IRS Commissioner Subpoenaed to Testify Next Week

Committee seeks Koskinen’s answers on Federal Records Act violation of “lost” Lois Lerner Emails

WASHINGTON –House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., today subpoenaed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen to testify before the Oversight Committee on Monday, June 23, 2014, at 7:00 p.m.  The subpoena comes as a result of the agency’s recent statement that the IRS lost an unknown number of emails pertaining to the activities of former IRS official Lois Lerner from January 2009 to April 2011. It also comes on the heels of the IRS’s repeated empty promises of compliance with oversight.

In a letter that accompanied the subpoena, Issa stated: “Congress passed the Federal Records Act (FRA) to preserve key documents—such as those that were stored on Lerner’s hard drive—for production to congressional investigators and other stakeholders, including historians and FOIA requesters.  The FRA requires agencies to make and preserve records of agency decisions, policies, and essential transactions, and to take steps to safeguard against the loss of agency records.”

He continued, “I will not tolerate your continued obstruction and game-playing in response to the Committee’s investigation of the IRS targeting.  For too long, the IRS has promised to produce requested – and, later, subpoenaed – documents, only to respond later with excuses and inaction.  Despite your empty promises and broken commitments to cooperation, the IRS still insists on flouting Constitutional congressional oversight. “

Read the letter to the IRS here.

The subpoena requires Koskinen’s appearance and testimony before the Committee on Monday, June 23, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. in room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

Koskinen had testified earlier this year that he would comply with the Committee’s subpoena request for documents and did not mention at the time that any had been lost.