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Impeaching the IRS Director
Wall Street Journal ^ | 10-27-15 | Editorial

Posted on 10/27/2015 1:51:20 PM PDT by TroutStalker

The IRS targeting and muzzling of conservative groups during the 2012 presidential campaign is an outrage for which almost no one has been held accountable. Which brings us to the news that House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz is introducing articles of impeachment on Tuesday against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Mr. Koskinen was not at the IRS during the targeting, but the former Freddie Mac executive has become the single greatest hurdle to public accountability. He was touted as a reformer in his 2013 confirmation hearings. Instead he has helped the Administration stonewall Congress’s investigation. Mr. Chaffetz’s four articles of impeachment assert that Mr. Koskinen “engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as an Officer of the United States.”

The first charge provides the facts of Mr. Koskinen’s failure to comply with subpoenas. In February 2014 Congress instructed Mr. Koskinen to supply all emails related to Lois Lerner, who ran the IRS Exempt Organizations division during the targeting. We now know Mr. Koskinen made little or no effort to preserve or track these communications and that, only a few weeks after the subpoena, IRS employees in West Virginia erased 422 backup tapes, destroying up to 24,000 Lerner emails.

The second charge cites “a pattern of deception” and three “materially false” statements Mr. Koskinen has made to Congress, under oath, including his assurances that no Lerner emails had been lost. In fact Mrs. Lerner’s hard drive had crashed and employees erased tapes.

A third impeachment charge is that while Mr. Koskinen knew Ms. Lerner’s emails were missing as early as February 2014, he did not inform Congress until June 13—and only then by tucking the news into the fifth page of a third enclosure to an unrelated letter to the Senate.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: impeachkoskinen; irsscandals; koskinen
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1 posted on 10/27/2015 1:51:20 PM PDT by TroutStalker
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To: TroutStalker

A final charge accuses Mr. Koskinen of incompetence, noting how despite his insistence that his agency had gone to “great lengths” to retrieve lost Lerner emails, the IRS failed to search disaster backup tapes, a Lerner BlackBerry and laptop, the email server and its backup tapes. When the Treasury Inspector General did his own search, he found 1,000 new Lerner emails in 14 days.


2 posted on 10/27/2015 1:52:49 PM PDT by TroutStalker ("Protect the hypersensitive. Ban everything.")
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To: TroutStalker

Not a smidgeon of corruption. 0dunga lied. Take this all the way to the WH! Like the cover-up of Benghazi, the IRS assault on the Tea Party was another prong in 0dunga’s mission to win re-election.


3 posted on 10/27/2015 1:55:01 PM PDT by CivilWarBrewing
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To: TroutStalker

Sounds like someone may be held accountable. Doubt if he will spill the beans now. He will be with the fishes.


4 posted on 10/27/2015 1:56:00 PM PDT by DrDude (Does anyone have a set of balls anymore?)
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To: TroutStalker

Well that’s a start...now on to Hillary and obuma and holder, and boner, and Pelosi, and reid, and oh that’s enough for now.....


5 posted on 10/27/2015 1:56:29 PM PDT by HarleyLady27 (I have such happy days, and hope you do too!!!)
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To: TroutStalker

I have thought for some time that the answer was to go after the agency heads and managers.


6 posted on 10/27/2015 1:58:39 PM PDT by rbbeachkid (Get out of its way and small business can fix the economy.)
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To: TroutStalker

I have thought for some time that the answer was to go after the agency heads and managers.


7 posted on 10/27/2015 1:59:03 PM PDT by rbbeachkid (Get out of its way and small business can fix the economy.)
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To: TroutStalker

I have thought for some time that the answer was to go after the agency heads and managers.


8 posted on 10/27/2015 2:00:09 PM PDT by rbbeachkid (Get out of its way and small business can fix the economy.)
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To: TroutStalker

GET HIM!!!! I want SOMEONE in PRISON!!


9 posted on 10/27/2015 2:04:50 PM PDT by Ann Archy (ABORTION....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: rbbeachkid

Maybe now that the administration has decided not to prosecute Lerner - consider giving her transactional immunity, force her testimony, and have a few swings at the pinata with the threat of perjury hanging over her. It’d also be funny to see democrats voting against giving her immunity.


10 posted on 10/27/2015 2:09:26 PM PDT by vrwconspiracist (The Tax Man cometh)
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To: TroutStalker
Koskinen deserves nothing less than impeachment and conviction. So does obama! The IRS has been used as a political weapon against numerous conservatives.

Remember, the last straw for Howard Baker and his fellow Senate Republicans was word that Nixon had suggested that the IRS might be used against his opponents. Nixon never ordered or allowed the IRS to go against anyone...just the mere suggestion was enough to warrant near unprecedented action against a sitting president. It was members of his own party that went to the White House and demanded that he either resign or face impeachment.

11 posted on 10/27/2015 2:12:05 PM PDT by pgkdan (But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.)
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To: DrDude
Sounds like someone may be held accountable. Doubt if he will spill the beans now. He will be with the fishes.

Yup, if he spills the beans, someone will make sure he takes a dirt nap. Meanwhile, Lois Lerner skates.

12 posted on 10/27/2015 2:12:45 PM PDT by Mark17 (Heaven, where the only thing there that's been made by man are the scars in the hands of Jesus)
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To: TroutStalker

SIGH.... Nobody has ever answered this for me...

What Punishment does a person get for being cited in CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS?

When someone is declared in contempt of court, that person gets jailed.

When Lois Lerner and Eric Holder were held in contempt of congress, what did they get?

In the case of the former, a cozy retirement and a fat pension.

So, what’s there to fear?


13 posted on 10/27/2015 2:16:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: TroutStalker

if they couldn’t get the Lerner bitch they aren’t going to get the top dog


14 posted on 10/27/2015 2:22:48 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: DrDude

What all these criminals should be thinking is that the statute of limitations will not have run out after the next presidential election.


15 posted on 10/27/2015 2:44:12 PM PDT by cpdiii (Deckhand, Roughneck, Geologist, Pilot, Pharmacist THE CONSTITUTION IS WORTH DYING FOR)
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To: TroutStalker

I prefer impalement.


16 posted on 10/27/2015 3:00:00 PM PDT by Old Yeller (Obama's Iran nuclear deal - The Devil is in the details.)
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To: TroutStalker

Of course, that black bowling ball is bent out of shape!


17 posted on 10/27/2015 3:12:36 PM PDT by Redleg Duke (The Federal Government is nothing but a welfare program with a dress code!)
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To: TroutStalker

The GOP does not have the stones.


18 posted on 10/27/2015 3:18:33 PM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: TroutStalker

Mr. Koskinen was President Clonton’s point person for Y@K preparations for the government computers nationwide.

Like he didn’t know about servers and back-ups—in a pig’s eye.

He is a Dem partisan from WAY back.

About time he got his @ss kicked.


19 posted on 10/27/2015 3:25:36 PM PDT by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
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To: exit82

Y2K in last post.


20 posted on 10/27/2015 3:26:03 PM PDT by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
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