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88–494 PDF 2014

EXAMINING THE IRS RESPONSE TO THE 

TARGETING SCANDAL 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 26, 2014 

Serial No. 113–114 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on March 26, 2014 ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. John Koskinen, Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

APPENDIX 

Chart - Exempt Organizations Recommended Actions Ending Feb. 24, 2014, 

submitted by Rep. Cummings ............................................................................. 76 

E-mail from Cindy Thomas, submitted by Rep. Mica ........................................... 77 

Memo from the Offfice of General Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, 

submitted by Chairman Issa ............................................................................... 78 

Article in Washington Post, Elijah Cummings: ‘‘Case is solved’’ on IRS ............ 100 

Response to questions to Mr. Koshinen from Rep. Turner .................................. 102 

(1) 

EXAMINING THE IRS RESPONSE TO THE 

TARGETING SCANDAL 

Wednesday, March 26, 2014, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Issa, Mica, Turner, Duncan, Jordan, 

Chaffetz, Walberg, Lankford, Amash, Gosar, DesJarlais, Gowdy, 

Farenthold, Lummis, Woodall, Massie, Collins, Meadows, 

Bentivolio, DeSantis, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Tierney, Clay, 

Lynch, Connolly, Speier, Davis, Lujan Grisham, and Kelly. 

Staff Present: Molly Boyl, Majority Deputy General Counsel and 

Parliamentarian; Lawrence J. Brady, Majority Staff Director; 

David Brewer, Majority Senior Counsel; Sharon Casey, Majority 

Senior Assistant Clerk; Steve Castor, Majority General Counsel; 

Drew Colliatie, Majority Professional Staff Member; John 

Cuaderes, Majority Deputy Staff Director; Adam P. Fromm, Majority Director of Member Services and Committee Operations; Linda 

Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Tyler Grimm, Majority Professional 

Staff Member; Frederick Hill, Majority Deputy Staff Director for 

Communications and Strategy; Christopher Hixon, Majority Chief 

Counsel for Oversight; Caroline Ingram, Majority Professional Staff 

Member; Michael R. Kiko, Majority Legislative Assistant; Jim 

Lewis, Majority Senior Policy Advisor; Mark D. Marin, Majority 

Deputy Staff Director for Oversight; Ashok M. Pinto, Majority 

Chief Counsel, Investigations; Katy Rother, Majority Counsel; 

Laura L. Rush, Majority Deputy Chief Clerk; Jessica Seale, Majority Digital Director; Sarah Vance, Majority Assistant Clerk; Jeff 

Wease, Majority Chief Information Officer; Meghan, Berroya, Minority Counsel; Aryele Bradford, Minority Press Secretary; Susanne Sachsman Grooms, Minority Deputy Staff Director/Chief 

Counsel; Jennifer Hoffman, Minority Communications Director; 

Adam Koshkin, Minority Research Assistant; Julia Krieger, Minority New Media Press Secretary; Elisa LaNier, Minority Director of 

Operations; Juan McCullum, Minority Clerk; Brian Quinn, Minority Counsel; Dave Rapallo, Minority Staff Director; and Donald 

Sherman, Minority Counsel. 

Chairman ISSA. The Oversight Committee exists to secure two 

fundamental principles: first, Americans have a right to know the 

money Washington takes from them is well spent and, second, 

American deserves an efficient, effective Government that works 

2 

for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility is to be 

accountable to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know 

what they get from their Government. It is our job to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to 

the American people and bring genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. 

It is now my privilege to recognize the ranking member for the 

opening statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioner Koskinen, I want to thank you for being here this 

morning, and I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this 

hearing. I think it is very important that we look at what the inspector general for the Treasury recommended and take a look 

back at the research that he did. 

Nearly one year ago, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Russell George, issued a report concluding that IRS 

employees used ‘‘inappropriate criteria’’ to identify tax-exempt applications for review. I want to revisit the findings of his report. 

The IG found that there was ‘‘ineffective management’’ at the 

IRS. The first line of the results section of the report said, this 

began with employees in the Determinations Unit of the IRS Office 

in Cincinnati. I didn’t say that, the IG said that. The IG also went 

on to say that these employees ‘‘developed and used inappropriate 

criteria to identify applications from organizations with the words 

tea party in their names.’’ The IG also said these employees ‘‘developed and implemented inappropriate criteria in part due to insufficient oversight provided by management.’’ 

