Trump Picks Poker Player to Run the IRS

President-elect Donald Trump (R) has spent the previous few weeks placing collectively his cupboard and different roles inside authorities, one in every of which occurs to be an avid poker participant.

Billy Lengthy (R-Missouri) is Trump’s choose to go the Inside Income Service (IRS) after the incoming republican president takes workplace Jan. 20, 2025, 4 years after he was faraway from the place following a defeat by the hands of Joe Biden (D).

Lengthy’s Connection to Poker

Lengthy, a member of the U.S. Home of Representatives from 2011 to 2023, has fairly a historical past within the sport of poker. He solely has about $6,000 in recorded stay event cashes, based on The Hendon Mob. However he is been identified to play in native money video games typically for a few years and has entered World Poker Tour (WPT) occasions since he was ousted from Congress in 2022.

“Billy brings 32 years of expertise working his personal companies in Actual Property and, as one of many premier Auctioneers within the Nation,” Trump wrote on his Fact Social app. “He then served 12 years in Congress, as a result of he ‘felt it was essential for his constituents to have a Consultant who has signed the entrance of a verify!’

Lengthy, an auctioneer because the president-elect stated, will function the IRS commissioner, a place at the moment held by Danny Werfel, to not be confused with Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel. The incoming commissioner will seemingly information the IRS in a special course. Biden made efforts to extend the tax division’s auditing capabilities, to the dismay of conservatives.

Political consultants anticipate Trump’s administration will pull again on IRS funding, a center finger to the outgoing administration. However it’s unclear if Lengthy can be lenient on playing taxes given his poker background. The function of an IRS commissioner is to plan, direct, management, and consider IRS insurance policies, packages, and efficiency.

The presumed subsequent IRS commissioner went viral in 2019 throughout Trump’s impeachment proceedings when he confirmed up with a wad of money hanging out of his pocket (see picture above), as a Reddit person found. Maybe he’d simply smashed the native $1/$2 sport.

Lengthy’s poker ardour has been a subject of criticism from political opponents at instances. The Missouri native hosted a $1,000-per-person poker night time fundraiser in 2015, which angered some Democrats. One blogger on the time wrote that Lengthy “appears to spend as a lot time in Las Vegas as he does Springfield (MO) or Washington D.C.”