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House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., today subpoenaed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen for documents related to the recent revelation that the IRS supposedly “lost” former IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails for a two year period, January 2009 to April 2011. The subpoena covers Lerner’s hard drive and electronic devices as well as documents connected to the IRS’s response to Congress.

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.”

“Today’s report clearly outlines the causal relationship between Democrats’ rhetoric calling for action against Citizens United and the actions taken by the IRS and the Justice Department to target conservatives for their political beliefs,” said Chairman Issa. “Certainly, the President and congressional Democrats have an absolute right to express policy concerns and advocate for policy changes. But the causal relationship between this rhetoric and the IRS targeting is clear. The ...

The President’s political rhetoric in opposition to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and conservative nonprofits engaged in political speech led to the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of tax-exempt applicants.

Chairman Issa said: “Isn’t it convenient for the Obama Administration that the IRS now says it has suddenly realized it lost Lois Lerner’s emails requested by Congress and promised by Commissioner John Koskinen? Do they really expect the American people to believe that, after having withheld these emails for a year, they're just now realizing the most critical time period is missing? Congressional oversight has revealed that the IRS has –potentially illegally– shared confidential ...

“We are aghast to learn that the Justice Department worked with the IRS to assemble a massive database of nonprofit groups, and that this database included confidential taxpayer information that the Department is not authorized to possess,” write Issa and Jordan. “The creation of such an illicit and comprehensive registry by federal law-enforcement officials is concerning in and of itself. Yet, the creation of a registry at the same time that the Department considered possible ...

“We were extremely troubled by this new information, and by the fact that the IRS has withheld it from the Committee for over a year,” write Issa and Jordan to IRS Commissioner Koskinen. “We were astonished to learn days ago from the Justice Department that these 21 disks contained confidential taxpayer information protected by federal law. We ask that you immediately produce all material explaining how these disks were prepared and transmitted to the FBI.”

WASHINGTON – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., released the following statement on Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen’s decision to scrap a proposed rule to limit political speech by nonprofit and social welfare organizations: “I am pleased the Internal Revenue Service has at least temporarily heeded the serious concerns expressed by myself and countless others, and has decided to scrap its proposed rule change restricting ...