The IG report that former IRS official Lois Lerner did not disclose the use of these inappropriate criteria until 2011, a year after 

it began. Again, I didn’t say that, the IG said that. Although ‘‘she 

immediately’’ ordered the practice to stop, the IG stated that employees began again using different inappropriate criteria ‘‘without 

management knowledge.’’ 

In contrast, the inspector general never found any evidence to 

support the central Republican accusations in this investigation 

that this was a political collusion directed by or on behalf of the 

White House. 

Before our committee received a single document or interviewed 

one witness, Chairman Issa went on national television and said, 

‘‘This was the targeting of the President’s political enemies, effectively it lies about it during the election.’’ 

Similarly, Representative Al Rogers, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, stated on national television, ‘‘The enemies list out of the White House that IRS was engaged in shutting down or trying to shut down the conservative political viewpoint across the Country, an enemies list that rivals that of another president some time ago.’’ 

Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means 

Committee, said, ‘‘This appears to be just the latest example of a 

culture of coverups and political intimidation in this Administration.’’ 

The inspector general identified no evidence to support these 

wild political accusations. The IG reported that, according to the 

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interviews they conducted, the inappropriate criteria ‘‘were not influenced by any individual organization outside the IRS.’’ The IG 

testified before this committee that his own chief investigator reviewed more than 5,500 emails and found no evidence of any political motivation in the actions of the IRS employees. 

Rather than continuing this partisan search for non-existent connections to the White House, I believe the committee should focus 

squarely on the recommendations made by the inspector general. 

The IG made nine recommendations in his report last May. As of 

February of this year, the IRS now reports that it has completed 

all nine. 

For example, the IG recommended that the IRS change its 

screening and approval process for tax-exempt applications. In response, the IRS ended the end of so-called be on the lookout lists 

and developed new guidance and training. 

The IG also recommended that the IRS ensure that applicants 

are ‘‘approved or denied expeditiously.’’ In response, the IRS made 

significant progress on its backlog over the past year, closing 87 

percent of these cases. 

As I close, I want to thank the commissioner and his predecessor, 

Danny Werfel, for their extraordinary cooperation with Congress. I 

completely disagree with the chairman’s letter yesterday complaining about the agency’s so-called failure to produce documents 

and its noncompliance with committee requests. Nothing could be 

further from the truth. More than 250 IRS employees have spent 

nearly 100,000 hours responding to congressional requests. They 

have delivered more than 420,000 pages of documents to this committee and they have spent at least $14 million in doing so. 

The chairman’s statements simply disregard these facts. They 

are also at odds with Chairman Camp of the Ways and Means 

Committee, who issued a press release just this month praising 

IRS for its cooperation with document requests as a ‘‘significant 

step forward.’’ 

Commissioner, I wanted to thank you for your efforts during this 

investigation and for your exceptional cooperation, and I want to 

thank all of those IRS employees who are working so hard and tirelessly to do their jobs. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you and I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

I am pleased to welcome our witness, Commissioner John 

Koskinen. He was appointed by the President to restore trust and 

accountability to the IRS. Commissioner, you have a difficult task 

ahead of you. The American people do not have, and my opening 

statement says any faith, but they certainly don’t have the faith 

they once had in the IRS to be truly a nonpartisan, nonpolitical tax 

collector, and rightfully so. 

Does nonpartisan, nonpolitical agency target certain groups 

based on their names or political ideology? The IRS did. Does a 

nonpartisan or nonpolitical agency conspire to leak the findings of 

an independent inspector general report? The IRS did. Does a nonpartisan, nonpolitical agency withhold documents requested during 

a congressional investigation subject to a lawful subpoena? The IRS 

does, did, and continues to. Does a nonpartisan, nonpolitical agency 

reinterpret laws protecting taxpayer information when it appears 

4 

their employees violated the law? The IRS does. Does a nonpartisan, nonpolitical agency blatantly ignore a congressional subpoena? Again, the IRS continues to. 

The American people believe the IRS is now a politicized agency 

because the IRS is a politicized agency. Our constituents deserve 

better than this, Commissioner. You are the President’s man at the 

IRS. You are one of only two political appointees. But it is clear 

that individuals acted on their politics, and we now have some, but 

only some, of the emails to prove it. 

You were brought in to do a very hard job, and no doubt you ask 

yourself every day why did I get and ask for and accept one of the 

hardest jobs anyone could ever have in Washington? And I appreciate that you are there and that you want to do that job. 

