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Tonight’s testimony and questioning of IRS commissioner John Koskinen concerning the destruction of Lois Lerner’s emails in connection with the IRS’s harassment of opponents of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party..

Cover-up: Tonight’s testimony and questioning of IRS commissioner John Koskinen concerning the destruction of Lois Lerner’s emails in connection with the IRS’s harassment of opponents of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party..

An outraged Issa insisted that Americans should be able to know “they’re being honestly treated by your employees, especially somebody at such a high level. Isn’t that in fact a priority that should have allowed for full retention?”

“If we had the right resources, there would be a lot of priorities,” Koskinen shot back.

“So the American people should believe that if they don’t have the resources to pay their taxes, they shouldn’t pay their taxes,” Issa jabbed, “because if the IRS doesn’t have the resources, it won’t keep records? That’s pretty much what you’re telling us here tonight, is that resources are a question of whether or not you retain key documents.”

When Tennessee Republican Rep Scott DesJarlais asked Koskinen how much money it would take to replace the IRS’s computer systems in order to prevent another major data loss, he answered that it would cost between $10 and $30 million. In a tense moment, DesJarlais then reminded him that the IRS paid $89 million in bonuses last year, including $1 million to agency employees who owed back taxes.

Be sure the watch all the videos at the link. If you do and you still believe John Koskinen is telling the truth and is not a political thug who is doing the bidding of the White House to cover-up its use of the IRS to harass its political opponents, then you are probably so naive you believe Nigerian emails.

More information about tonight’s hearing here.

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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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3 comments

  • Why in the hell is a publicly-funded agency paying bonuses? Many public employees enjoy benefits not generally available to the private sector. Leave bonuses to organizations that make a profit.

  • Cotour

    Im listening to the Brian Leher radio show, Mr. Leher is plainly a liberally minded person who has very good and generally balanced, intellectual and in-depth talk show with a plainly liberal slant. He is interviewing Todd Zwillig. Mr. Leher is asking questions of Mr. Zwillig questions about the IRS issue and taking comments and questions from the public.

    The public overwhelmingly does not for one moment believe any explanation offered by the testimony of anyone at the IRS. Mr. Leher is a highly practiced and professional interviewer and that liberal slant is always present, sometimes overt and most times subvert.

    The take away is although the questions were slanted and Mr. Zwillig was generally objective and informative the public is having none of it! And that in the end is the game played in Washington which the liberals at this point in time are loosing.

    Know the game, play the game, win the game.

  • Edward

    It’s funny, but with Rep. Gowdy, Mr. Koskinen was saying that it was years since he was in the legal profession (he gave it up for lent), but with Rep. Chaffetz, he knows what a judge would enforce. Which is it: is Koskinen a legal expert or not?

    And I love that “six month” excuse. His attitude makes it seem that when Koskinen gets a subpoena for emails, all he does is delay getting them for six months, then they will all be gone, and he comes back empty handed because they don’t keep records that far back. This probably is his strategy for FOIA requests, too.

    “I did not say I would provide you emails that disappeared.” Of course Koskinen didn’t say that: he didn’t admit that any emails had disappeared until this month, not in March. From the montage, he promised to provide *all* of the subpoenaed emails, adding an ‘Obama asterisk’ (to coin a phrase, meaning that he says one thing now, but will tell you later that he said something else) that he would provide just the ones he could find (though he didn’t look through backup tapes or Sonasoft’s records, I guess it was only those that he found in his desk drawer). Rep. Collins took him at his word, but he broke his word and now complains that people don’t believe him. If Koskinen knew in March that the IRS does not keep records beyond 6 months, then what was he doing promising emails that he knew were not kept, and why didn’t he tell the committee that he could only provide emails as far back as 6 months prior to the subpoena?

    I especially love the excuse that essentially said, ‘you cut our budget for this year, so we didn’t have enough money three years earlier to recover emails from our backup tapes.’

    No wonder government activities are compared with making sausage. They take what no one in their right mind would buy and try to sell it to us as something [cr]edible.

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