Just days after the Department of Justice announced that there would be no charges in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax exempt scandal, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee has decided that’s not enough. Today, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) introduced a resolution to begin impeach proceedings against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
You can read the resolution here (downloads as a pdf).
Chaffetz said about the resolution:
Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust. He failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena, documents were destroyed on his watch, and the public was consistently misled. Impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress. This action will demonstrate to the American people that the IRS is under repair, and signal that Executive Branch officials who violate the public trust will be held accountable.
He went on to say that Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust in the following ways:
Failed to comply with a subpoena resulting in destruction of key evidence. Commissioner Koskinen failed to locate and preserve IRS records in accordance with a congressional subpoena and an internal preservation order. The IRS erased 422 backup tapes containing as many as 24,000 of Lois Lerner’s emails – key pieces of evidence that were destroyed on Koskinen’s watch.
Failed to testify truthfully and provided false and misleading information. Commissioner Koskinen testified the IRS turned over all emails relevant to the congressional investigation, including all of Ms. Lerner’s emails. When the agency determined Ms. Lerner’s emails were missing, Commissioner Koskinen testified the emails were unrecoverable. These statements were false.
Failed to notify Congress that key evidence was missing. The IRS knew Lois Lerner’s emails were missing in February 2014. In fact, they were not missing; the IRS destroyed the emails on March 4, 2014. The IRS did not notify Congress the emails were missing until June 2014 – four months later, and well after the White House and the Treasury Department were notified.
Chaffetz is, of course, referring to those missing emails, a number of which the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) says had not been turned over to Congress until early 2015.
(For a timeline of the IRS scandal, with links to previous stories, click here.)
Chaffetz claims that impeachment is needed to “restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the senior Democrat on the committee, called the proceedings “ridiculous.” Cummings suggested entertaining the resolution was additionally wasteful, noting that the IRS has already spent $20 million and 160,000 employee hours to comply with requests for information. Those requests for information didn’t result in criminal charges but the standard for impeachment is not the same and a criminal trial is not required. The result of an impeachment is not jail time but removal from office.
To get things moving, the resolution will go to the House Judiciary Committee. If the resolution makes it out of Committee, it moves to the whole House where it must be approved by a simple majority before moving to the Senate. So far, eighteen members of the House have co-sponsored the bill. They are: Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Paul A. Gosar (R-AZ), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Jody Hice (R-GA), Gary Palmer (R-AL), Mark Walker (R-NC), Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Steve Russell (R-OK), Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA), Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Cynthia M. Lummis (R-WY), Will Hurd (R-TX), Justin Amash (R-MI), Michael R. Turner (R-OH) and Thomas Massie (R-KY).
How much sway Chaffetz has over the rest of the Republican party is yet to be determined. Chaffetz announced earlier this month that he intended to run for Speaker of the House.