One of the ways you could do it is by ordering your people to simply comply with outstanding subpoenas. The simple fact is your response to the IRS targeting scandal has been bold by the ranking 

member’s standard and dismal by my standard. 

This committee doesn’t count how many documents are produced, 

but we do count when documents clearly responsive to a subpoena 

are clearly not delivered. The committee has made document requests almost 11 months ago that are still unfulfilled. I issued two 

subpoenas, the second to you personally, and they are still outstanding, and this is unacceptable. 

Unfortunately, you have been more concerned with managing the 

political fallout than cooperating with Congress, or at least this 

committee. I requested that you produce all of Lois Lerner’s emails 

to this committee. She won’t talk to us, so these emails are the 

next best substitute, and we need these emails. And you know we 

are not only entitled to them, but, by all that is holy, we deserve, 

and the American people deserve, access to know why somebody 

who cites Citizens United; who cites political gains, including the 

outcome of Senate majorities; who cites in a public speech statements about we need to fix it because the FEC can’t do it; who 

cites they want us to do it and then takes the Fifth when we ask 

who they are. Those emails in their entirety are clearly responsive. 

These are easy requests, and ones that were made back in May 

but have not been honored, and that request is one that you said 

you would work to fully comply. I understand you reached an 

agreement with the Ways and Means Committee to produce a limited subset of Ms. Lerner’s emails. Let me make it very clear. Your 

agreement with Ways and Means, without a subpoena, does not 

satisfy your obligation under a subpoena to produce all of her 

emails to this committee. 

Commissioner, your objection or your refusal to cooperate with 

the committee delays bringing the truth, costs the American people 

the confidence they hope to rebuild, and clearly is running up the 

cost to the American taxpayer. I know you want to bring this investigation to a close as soon as possible, and I do too. But the only 

way you can do that is to fully comply with our requests, and I 

hope you will take that to heart today. 

I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio for his 

opening statement. 

5 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to provide 

a little context for today’s hearing. Let’s go back to January 2010. 

The President of the United States, in his State of the Union address, called out the Supreme Court regarding the Citizens United 

decision. That same year, 2010, the President, numerous times, 

talked about Tea Party groups as shadowy groups who would hurt 

our democracy. That same year Senator Schumer says, we are 

going to get to the bottom of this, let’s encourage the IRS to investigate. Senator Baucus, that same year, asked the IRS to investigate (c)(4) applications and (c)(4) groups. Senator Durbin asked 

the IRS to investigate Crossroads GPS. 

And then, in that same year, 2010, two weeks before the election, 

October 19th, at Duke University, Lois Lerner gives a speech and 

she says this: The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow in the Citizens 

United decision and everyone is up in arms because they don’t like 

it; they want the IRS to fix the problem. The IRS law is not set 

up to fix the problem; (c)(4)s can do straight political activity. So 

everybody is screaming at us right now. 

Who is everybody? Everybody is not everybody. Everybody is the 

President and Democrat senators who asked her to do something. 

Fix it now, before the election. Lois Lerner says, I can’t do anything 

right now. She couldn’t fix it before the 2010 mid-term election, but 

what she could do is start a project to deal with it in the future, 

and that is exactly what she did. That same fall she sent an email, 

again, just weeks before the mid-term election. Lerner tells her colleagues let’s do a (c)(4) project next year. But she also says we need 

to be cautious so it isn’t a per se political project. In fact, the chairman put this email up at our last hearing. Per se political project 

means that is code for it is a political project, we just need to make 

it look like it is not a political project. 

Then, in early 2011, Lois Lerner orders the multi-tiered review 

of (c)(4) applications. Multi-tiered review, you know what that is? 

That is code for we are going to delay, we are going to harass, we 

are never going to approve these people, we are going to make it 

difficult. That is part of the (c)(4) project. 

And then make no mistake, she put Washington in charge. This 

email is also one that the chairman put up at our least meeting, 

where Lois Lerner said this in February of 2011: Tea Party matter 

very dangerous. Cinci should probably not have these cases. So this 

narrative about Cincinnati line agents and Cincinnati doing this is 

completely false. She ordered them not to have these cases. And 

then what happened? Lois Lerner got caught with her hand in the 

cookie jar. Tea Party groups came to us and said we are being harassed. We asked the inspector general to do an investigation; he 

did the audit and then before he can release the audit, unprecedented, before he releases the audit, Lois Lerner, in a speech in 

front of the Bar Association here in this town, with a planted question from a friend, reveals that, yes, targeting was taking place. 

