This Congress will impeach Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen, Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of the House Oversight Committee, told a group of students from the Young America’s Foundation Saturday.
“It is something that has to be done,” said the Ohio Republican. “If we don’t hold some people accountable in the executive branch for the executive overreach we’ve seen in [the Obama] administration, then they’ll never get the message.”
The audience applauded his call for removing Koskinen, the IRS chief presiding over the aftermath of the tax agency’s conservative targeting scandal.
The House is going to pursue impeachment because there needs to be consequences for the egregious behavior of the IRS and “we think it’s critical to preserving fundamental freedom, fundamental rights,” said Jordan.
Lois Lerner, the central figure at the heart of the IRS’ targeting scandal, “did what a lot of people do when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar; she tried to lie,” said Jordan. “She said it wasn’t me; it wasn’t Washington; it was the folks in Cincinnati” that directed the IRS’ illegal targeting of conservative groups.
Lerner said “it was those rogue agents in Cincinatti; a complete lie,” he said. Then she took the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself in front of the House Oversight Committee when she was brought in for questioning.
“When you have the central figure lie, and then take the Fifth, it kind of puts a premium on getting the documents, the records, the communications for what went on here,” said Jordan.
In the aftermath of the investigation, the IRS issued a preservation order requiring all communications be preserved.
But despite all this, in March 2014 the IRS destroyed 422 backup tapes containing as many as 24,000 emails, the Treasury Department inspector general found.
Many of the emails the IRS destroyed probably “belonged to Lois Lerner,” said Jordan, even though Koskinen repeatedly told the House Committee that he would provide all the records.
What Koskinen promised “was a complete lie,” said Jordan. “Because you can’t give us all the information if you’ve done destroyed 24,000 emails.”
