Chaffetz to Obama: Fire the IRS Commissioner
“At best, Commissioner Koskinen was derelict in his duties…”
Yesterday, House Oversight committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) wrote a detailed letter to President Obama asking him to remove IRS chief John Koskinen from office.
“Detailed” is an understatement. Chaffetz’s 29-page request reasserts Congress’ efforts to investigate the IRS’s targeting of taxpayers on the basis of their political beliefs, and describes in detail how Koskinen’s actions have obstructed that investigation. The letter accuses Koskinen of refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena, failing to testify truthfully, and failing to preserve and produce up to 24,000 e-mails the Oversight committee deemed relevant to its investigation.
Via Fox News:
“Mr. Koskinen should no longer be the IRS commissioner,” Chaffetz said in prepared remarks for a Capitol Hill press conference announcing his request. “At best, Commissioner Koskinen was derelict in his duties to preserve agency records. At worst, he and the IRS engaged in an orchestrated plan to hide information from Congress.”
“The record is clear that the IRS and Commissioner Koskinen have been cooperative and truthful with the numerous investigations underway,” the IRS said in a statement. “The agency has produced more than one million pages of documents in support of the investigations, provided 52 current and former employees for interviews and participated in more than 30 Congressional hearings on these issues.”
Chaffetz is also spending some energy spreading the word on social media:
24,000 #LoisLerner emails destroyed by #IRS #IRSfail pic.twitter.com/9FiiLTQ4OZ
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) July 27, 2015
This request has been a long time coming. Koskinen has a history of lashing out at lawmakers during hearings, and walking back promises to disclose material relevant to the investigation into the IRS’s practices.
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Comments
It’s past time to start impeaching members of the Obami.
Koskinen and sKerry should be right at the top of the batting order.
Of course, the Congress can vote impeachment on a simply majority vote.
Why would they want to treat their buddies (read fellow conspirators) that way?
WTH are you talking about? What could the Republicans do that they aren’t doing?
Sorry Rags, but you’re living in a dream world. Cryin’ boner and that (insert vulgar name for a female body part here) Chaffetz are all talk and no action. The House has the power to impeach these people, and/or cut off their funding. But actually doing their Constitutional duty is “off the table” according to these two clowns.
How old are you, ten? Your mommy is calling you.
Impeaching someone without convicting them would be just another symbolic gesture, of no practical effect, just like all the gestures that you claim are not enough. So how would you be satisfied with impeachment?
And they can’t cut off funding for just one thing, without also cutting it off for the whole government. 0bama would jump at an excuse to shut the government down again and blame it on them, just as he did last time, and just as Clinton did.
To what end? The emotional gratification of the angriest conservatives?
What an amazingly stupid question.
Why do we put felons on trial?
Yeah. ALLLLLLLLL those reasons.
No prosecutor puts a felon on trial unless he believes he can obtain a conviction.
” The letter accuses Koskinen of refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena, failing to testify truthfully, and failing to preserve and produce up to 24,000 e-mails the Oversight committee deemed relevant to its investigation.”
They want him fired for doing the job he was hired to do?
I’m sure Chaffetz is sharp enough to know all this.
The Infernal Refutation Service is hell bent on hiding the truth of their partisan ways from the American public.
It is way past time to remove the liability of the IRS from the books.
Koskinen is an evil chap, but the real villain in the story was Doug Shulman. In his nearly 18 months as IRS Commissioner, all the plans were formed and executed to deprive conservative and Tea Party-related organizations of tax-exempt status.
Shulman visited the White House at least 108 times, on average 6 times a month. In sworn testimony before Congress, he said he could not recall either who he met at the White House or the purpose of his visit – on ANY of those 108 occasions. Shulman was the architect; Lerner was the engineer.
Is he the guy who said he went to the White House (merely) for the Easter Egg Roll?
I seem to remember a certain Republican President that was forced to resign, in part, over allegations that he used the IRS to target his political enemies. The current President and the people that work for him not only practice this law breaking exercise, but actually brag about it. Yet the eunuchs that run the Republican Congress (House and Senate) have done nothing about the law breaking and in some cases actually support it.
Allegations that he tried to use the IRS. It wasn’t even alleged that he actually did so.
That was never proven in a court of law.
Huh? That makes no sense at all. Explain yourself.
Waste of paper and words.
This administration won’t ever do that. This tool is where he is for just this reason – and he will ONLY be thrown under the bus when they find him no longer helpful or effective where he is.
The best answer: ABOLISH THE IRS! Flat tax, restructure any federal tax bureau to be managing that alone – with no power, given how they’ve abused the privilege.
By your own standards, your proposal is also a waste of paper and words. 0bama will never agree to that either, so how is it better than Chaffetz’s letter? Or are you under the impression that Congress can somehow do this without 0bama’s consent?
Calm down, Republican apologists. We get it, we get it. The GOP can do nothing. Nobody expects the GOP to do anything anymore. It’s all good.
Henry, I talked to the GOP today and they said holding the majorities in both the House and the Senate just isn’t enough. They are powerless against the executive branch. Sure, that’s not what they said before the 2014 midterm elections, and yes, they’ve caved on practically everything since in the belief that voters prefer cowards who avoid losing by never fighting over those who’ve honestly fought and lost, but their implication is very clear: what the GOP establishment is now telling us is that they are powerless unless they hold all three branches of government. The House and Senate are not enough. They do not seem to understand how that identifies them as complete political weaklings – and moral cowards.
So, let’s take it easy on the GOP establishment and their supporters. Living life as bipedal invertebrates cannot be easy.
Why don’t you tell us what you think they could be doing and aren’t. Tell us how majorities in both houses can pass legislation that the president and more than 1/3 of each house oppose.
As I’ve stated, it’s all good. We get it. The GOP is powerless, clueless, has no idea how to proceed. We accept that. The GOP establishment and its supporters have made it abundantly clear.
Now is when you post “he didn’t explain to the GOP how they can fight Obama!” and declare victory.
Why don’t you tell us what you think the GOP could be doing, that would have any effect?
It appears the the eGOP has mastered the Chamberlain version of “The Art Of War”.
They seem to almost effortlessly obtain defeat without fighting a battle.
Kind of a model of efficiency, innit…???
So what do you think the GOP could do, that would be more than mere words and gestures? How can the GOP do anything the president really dislikes, without the numbers to override his veto?
Fight.
You know that word, right?
Yes, I know the word. I have no idea what you mean by it in this context. Fighting is not doing somethint, it’s attempting to do something, and if there’s no way to do it then fighting is just a useless gesture, of exactly the kind that you are condemning. Tell me what you expect Republicans to actually do. If there is nothing they can do, and they are reduced to gestures, why condemn them for those?