deputy, Andrew McCabe, was notified by the IRS that his 2019 returns would undergo the type of audit as his former boss's. By then, the odds of that occurring were 1 in 19,250.
Trump was in the White House when both men were audited. And Trump hated them both. That, as far as I'm concerned, explains why both were audited.
Here's what I don't "know." We know the odds of Comey and McCabe being audited — 1 in 30,600 and 1 in 19,250. But what are the odds that both men so closely associated would be audited? All I do know is that the odds are staggering, far greater than the individual odds provided.
Is there a mathematician out there who would care to calculate this?
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I'm informed by reader Peter G. that the odds are 1 in 589 million. No Trumpian skulduggery here, right?