IRS chief John Koskinen says he’s never spoken to Lois Lerner

washingtontimes.com

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has declined to testify in his own defense at a congressional hearing Tuesday, but insisted in a statement that his agency’s bungling of a subpoena doesn’t rise to the level of “treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors” needed for him to be impeached.

The Judiciary Committee hearing is being viewed by some House Republicans as the precursor to impeachment, with the House’s top investigator saying Mr. Koskinen defied a congressional order that demanded all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails be preserved as part of an investigation into tea party targeting...

And Mr. Koskinen, who took over at the agency in late 2013 in the wake of the targeting scandal, insisted he has no reason to obstruct investigations into the IRS’s actions, nor to protect Ms. Lerner.

“When I came to the IRS, I knew no one who worked at the agency, and to this day I have never met or spoken to former IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner,” Mr. Koskinen said.