On Friday, the House of Representatives is expected to authorize the hiring of 87,000 armed IRS investigators, supposedly to pursue corporate and wealthy tax-cheats.

In fact, under President Biden, this doubling of that agency’s current workforce of 90,000 employees will amount to a huge new cohort empowered to use not only unwarranted audits to intimidate and penalize perceived political foes. Recent events suggest they’ll also constitute a vast paramilitary force available to perpetrate the sorts of raid mounted at President Trump’s home earlier this week.

Some Democratic partisans are quibbling about the use of the term “raid” to characterize what went down at Mar-a-Lago. Ask yourself: If 40 federal agents wielding weapons and a search warrant they won’t let you see came to your house, what would you call it – aside from a terrifying violation of your constitutional rights?

This is Frank Gaffney.