Wednesday, October 28, 2015

House Republicans Move to Impeach IRS Commissioner

Rep. Jason Chaffetz 
House Republican Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, introduced a resolution to begin impeachment proceedings against Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen, on Tuesday, October 27. Chaffetz was joined by 18 other Republicans in the committee, and they accused Koskinen of failure to comply with a congressional subpoena (writ to attend court) and allowing evidence in the form of emails to be destroyed and not notifying Congress, as well as misleading the public. The resolution now goes to the House Judiciary Committee.

This bid came only a few days after the Justice Department ruled that no IRS official would be charged for accusations of bias against conservative groups. Allegedly, this bias made it harder for conservative groups to be tax-exempt, and these accusations angered Republican Congressmen. This decision ended the Oversight Committee's two-year investigation, as the Justice Department said they found no evidence suggesting that any IRS official acted in a discriminatory or political way that would justify criminal prosecution.

Do you think that introducing this impeachment resolution is justified? Chaffetz claims that this will help restore public confidence in the IRS—is this worth all the time and taxpayer money? How much of the motivation behind this was a partisan attack, as opposed to restoring the confidence of the American people? And, after the Justice Department ruling, is there enough evidence to back this impeachment?

Sources: Huffington Post, Washington Post
Blog Read: AJC

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Between the flashy crucifixion that impeachment brings, and the small, cost effective stepping down of the individual, the Congress is risking the PR boost for the IRS over the cost of the proceedings. In my mind, I would imagine that most individuals would step down over an impeachment level offense; that is, unless it's an overtly partisan move. I believe that whether or not Koskinen steps down will quickly reveal the partisan nature of this resolution.

One thing I found amusing in the Washington Post article was how Chaffetz accused Koskinen of violating the public's trust, which made me scratch my head. Has Koskinen violated YOUR(Chaffetz) trust for deleting emails pertaining to going after your organizations, or does this represent a larger issue on the reliability of the IRS as a whole?