Democrats use IRS hearing to attack Trump

That would force them to choose between opposing impeachment and angering conservative voters who want Koskinen’s head, or backing it and alienating independents who could consider the effort overly partisan and confrontational.

Koskinen says he didn’t learn about that until later, and reiterated Wednesday he believed his June 2014 statement was true at the time.

“I do not think that the honest mistakes made by two employees are grounds for either resignation, and certainly not for impeachment”, Koskinen told the committee.

Koskinen said he was not aware of the tapes’ destruction when he testified, and a Treasury Department inspector general concluded a year ago that there was no evidence the emails had been destroyed as part of a cover-up.

The fact that Koskinen is being heard from at all on Wednesday is due to Freedom Caucus members pushing the issue in the face of clear hesitation from House leaders, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., over whether Koskinen’s conduct rises to the level of impeachment. The panel has not launched such a process, and Koskinen is set to emphasize in his opening statement the need for a “solid and vetted factual and legal record” before holding a vote.

“Is there anything that would prohibit someone from releasing their tax returns, if they want to, because they’re under audit?” Reports have said money from the Donald J. Trump Foundation has been used for those purposes. He also said the impeachment effort sets a unsafe precedent because impeachment is generally used as a bipartisan tool for behavior that everyone agrees is reprehensible. Goodlatte declined to comment after the hearing on whether he planned any further proceedings.

Conservatives say Koskinen obstructed congressional investigations into how the IRS mistreated tea party groups.

But without being specific, he conceded: “The truth is that we did not succeed in preserving all of the information requested and some of my testimony later proved mistaken”.

Koskinen insisted that he did not know about the Martinsburg incident when he told the Oversight Committee in 2014 that the IRS hadn’t destroyed Lerner-related records.

“The old midnight shift guys in Martinsburg excuse”, scoffed Rep. “I regret both of those failings”. Members of the House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of some of the most conservative House Republicans, have been threatening to use a rarely invoked procedural maneuver to force a vote. No evidence has emerged to show that Koskinen directed or had prior knowledge of the destruction, but conservatives have pushed to hold him accountable by making him the first executive-branch official to be ousted by Congress since 1876.

However, one lawmaker in that group, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., has not ruled out forcing an impeachment vote before the November elections.

The controversy over the IRS’s treatment of conservative groups began in 2013, when former IRS official Lois Lerner acknowledged that the agency had inappropriately delayed the tax-exemption applications of groups using “tea party” or other politically charged terms in their names, and had subjected the groups to invasive questions.

Rep. Sheila Jackson LeeSheila Jackson-LeeDems hijack IRS hearing to ask about Trump’s taxes The Hill’s 12:30 Report Why a new “app” would be essential to public education in the fight against Zika MORE (D-Texas) also asked whether it was appropriate for a foundation to give political donations, alluding to a $25,000 donation Trump’s namesake charity gave to a political group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. The sequence of actions taken by the agency during Koskinen’s tenure, he said, strongly suggests wrongdoing. “And no one should have to wait years for an answer to a question or a request for a determination of any kind”. While Koskinen was not at the agency during the initial scandal, Jordan and other conservatives argue he has thwarted their investigation, including by allowing subpoenaed emails to be destroyed.

In June 2014, the IRS told Congress that it lost an unknown number of Lerner’s emails when her hard drive crashed in 2011.