WASHINGTON (CN) - Congressional Republicans heated up their efforts Tuesday to impeach the commissioner of the IRS over revelations that auditors targeted right-wing groups.
While adamant that the Judiciary Committee hearing was not an impeachment proceeding, Republicans repeatedly called this morning for the House to consider doing just that.
Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., laid out the case against IRS commissioner John Koskinen during testimony to the committee.
They said Koskinen should be impeached for obstructing congressional investigations into claims that the IRS paid closer attention if it received an application for tax-exempt status from a conservative group.
"We're here today because Mr. Koskinen provided false testimony, he failed to comply with a duly issued subpoena and when he knew there was a problem he failed to properly inform Congress in a timely manner," Chaffetz said.
Though the committee had invited Koskinen to testify, the commissioner informed it Monday he would not be in attendance.
Chaffetz began his testimony today with a 10-minute video retracing the timeline of the five-year IRS targeting scandal, using news clips and segments from past hearings, paired with a voiceover and an animated chart.
Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said Koskinen intentionally ignored evidence about the targeting scandal and did not prevent tapes and records that would have helped the investigation from being destroyed.
He specifically said Koskinen, who came out of retirement to join the IRS in 2013 in the wake of the scandal, "lied" to Congress about the destruction of the hard drive used by former IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner, which crashed in 2011.
While the IRS did not reveal to Congress until June that some emails from Lerner were missing, Koskinen told Congress he knew in February about the gap. He later told the House Ways and Means Committee no emails had been destroyed and that the agency had "gone to great lengths" to restore Lerners emails, even though it didn't find backup tapes the inspector general turned up in 15 days, Chaffetz said.
"At best this is gross negligence, "Chaffetz told the committee.
Republicans on the committee joined Chaffetz in railing against Koskinen and advocating for Congress to take action to remove him from office.
"I mean, for goodness sakes, this is certainly a breach of public trust, dereliction of duty and negligence in gross, gross form," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said at the hearing.
Some exchanges between Chaffetz and Democrats on the committee grew heated at times. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., accused Chaffetz of dodging his questions about whether the Department of Justice and other agencies investigated the IRS scandal only to find no criminal intent.
Other Democrats criticized Republicans for even allowing the hearing and talk of impeachment to come up during a time when Congress has a lot of work to do and little time to get it done.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., suggested Republicans were on a partisan hunt to claim victims in the targeting scandal without considering the consequences such an action could have.
When he asked Chaffetz if Congress was being "a little heavy-handed on this matter," the Utah Republican disagreed.