The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is set to hear testimony tonight from IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, in an evening hearing on the subject of Lois Lerner’s missing emails.
[This hearing has concluded. Full video will be posted when available].
Some clips from the hearing can also be viewed below. Remainder of the original post follows clips.
[Remainder of original post continues below]
This hearing of course comes on the heels of Koskinen’s testimony this past Friday before the House Ways and Means Committee, which is another congressional committee that has also been investigating the IRS targeting of conservative organizations.
The IRS recently released emails between Lerner and personnel from the IRS Information Technology Division, in which there was written correspondence concerning attempts to recover Lerner’s hard drive. Those emails showed that after attempts from “several highly skilled technicians, including HP experts,” the data on the hard drive still could not be recovered. The agency has indicated that Lerner’s emails in question were stored on her local computer and that the hard drive has since been “recycled then destroyed in the normal process” – claims that have only fueled ongoing skepticism and generated more questions about why such materials wouldn’t have been backed up.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent Koskinen a letter over the weekend with fifty questions ahead of tonight’s hearing.
When asked during a Monday morning appearance on FOX News what he considers to be the most critical question for Koskinen, Issa indicated he wants to know who made the decision to destroy the hard drive with any potential documents in question.
“The most critical [question] really has to do with, in fact, who made the decision to destroy the documents. Remember, a lawyer, Lois Lerner, is somebody who decided to put documents on that C drive, on her local drive. Can you believe for a moment that she didn’t make a backup copy? Or, if those were important documents to her, that she didn’t insist on greater steps being taken to try to recover them,” Issa said.
When asked whether he believes the IRS is hiding something, Issa pointed back to Lois Lerner and indicated he believes Lerner was acting on the president’s opposition to the Citizens United decision.
“Well, I believe Lois Lerner is hiding something,” Issa said. “I believe the Justice Department, the IRS and the White House are interested in her succeeding in hiding what she’s hiding, which is her targeting of conservative groups based on their ideology in support of the president’s war on Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that he didn’t like. He didn’t like it enough to basically chastise the Supreme Court in the House of Representatives. This is something that he vehemently opposes, and Lois Lerner acted on his opposition.”
Watch the full interview with Issa on FOX News below. (Video via Daily Caller)
[Featured image: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee video]
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