House Oversight and Government Reform Committee lawmakers sent a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder after a Justice Department official refused to testify about his role in the IRS’ inappropriate scrutiny of Tea Party groups.

The committee wants Richard Pilger, director of the election crimes branch at the Justice Department, to testify about his phone call to former IRS official Lois Lerner in which he asked Lerner how “DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applications who ‘lied’ on their 1024s – saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures,” as she recorded in an email after their conversation.