WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper joined U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and twelve of their Senate colleagues in investigating whether Frank Bisignano, Chief Executive Officer of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), misled Congress and the public about his agency’s staffing problems after the Trump administration gutted the IRS workforce.
“Earlier this year, you stated that the IRS had no additional staffing needs, despite the fact that the Trump Administration spent its first year in office firing or pushing out nearly 30,000 workers,” wrote the lawmakers. “But independent reports were telling a different story.”
The lawmakers continued: “This discrepancy requires an explanation. Under federal law, persons who ‘knowingly and willfully … make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation’ to Congress may be subject to penalties.”
New reporting reveals that the IRS is scrambling to hire thousands of new workers after the agency fired or pushed out nearly 30,000 workers last year — more than a fourth of its staff.
Bisignano has repeatedly defended the cuts, telling Fox News in April 2026 that there was “no staffing shortage” at the IRS and that the agency was “driving customer service to the best season we’ve ever had.” In May, he also told Congress that he had “zero staffing concerns.”
Independent reports tell a different story. In January, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) warned that staffing shortages were serious and could impact customer service at the IRS. The National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent watchdog, found that during this filing season, phone wait times more than doubled and that taxpayers struggled to get help with refunds or answers to their questions.
Notably, new reporting also revealed that in February 2026 — before Mr. Bisignano testified before Congress that there were no staffing issues — the IRS’ chief human capital officer warned that a staff shortage was affecting the agency’s ability to process tax returns and had created a massive backlog of tax forms and communications. Subsequently, “(t)he IRS ultimately requested, and received, special authority to hire 8,000 employees on an expedited basis.”
Read the full text of the letter HERE.
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