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The Overview Published: Aug 20, 2015

How IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Has Failed in 12 GIFs

1. He failed to comply with a congressional subpoena

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Via DreamWorks Pictures/Giphy.com

The Committee issued a subpoena to Koskinen which created the legal obligation for him to preserve and produce Lois Lerner’s emails.

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Via CBS


Koskinen failed in his obligation to ensure documents were properly preserved when the IRS destroyed backup tapes containing Lerner’s emails.

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Via NBC/gifrific.com


Koskinen failed to implement the IRS’s internal preservation order issued by the Chief Technology Officer, which specified backup tapes were not to be destroyed.

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Via 20th Century Fox/Imgur.com

 

2. He failed to preserve or produce up to 24,000 emails relevant to the IRS investigation

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Via NBC/Giphy.com


Koskinen withheld information from Congress about the IRS’s destruction of evidence for four months (February-June 2014).

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Via Kerdukey.com


Despite being aware in mid-February 2014 that there was a gap in Lois Lerner’s email production, it wasn’t until June 2014, buried on the 5th page of the 3rd enclosure in a letter, that the IRS acknowledged the missing emails to Congress.

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Via NBC/Giphy.com

 

3. He failed to testify truthfully before Congress

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Via Universal Pictures/giphy.com


Despite knowing about the missing emails in February 2014, Commissioner Koskinen failed to mention anything about the email problems during sworn testimony in March 2014. Instead, he affirmatively promised the IRS would produce all of Lerner’s emails.
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Via tumblr.com


In its investigation, the Treasury Inspector General examined Lerner’s BlackBerry, email server, backup tapes for the email server, loaner laptops, Lerner’s crashed hard drive, and the disaster recovery tapes — and found more than 1000 unique, unproduced emails. The IRS only examined the hard drive, which crashed in 2011.

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Via tumblr.com


Despite the failure to send the backup tapes for professional analysis or to examine all sources where potential emails could exist, Koskinen testified that the IRS went to “great lengths, spent a significant amount of money trying to make sure that there is no email that is required that has not been produced.”

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Via NBC/giphy.com


However, after looking for only 15 days, the Treasury Inspector General found 744 backup tapes, some containing Lois Lerner emails.

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Via Granada Television/deviantart.com

Last month, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a press conference, sent a letter to President Obama, and released a video calling on the President to remove IRS Commissioner John Koskinen from his position.