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A bitcoin investor who went to increasingly great lengths to hide $1 million in cryptocurrency gains on his tax returns was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday.

It seems that not even his most "sophisticated" tactics—including using mixers, managing multiple wallets, and setting up in-person meetings to swap bitcoins for cash—kept the feds from tracing crypto trades that he believed were untraceable.

The Austin, Texas, man, Frank Richard Ahlgren III, started buying up bitcoins in 2011. In 2015, he upped his trading, purchasing approximately 1,366 using Coinbase accounts. He waited until 2017 before cashing in, earning $3.7 million after selling about 640 at a price more than 10 times his initial costs. Celebrating his gains, he bought a house in Utah in 2017, mostly funded by bitcoins he purchased in 2015.

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EXCLUSIVE: The incoming chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is pledging a thorough accounting of how taxpayer dollars have been used by the State Department when he takes the reins of the influential panel next year.

Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., is expected to take the helm from current Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who is term-limited.

"When you're dealing with the State Department, it is dollars going to foreign companies, foreign countries, foreign NGOs and, like Afghanistan, foreign adversaries – the Taliban. And that needs – to have to use a word out there – a colonoscopy, to say the least," Mast told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

"That will be the focus of the committee. That will be the focus of each and every subcommittee – is getting into each of the branches of the bureaus across the State Department, working with [Trump Secretary of State nominee Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.], of course, and … really having a way to put sunlight on this in a way that this [Biden] administration did not allow."

GENERAL INVOLVED IN AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL HAS PROMOTION CONFIRMED BY SENATE

Mast said he wants the State Department to be required to notify Congress of each grant it issues, "So we have eyes on where you're sending these dollars, to third-party and fourth-party and fifth-party places abroad, and be able to [say], ‘No, that's not one that we're going to authorize.’"

The decorated Afghanistan war veteran won a crowded four-way race to succeed McCaul as the top Republican on the House committee overseeing the State Department and U.S. foreign relations.

He’s been in Congress for less time than the Republicans he ran against, but Mast has stood out as one of Trump’s most crucial allies in the 2024 presidential campaign.

Mast led the Veterans For Trump coalition and was a surrogate at several events related to service members.

The Florida Republican is also notably less hawkish on Ukraine than two of the Republicans he ran against: Reps. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., and Joe Wilson, R-S.C., as well as McCaul.

TALIBAN BANS WOMEN 'HEARING OTHER WOMEN'S VOICES' IN LATEST DECREE

Like Trump, he’s critical of continued U.S. aid to Ukraine and has voted against supplemental funding in the past.

"President Trump wants Ukraine to have victory. He wants this to absolutely be a reprimand [of] the actions of Russia and [President] Vladimir Putin, and he wants to bring this to an end promptly. He has a plan for doing that. He will execute that, and he will have every bit of my support in doing that as the authorizing side of foreign affairs for the House," Mast said.

He also pointed out his deep relationships with the Trump administration, including ties to Rubio and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., the incoming national security adviser.

Asked if his ties to Trump were part of his argument to win the gavel, Mast said that it "certainly was."

But his overall aim for the committee, Mast said, would be based on the principle of "Every diplomat and every dollar puts America first."

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"If you're a diplomat that's out there apologizing for America and not putting America first, you're going to be under our microscope. That's for sure. And I hope that has a chilling effect on them," Mast said while pointing out that Rubio would likely be a partner in that goal.

"But as we all know, when our colleagues get these opportunities to take over these agencies … you go in there with years and years and years of decades-long employees there that maybe are not ideologically aligned. Well, guess what? If you were one of the 15 people that were signing on to spending half a million American taxpayer dollars on atheism, then you should know that we're looking for you."

Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., excoriated Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the estimated "tens of billions" of U.S. taxpayer dollars he says have been sent to the Taliban since U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. 

Mast, who was selected a day earlier to become the new chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee next month, grilled Blinken over the Biden administration's handling of the chaotic August 2021 withdrawal. 

