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POLITICS

House to Consider I.R.S.

Commissioners Impeachment
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and JACKIE CALMES

MAY 23, 2016

WASHINGTON When the House Judiciary Committee convenes on

Tuesday to consider the alleged misdeeds of the Internal Revenue Service
commissioner, John Koskinen, it will contemplate action that has not been
taken in more than 140 years, and that in some respects has never been
pursued: the impeachment of an agency head of Mr. Koskinens rank.
Tuesdays hearing on accusations by House Republicans that Mr.
Koskinen lied under oath to Congress and defied a congressional subpoena is a
remarkable moment, even for a Washington long fractured by partisanship.
Not since Secretary of War William W. Belknap in 1876 has the House
impeached an administration official other than the president, said Michael J.
Gerhardt, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law and an
expert on the federal impeachment process. And an official below the
presidents cabinet has never been impeached.
This is unprecedented in many respects, Professor Gerhardt said.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Finance Committee,

has made clear that the Senate would not convict Mr. Koskinen, which would
require a nearly impossible two-thirds vote. But the effort in the House
highlights the extent to which the I.R.S. has become a symbol for House
Republicans of everything they despise about the federal bureaucracy, and
their outrage about what they view as a pattern of obstruction by the Obama
administration.
We can have our disagreements with him, but that doesnt mean theres
an impeachable offense, Mr. Hatch said last week.
Mr. Koskinen was not even in government when the I.R.S. admitted to
singling out the tax-exemption applications of Tea Party groups for scrutiny.
Organizations on the I.R.S.s lookout lists went beyond conservative groups
to include groups like Palestinian rights activists and open-software
developers, but the scrutiny of hundreds of Tea Party applicants infuriated
congressional Republicans.
President Obama turned to Mr. Koskinen in 2013 to lead the I.R.S.
because of his reputation in the public and private sectors as a go-to manager
of troubled enterprises. Mr. Koskinen, who was 74 at the time, agreed.
He is one of the truly dedicated public servants who has been respected as a
top government manager for years, said G. William Hoagland, who was a
longtime staff director of the Senate Budget Committee and fiscal policy
adviser to Senate Republican leaders.
But amid the mishandling of email messages sought as evidence by House
investigators, that fury turned on him. Mr. Koskinen will not appear at the
Tuesday hearing, the I.R.S. said on Monday, because he just returned from a
multinational tax conference in China and had little time to prepare given the
committees recent invitation.
He provided, I think, a whole series of false testimony, said

Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah and chairman of the House

Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who is one of the leaders of
the push for impeachment. You cant be under a duly issued subpoena and
mislead Congress, and when you provide false testimony there has to be a
consequence.
Were left with no other remedy, Mr. Chaffetz added. The F.B.I. is not
going to take action. The president is not going to take action, but clearly he
provided false testimony.
Congressional Democrats and the White House have characterized the
criticism as part of a broader effort by Republicans bent on destroying the
I.R.S. by slashing its budget and impeding its work.
Instead of taking real action on critical issues that involve the security
and well-being of Americans, House Republicans are busy engaging in political
witch hunts, said Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the senior
Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
The drive to impeach Mr. Koskinen is running parallel to the Republicans
investigation into the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, and
allegations against Planned Parenthood.
The fact is that John Koskinen has assumed a very difficult task, and that
task has been made only more difficult by the false accusations of Republicans
and by the continued insistence of Republicans to cut the budget for the
I.R.S., the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said at a briefing last
week.
The case against Mr. Koskinen focuses on testimony that he gave to
Congress as part of inquiries into whether the I.R.S. improperly scrutinized
applications for tax-exempt status by conservative political groups. The I.R.S.
admitted the improper conduct and apologized. The Justice Department
ultimately said it had found mismanagement but no crime, and it did not bring

any charges.
Mr. Koskinen started as commissioner of the I.R.S. in December 2013,
well after the scrutiny was exposed.
But House Republicans continued their investigations, and say the new
commissioner lied during testimony in the winter and spring of 2014. They
point to assurances that the I.R.S. would turn over email messages sent and
received by Lois Lerner, a senior official in the Exempt Organizations Division
from 2009 to 2010, when Tea Party-affiliated groups applying for tax-exempt
status were unfairly scrutinized.
Professor Gerhardt said that impeachment might be appropriate if
Republicans proved their case. Lying to Congress is a very serious charge, and
if somebody were actually guilty of that, that is a perfectly legitimate basis for
their removal, he said.
But he said Republicans could undermine their effort if they focused on
political arguments and potential wrongdoing by the I.R.S., rather than the
legal arguments against Mr. Koskinen.
Mr. Koskinens supporters say some of the House members pushing for
impeachment have been using the effort for their own political gain, including
to raise campaign donations. They also note that in recent weeks, the
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Robert W.
Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, has come under pressure by a conservative
challenger in the Republican primary, Harry Griego.
Some House Republicans have made clear that the targeting by the I.R.S.
is still the main backdrop.
We know they targeted peoples most cherished right, their First
Amendment free speech rights, their political speech rights, said
Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and a leading proponent of

impeachment. They did it systematically. They did it for a sustained period of

time, and then they got caught. And when they got caught, Mr. Koskinens
response to those investigations has been terrible.
Mr. Koskinen was unavailable for comment last week, but in an interview
in April he called the House impeachment resolution, which was introduced in
the fall, groundless.
We testified truthfully and completely on the basis of what we knew at
the time, he said. He attributed the loss of some of Ms. Lerners emails to the
inadvertent destruction of very old tapes.
Mr. Koskinen is something of an unlikely target for the first impeachment
of an agencys leader. Before his I.R.S. appointment, he was enlisted to run the
mortgage giant Freddie Mac when it was put under government
conservatorship in September 2008 during the nations financial crisis. Before
that, he was named by President Bill Clinton to lead a federal task force
overseeing the tricky Y2K computer coding transition at the turn of the
century, and the deputy director for management of the White House Office of
Management and Budget.
Still, only two Republicans voted with Democrats to confirm Mr.
Koskinen for the I.R.S. job. One was Mr. Hatch, who last week told reporters at
the Capitol, For the most part, hes been very cooperative with us.
Fred T. Goldberg Jr., a tax lawyer and Republican who was the
commissioner of the I.R.S. under the first President George Bush, called
charges of unethical or illegal behavior preposterous and calls for
impeachment just way over the line.
But House Republicans are resolute. Last week, Mr. Chaffetz proposed a
resolution censuring Mr. Koskinen. Mr. Chaffetz said he viewed the step as a
precursor to impeachment, but one that also might be sufficient for some
colleagues who regarded impeachment as too drastic.

Mr. Chaffetz said he did not know if the full House would ultimately vote
on impeachment.
Its incumbent upon us to make the case and rally enough support in the
conference in order to justify it coming to the floor, he said.
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