House Republicans on Tuesday mercy-killed a resolution calling for the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, but did it their way, not the way most Democrats wanted to kill it off.
The resolution was put forward by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan, who argued Koskinen had not been forthcoming to Congress about an investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Jordan announced the impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and outlined four articles of impeachment against Koskinen, all revolving around the investigation into the IRS targeting.
After the resolution was proposed, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asked for the motion to be tabled. Lawmakers rejected her motion in a mostly party-line vote, 180-235.
Immediately afterwards, however, the House voted to approve a Republican motion to refer the resolution back to the Judiciary Committee. That proposal easily passed, 342-72, and while it had an air of keeping the resolution alive, the vote effectively killed the plan, since the House is expected to adjourn for the year by the end of this week.
Any new effort to impeach Koskinen would now require a new resolution in the new Congress that convenes next year.
The resolution against the embattle Koskinen cited “a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties,” including lawfully responding to congressional subpoenas into the targeting scandal, and not disclosing to Congress the destruction of thousands of emails related to the investigation.
Republican leaders were known to oppose the resolution since it could force the Senate to act on it, which might have blown up the GOP’s agenda. Next year, Republicans will have the first chance in 15 years to advance legislation in a Congress and White House led by their party.
They argued if the House votes to impeach Koskinen, the Senate would have to use up precious legislative days with a trial and vote on the matter.
“The majority of the House voted to refer this matter to the Judiciary Committee consistent with regular order because it would have triggered automatic consideration lasting into next year, filling up weeks of floor time and crippling our ability to hit the ground running on Trump administration confirmations and Obamacare repeal,” Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said.
Jordan announced the move this morning at a forum hosted by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. He offered four articles of impeachment, all surrounding Koskinen’s handling of the congressional and administrative probe into IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Jordan said his bloc of conservative lawmakers wanted to move ahead with the resolution after Republican leaders took no action.
“We have tried everything else,” Jordan said. “We have tried to get more hearings. We feel like when nothing is being done, that is why you have to have this privileged motion.”
But Freedom Caucus members said they believe the House does not even have to send the resolution to the Senate, and that the Senate would not be required to take up the impeachment resolution.
Some have said the resolution might be dropped if Koskinen agreed to resign. But Koskinen has made no move to leave his post, and his term expires Nov. 2017.
Republicans have been very critical of Koskinen’s tenure at the IRS. He arrived amid a scandal that revealed IRS employees were targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
But rather than aid the investigation, Republicans believe he hindered it and was not forthcoming about poor preservation of emails that were a critical part of the probe. Koskinen angered lawmakers, for instance, when he told them it was impossible to recover 24,000 missing IRS emails.
An inspector general ended up recovering many of the emails later on at a storage facility in West Virginia, making it seem like Koskinen did not adequately try to recover them.
Jordan, while reading the resolution, pointed to the recovered emails as evidence Koskinen did not do his job. Koskinen had confirmed to Congress there was no way to recover the lost emails and he had exhausted all efforts to recover backup tapes.
“Confirm means that somebody went back and made sure that any existing back up tapes had been recycled,” Jordan said.