The current committee chair, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, issued multiple subpoenas in September for Blinken to testify. Under threat of a contempt of Congress vote, he finally agreed. 

Mast asked the U.S.' top diplomat if he had been in Afghanistan since the killing of 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians by a suicide bombing attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport's Abbey Gate, and Blinken responded that he had not. Noting that the United States no longer has control of the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan, Mast said, "yet we are still giving the Taliban tens of billions of dollars." 

"There's an American citizen out there, literally woke up this morning losing 30% of their paycheck. And a good percentage of that is going to the Taliban or other programs abroad," Mast said. "And this is something that we all need to think about, and we will be thinking about deeply for the next two years. There's a joke that's made often out there about kids going to college to learn basket weaving, and what a joke that would be. But the United States right now is literally sending tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban. 14.9 million, to be exact, to teach Afghans how to do carpet weaving." 

GENERAL INVOLVED IN AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL HAS PROMOTION CONFIRMED BY SENATE

"We are giving $280 million to the United Nations to do cash transfers for food in Afghanistan," Mast continued. "Yet we're not sending an ear of corn from Iowa, a sack of potatoes from Idaho, or a cucumber or an orange from Florida. And that discounts the fact that there's no American tonnage going through our ports to send those things out of here, either. It's just cash transfers." 

Citing reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which tracks the status of U.S. funds appropriated for reconstruction efforts, Mast said another $75 million has been sent to teach women to become farmers. 

"I don't believe that we spend $30 million in the United States of America to teach women to be farmers," Mast said. 

Earlier, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., stressed how since Afghanistan fell to the Taliban "women have effectively been banished from public life, unable to speak in public or holding a job, including nursing." 

"My colleague Mr. Wilson brought up that they can't even dance in the streets or speak to one another or go to school. I'm not sure that we can trust that that $75 million is being used to teach them agriculture," Mast said. "And as you pointed out, we don't have any diplomats on the ground to confirm the validity of these programs." 

Mast also asked Blinken to explain the $3.5 billion transferred to the Afghan fund "that is tended to protect the macro financial stability on behalf of the Afghan people." 

TALIBAN BANS WOMEN 'HEARING OTHER WOMEN'S VOICES' IN LATEST DECREE

"What the hell does that mean? Can you tell me? I don't know, that's a bunch of gibberish to me," Mast pressed. "Even worse, by the numbers, we spent $9 billion to resettle 90,000 roughly Afghan refugees here since the fall of Afghanistan. My simple Army math tells me that's about $100,000 a person. That's absurd. So my question for you. We do not even have an embassy in Afghanistan. We have no diplomats there. What are we doing giving them $1?" 

Blinken's response centered on how the money the United States and other countries provide is implemented through partners, such as United Nations agencies and NGOs. 

"Yes, we could say that about all the State Department dollars, foreign NGOs, foreign countries, foreign companies, and in this case, foreign adversaries," Mast interjected. 

"Mr. Secretary, you know for a fact that people literally, especially outside of this country, they directly lied to us," Mast said. "Your people had to come back and correct. Hey, it turns out we were, in fact, spending half a million dollars to expand atheism in Nepal. through the third party implementer of Humanist International. They were lying to us. They didn't show us the exact slide show that they put together for half a million dollars. And all this, they lied to us. We have no eyes on the ground. And I would simply close with this. We again, we do not even have an embassy there. We have no business putting one dollar into that place." 

Mast was referencing how a two-year investigation by House Republicans forced the State Department to admit that a $500,000 grant intended to promote "humanism and secularism" in Nepal may have been misused. 

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In response, Blinken said he respectfully disagreed with Mast's opposition to the Afghan funds, saying, "The work we have done through these partners, and many other countries have done, has saved many, many lives in an incredibly difficult situation." 

• The IRS has gradually rolled out a program to allow Americans to directly file taxes with the IRS.
• It's designed to make filing taxes simpler and easier.
• A group of Republicans want Trump to end it, saying it's government overreach.

