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:
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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