‘We have a problem with you, and you have a problem maintaining your credibility’: House Republicans slam IRS commissioner as they subpoena a White House lawyer in ‘missing emails’ case
- IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified Monday in a rare evening hearing, just days after being called a liar in another House proceeding
- He defended the IRS against insinuations that it covered up a political targeting scheme by burying inconvenient emails
- Republicans say Koskinen lied in March when he promised to deliver copies of ‘all’ of former official Lois Lerner’s communications even though he knew of a 2011 computer crash that destroyed 28 months’ worth
- He testified that the Treasury Department’s inspector general is investigating ‘Ms. Lerner’s computer crash three years ago’
- Lerner has been held in Contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about her part in a scheme to use the IRS to hamstring tea party groups
- House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa subpoenaed White House attorney Jennifer O’Connor on Monday to testify Tuesday morning
- O’Connor, former counsel to the then-acting IRS commissioner, was invited to testify but the White House Counsel’s office refused to let her testify
David Martosko
The Daily Mail [UK]
23 June 2014
Republicans dropped a hammer on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during a testy hearing covering the disappearance of emails tied to the agency’s tea party targeting scandal.
The emails, covering the period January 2009 to April 2011, belonged to embattled former official Lois Lerner and could shed light on whether an expansive scheme to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny was guided by members of Congress or administration officials outside the IRS.
‘The committee requested all of Lois Lerner’s emails over a year ago,’ said House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa. ‘And we subpoenaed the emails in August 2013 and again in February 2014. … You worked to cover up the fact they were missing and only came forward to fess up on a Friday afternoon after you had been caught red-handed.’
‘You personally did not cause the targeting,’ he told Koskinen, referring to the tea party scandal. ‘You personally did not destroy the emails. But by your actions and your deception, you now own this scandal.’
‘We have a problem with you,’ Issa sniped, ‘and you have a problem maintaining your credibility.’
Monday’s unusual evening hearing came as the result of a subpoena, and will continue Tuesday morning with a command performance from another Obama administration official…
The article continues, with video, at The Daily Mail.
H/T Jammie Wearing Fools
Update: Halperin: If we had a Republican President, IRS scandal would be “national obsession” (video)
Indeed it would, and Mark Halperin isn’t the only Morning Joe panelist that believes so. Jeff Dunetz at Truth Revolt picked up on Halperin’s observation, along with that of his Time Magazine colleague Bobby Ghosh, both of whom joined Joe Scarborough in calling out the bias and hypocrisy of the national media..
At Instapundit:
COORDINATION: How Did an IRS Official Know with Certainty that the Obama Campaign Would Continue One of Its Attacks? “In the email, IRS tax-exempt official Sarah Hall Ingram tells her cohorts, including Lois Lerner, about a coordinated media campaign against the Citizens United decision. Ingram praises that campaign, and demonstrates foreknowledge of what is to come.” The emails that came out are bad enough that the ones that were destroyed must have been really, really incriminating.
REMINDER: IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is Major Democratic Donor
Update 2: IRS Chief Koskinen Has Donated Big to Democrats Over the Years
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen looks like he got the job atop the taxman agency the old fashioned way: He bought it.According to the Washington Free Beacon, Koskinen has donated about $100,000 to Democrat candidates and committees since his first donation in 1979…
…Koskinen then tried to close out his argument saying enough evidence is in to dismiss the idea that the IRS scandal was a coverup directed from the White House. But Gowdy rejected that idea, and said it’s Democrats who are trying to say the GOP is “obsessed” with the White House when it was the White House that first intervened.
“It was Jay Carney that perpetuated the myth that it was two rogue agents in Ohio, it wasn’t any of us. Was that accurate?” Gowdy asked.
“Not that I know of,” Koskinen replied.
“So that was inaccurate and that came from the White House. Who said there’s not a smidgen of corruption?”
“My understanding is that was the president,” the commissioner answered.
“So that’s Jay Carney and the president both inserting themselves into the IRS scandal,” Gowdy said. “And you want to blame us for bringing the White house into it?”…