More than two dozen House Republicans are asking President-elect Donald Trump to terminate the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) free direct tax filing system as soon as day one of his presidency.

Republican Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina sent a letter to the president-elect on Tuesday urging him to end the program via executive order, saying that the program poses a "threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach."

The letter was signed by 27 other Republicans and is also addressed to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-leads of DOGE.

The program came about as the result of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $15 million in funding to study the creation of a website allowing Americans to directly file their taxes to the IRS for free. That led to the rollout of a pilot program that was available in 12 states last year, and is set to expand to 24 states in 2025.

A spokesperson for the IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many Americans rely on tax-prep companies like TurboTax and H&R Block to do their taxes each year. The new program is designed to compete with those programs and make filing easier and less costly for Americans.

Smith and Edwards argued in their letter that the program represents a conflict of interest for the IRS — that the agency should not be in charge of both assessing taxes and enforcing tax crimes. The duo wrote that the agency "has little incentive to ensure hardworking Americans do not pay more than they owe in taxes."

They also cast the free direct-file program as an example of the "weaponization of government against Americans," a long-standing focus of Trump and MAGA-aligned right.

It is unclear whether Trump will take the lawmakers up on their request, and the Trump-Vance transition did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Republicans have broadly sought to roll back the $80 billion in additional funding for the IRS that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, saying it will be used to enable the agency to target conservatives and ordinary taxpayers.

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FIRST ON FOX: A senior GOP lawmaker is getting creative with his campaign to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee next year.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., is giving fellow lawmakers chips from the Berlin Wall, according to a photo provided by a source to Fox News Digital.

An inscription accompanying the chip suggests Wilson got the pieces himself nearly 35 years ago, an indirect affirmation of his decades of foreign affairs work. "This symbolizes the collapse of totalitarian communism and the success of democratic capitalism," the elaborate display reads.

JOHNSON BLASTS DEM ACCUSATIONS HE VOWED TO END OBAMACARE AS 'DISHONEST'

It said the chip was "secured by State Senator Joe Wilson on June 12, 1990, at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany."

"Sen. Wilson was returning from service as a member of the U.S. Observation Delegation of the June 10, 1990, parliamentary elections in the Republic of Bulgaria, that country's first free elections after 59 years of Nazi and Communist dictatorship," it said.

Wilson told Fox News Digital the chips "serve as important symbols of Peace through Strength." His office also provided a photo of Wilson, then a state lawmaker, chipping portions of the Berlin Wall himself.

"This is a critical time and as Chair I am best positioned to work with President Trump to present a unified, conservative vision for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and American foreign policy," he said of his candidacy.

The race for the House Foreign Affairs Committee gavel is one of the most critical happening ahead of the 119th Congress.

The role will be of particular importance in U.S. relations with the rest of the globe next year, when Republicans are set to control all the main levers of power in Washington, D.C.

REPUBLICANS PROJECTED TO KEEP CONTROL OF HOUSE AS TRUMP PREPARES TO IMPLEMENT AGENDA

Wilson is running against fellow committee members Reps. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif. The subcommittee chair for Oversight & Accountability, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., is also in the race.

Wilson is chair of the panel's subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.

Current Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is stepping aside in order to adhere to House Republicans' internal conference rules that mandate a lawmaker serve no more than three terms in the top spot on a committee.

MIKE JOHNSON WINS REPUBLICAN SUPPORT TO BE HOUSE SPEAKER AGAIN AFTER TRUMP ENDORSEMENT

"It has been an honor to serve as your Chairman and leader for the last six years," McCaul wrote to colleagues in a message obtained by Fox News Digital. "[O]ut of respect for the will of the Conference, I intend to abide by these rules and support new leadership."

"Serving as Chairman has truly been the most rewarding highlight of my career in Congress! I would like to thank all of you for your hard work and patriotism in confronting the major challenges we face across the Globe."

Fox News Digital reached out to Wilson's office for comment. 

The stage and screen star's hotly anticipated memoir is hitting shelves spring 2026 and now there's a TV version coming, too

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