A year ago, in his commencement address at Arizona State University, President Obama engaged in a little gallows humor. After ASU had decided not to give him an honorary degree, Obama joked about payback (at about the 1:17 point) for that slight, saying:

President Crow and the Board of Regents will soon learn about being audited by the IRS.

Of course, my working assumption is that he just told a joke in bad taste, similar to his threatening to use Predator drones on the Jonas brothers if they go after his daughters. But I don’t know the guy and he is, after all, the most powerful man in the world and, it’s apparent, someone who does not take well to criticism. So I’m wondering: has ASU been audited since his joke? And how would one find out? Also, have any reporters been willing to inquire around and find out if there has been an audit? Richard Nixon used the IRS to go after political enemies as did President Kennedy. After Nixon was “caught,” the president’s power to order such audits was reined in by Congress. But if a president jokes publicly about such things, there’s nothing stopping individual auditors at the IRS from going after the entity threatened, with no direct communication from the president.