The IRS really must have wanted to investigate Matt Taibbi, the Twitter Files journalist.

Records produced to Congress show that the tax agency opened an examination of Mr. Taibbi’s 2018 return last Christmas Eve, according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

The records also show that Mr. Taibbi was able to resolve the tax issue quickly, did not owe the IRS anything and in fact was due a “substantial refund,” Mr. Jordan said Wednesday in a new letter demanding answers from the IRS.

The IRS opened its probe of Mr. Taibbi just three weeks after he published his first Twitter Files account of government officials colluding with Twitter to shut down voices of dissent. Mr. Taibbi, who is far from a conservative journalist, quickly became a hero to the right and deepened a growing rift with those on the political left.

The IRS investigation struck a chord, with the Treasury Department struggling to explain why it sent an agent to make a house call at his home this year on the exact date that he was appearing before Congress to testify on his Twitter Files work.

Mr. Jordan said the IRS has failed to produce key records, but what it has revealed to the committee, with Mr. Taibbi’s assent, is disturbing. Mr. Jordan said an IRS agent assigned to the case did extensive research before the home visit, including looking at his voter registration records, whether he had a concealed weapons permit and whether he had a hunting or fishing license.