Ratcliffe Questions IRS Commisioner John Koskinen in Impeachment Proceedings

Commissioner Kostanen, I've listened to you today. I want to make sure that I'm summarizing the testimony that I've heard from you and the things that I've heard you say today. I think you've been candid in some of your testimony today, but I want to make sure I'm summarizing what's happened on your watch as the Commissioner of the IRS for the last two years and nine months. I think you've acknowledged that there have been some failures by the IRS under your watch with respect to retention and preservation of documents, right? That's correct. And I think you've acknowledged that there have been failures by the IRS under your watch with respect to the production of documents. No, we've produced all the documents. Our failure was, in fact, with the documents that we did not have, but we've produced, as I said, 1,300,000 documents. Well, you've acknowledged failures by the IRS to testify accurately under oath, specifically yourself on an investigation, correct? That's correct. But I did testify on the basis of what I knew, but it turned out not to be accurate. There's a difference between testifying truthfully and testifying to the best of your knowledge, correct? No, actually, truthfully is what you know. If I had known it and hadn't testified about it, that would be a lie. That would be untruthful. If you told the OGR committee that you would produce all of Lois Lerner's subpoenaed e-mails, that wasn't true. No, actually, we produced all the e-mails we had. That's not my question. You didn't produce all of her e-mails. No, at that hearing, we had a discussion about the fact that I can't produce e-mails that I don't have. And on June 20th, when you said the IRS had preserved every e-mail, that wasn't true. That was actually – I did not know it, but that was not accurate. That was not true. And, of course, as Congressman Gowdy asked you when you said nothing had been lost or destroyed, that was not true. That's right. I thought it was true at the time. In light of those failures, failures to retain documents, preserve documents, testify accurately, I would hope that you would appreciate why it's legitimate for folks to wonder if they should take you at your word that the erasing of the tapes and the destruction of evidence was accidental, as you've characterized it. You don't have to take my word. That was the inspector general's results after a year of investigation. Yeah, let me stop you there, because you've talked about that, about how the Department of Justice and how the IG have investigated that and how they've backed you up with respect to it being accidental. But the bad news for you, Commissioner, is that being cleared by the Department of Justice in this administration unfortunately doesn't carry much weight with the American people anymore, not since the Attorney General started handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards to Obama administration officials like most of us hand out candy on Halloween. But at least while we're on the subject, let me ask you this question. In the days before that investigation was closed by the Department of Justice, you didn't happen to have a clandestine but accidental meeting with the Attorney General on a plane or a tarmac somewhere, did you? Never. Okay, well, you can appreciate why I'd ask that, because there's certainly a precedent for that type of thing happening. Regardless of whether this was accidental, let me concede to you for purposes of your answer that this was accidental. It seems to me, based on what I've heard from your testimony today, that you don't think there should be consequences as a result of that. You know, for ordinary Americans, even if it's an accident, let's say someone gets in a car accident, if someone dies because of it, there are consequences. Now, someone might be charged with manslaughter, they might be charged with vehicular homicide, they might be charged or they might be sued civilly for gross negligence or negligence. The consequences may be criminal, they may be civil, but there will be consequences. And that's the way our justice system is set up. But for you and the folks in the IRS, it seems to me that you want a different system and a different set of rules, one where you can say, if it was an accident, I'm sorry, just move on. And to that point, let me ask you, since you took office to restore confidence and, in your words, provide accountability and spent nearly $20 million to do just that, who's been held accountable at the IRS? As I noted, the basic issue has been the management mistakes made in terms of identifying people for review just on their names, and all of those people are gone. Hold on, hold on, we're talking about two different things here. No, no, now we're talking about since I've been there. No, no, I want to talk about, yeah, on your watch. Can I explain that? I will tell you, on my watch, we have ended the bullet list. There's no evidence we're targeting any new organizations. We do have three that we suspended we're now going to process, although one is sued for an injunction to keep us from processing. But I would note, in terms of the overall record, the IG spent a year and, looking at tapes, found 1,000 emails. We produced 1,300,000 pages. That's not my question. My question is, who's been held accountable? You mentioned that you had 50 people advising you, advising you on your watch. During your watch, you've acknowledged there were failures to preserve, failures to retain, failures to testify truthfully. Have any of those folks been terminated? Has anyone been terminated on your watch for those transgressions? No one has made a transgression that I think is a fireable offense. Has anyone been demoted? I'm not a – No, I think you are. I'm not asking for the name. Has anyone been demoted? No, a few have left. That's not my question. No, nobody's been demoted. Has anyone been held accountable? The answer is no. I think that's probably right because we don't think that anybody consciously or purposely did anything to interfere with the investigation. We'll just have to disagree on that. My time's expired. I'll get back to you.