POLITICS - Republicans Accuse the IRS of Lying

What do you expect?  Republicans don't believe ANYONE who does not agree with their subjective, self-serving, view of the world.

"I.R.S. Head and Lawmakers Clash Over Missing Emails in Heated Hearing" by DAVID S. JOACHIM, New York Times 6/20/2014

A congressional hearing examining how the Internal Revenue Service lost thousands of emails sought by investigators turned into a shouting match on Friday, with Republicans on the panel accusing the I.R.S. commissioner of lying.

“Sitting here listening to this testimony, I don’t believe it,” Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, told the commissioner, John Koskinen, at a hearing of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.  “That’s your problem.  No one believes you.”

Mr. Ryan, echoing the sentiment of many Republicans in Congress, described the missing emails associated with seven I.R.S. employees as part of a pattern of denial and obstruction by the I.R.S. over the last year as the agency answers accusations that it mistreated conservative political groups seeking tax exemptions.

Mr. Ryan, his voice rising, said that now “you don’t have the emails.  Hard drives crashed.  You learned about this months ago.  You just told us.  And we had to ask you on Monday.  This is not being forthcoming.  This is being misleading again.  This is a pattern of abuse.”

Mr. Koskinen, maintaining a measured tone, replied that in his “long career,” “That’s the first time anybody has said they do not believe me.”

As he tried to continue, Mr. Ryan stopped him:  “I don’t believe you.”

After a series of interruptions, Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the panel, said:  “Will you let him answer the question?”

“I didn’t ask him a question,” Mr. Ryan said.

“Yes, you did,” Mr. Levin replied.

Throughout the three-hour hearing, Democrats on the committee raised objections to the chairman, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, about the way Republicans were treating Mr. Koskinen.  They also called the panel’s inquiry a “witch hunt” meant to create the appearance of a conspiracy during an election year.

Some of them, instead of asking their own questions, gave their time to Mr. Koskinen to respond to the Republicans’ accusations.

Given that time, Mr. Koskinen disputed the contention voiced by Mr. Ryan and others on the committee that the delay in notifying investigators about the computer crashes, and the fact that the agency notified the Treasury Department weeks earlier, was indicative of a cover-up.

Mr. Koskinen submitted as evidence an email exchange from 2011 between the agency’s technology staff and Lois Lerner, the former I.R.S. official at the center of the inquiry, in which she sought to have her messages restored.

He said that Ms. Lerner’s computer crash and the effort to retrieve her lost messages had occurred before the agency was notified that Congress was receiving complaints from conservative political groups that they were being unfairly scrutinized, undercutting the notion that emails were deliberately destroyed.

Mr. Koskinen also pointed to a report by an inspector general of the Treasury Department, the parent agency of the I.R.S., which concluded that while agency employees had acted improperly, there was no evidence of political motivation or outside influence.

Democrats on the committee said the committee’s inquiry was missing a larger point:  that political groups of all kinds were effectively getting subsidies from taxpayers as “social welfare groups,” even though they were actually engaged in campaigning for political candidates.

Over the last week, the I.R.S. has said that thousands of emails of interest to investigators had been destroyed because of computer crashes.  Those employees included Ms. Lerner, who has been accused of orchestrating a politically motivated effort to hold up applications for tax exemption from Tea Party groups before the 2012 election.

Republican lawmakers responded to the disclosure incredulously, questioning whether the emails were truly unrecoverable and accusing the agency of a Nixonian cover-up.  They have also suggested that the disappearance of the emails violated federal record-keeping laws.

During the hearing, Mr. Camp demanded that the I.R.S. hand over the damaged hard drive for forensic examination.  He also questioned the agency’s contention that the missing emails were not recoverable because they had been overwritten on backup drives, in keeping with the agency’s former policy of reusing computer equipment to save money.

“I find it hard to believe, and I don’t believe that the I.R.S. went through every possible exercise to recover these documents,” Mr. Camp said.

On Monday, Mr. Koskinen is scheduled to appear before another panel — the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Representative Darrell Issa of California — to answer questions about the missing emails.

Ms. Lerner, who quit in September as the head of the agency’s division on tax-exempt organizations, was cited for contempt by the Republican-led House last month after refusing to answer lawmakers’ questions.

Some Republicans have called for a special prosecutor to investigate the I.R.S.’s suspected misconduct.  So far, the Justice Department has declined to appoint one or to act on a criminal referral on Ms. Lerner’s contempt citation.