And what does she do? She throws the Cincinnati people under the 

bus. The very people she said shouldn’t have the cases, good civil 

servants, she throws them under the bus. 

And here is the real kicker: Lois Lerner, who did this project 

from the pressure from the President and Democrat senators, who 

did this project, she won’t talk to us. She won’t talk to us and our 

6 

witness today won’t give us her emails, even though we subpoenaed them over six months ago. 

Mr. Chairman, Lois Lerner won’t talk to us. She will talk to the 

Justice Department because she knows that investigation. She will 

talk to the people who can put her in jail, but she won’t talk to us, 

and the guy who can give us the emails won’t give us the emails. 

And here is why today’s hearing is so important: the (c)(4) rule 

that is being proposed, that got 149,000 comments, would codify 

what Lois Lerner put into practice, would in fact accomplish the 

goal that she set out to do in 2010. The (c)(4) rule, we had a hearing three weeks ago, Mr. Chairman. We had a hearing three weeks 

ago where we had the ACLU, Tea Party patriots, the Motorcyclists 

Association of America, and the Home School Legal Defense. All 

four of those groups came to that hearing and you know what they 

all said? This rule stinks and should be thrown out. Think about 

that. From the ACLU to the Tea Party, from home schoolers to 

Harley riders, everyone knows this rule stinks. Everyone knows except the IRS. And now, today, we get a chance finally to question 

the guy in charge of this rule, running this agency. 

Here is the final thing, Mr. Chairman, and I will yield back. The 

same people who pressured Lois Lerner to fix the problem are the 

same people who picked John Koskinen to finish the job. That is 

where we are at. And all we are asking is give us the emails. 

Throw this rule in the trash, because everyone knows—the only 

people who want this rule are this Administration and the IRS. Everyone else knows this thing stinks. Everyone else knows it. And 

that is why today’s hearing is so important, Mr. Chairman 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now recognize the gentleman from Virginia for an opening 

statement on behalf of Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Koskinen, welcome back. I remember working with you on 

Y2K. You did a great job then and I am certainly hopeful you will 

do a great job now. I certainly think you are a great choice to be 

the new commissioner of the IRS. 

In listening to statements from the other side of the aisle, one 

might think that the IRS has just stonewalled the Congress and 

has been completely uncooperative. And yet, since the release of 

the audit report, the IRS has produced 420,000 pages of documents 

to this committee, facilitated 32 interviews of current and former 

IRS employees, and testified at six separate hearings. That is not 

non-cooperation. 

In addition, on March 7, 2014, Congressman Dave Camp, the 

chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, issued a press release commending the IRS on its cooperation with the committee 

and in particular its production of documents. He stated, ‘‘This is 

a significant step forward and will help us complete the investigation.’’ That cooperation included an agreement with the Ways and 

Means Committee in terms of which emails in fact would be provided. 

The chairman says he shares your goal, your desire to want to 

end this investigation, but he needs more cooperation, and I certainly take the chairman at his word. But one has the suspicion 

7 

that some of our friends on the other side of the aisle, the last 

thing in the world they would do is end this ongoing, if you can 

call it that, investigation, because it serves their political aims. Mr. 

Jordan just cited a panel we had. I was at that hearing, and one 

had the impression that this is all feeding the base, it is designed 

to get certain groups all riled up in time for a mid-term election. 

Mr. JORDAN. Would the gentleman yield for a question? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am going to finish my statement, Mr. Jordan, 

as you were allowed to finish yours. 

And that the serious purpose of investigation seems to be lost in 

the mire and the muck. 

This committee, on a partisan vote, decided that a citizen, who 

happened to work for IRS, not a heroic figure in this story, but a 

citizen protected by constitutional rights, had in fact waived her 

rights, a very dubious finding in light of long case history in the 

courts, going back to the McCarthy era when people needed that 

Fifth Amendment to make sure they weren’t entrapped by their 

own words, by star chambers, or by people willing to play fast and 

loose with facts and with the truth to make some political point. 

And the fact that you might be an unwitting victim, you are a casualty of war. 

None of my colleagues on this committee, of course, would engage 

in that kind of thing, but to strip an American citizen, or claim to 

strip an American citizen, of her Fifth Amendment right, a right 

that was enshrined as sacred by the founders, who had been treated to the tender loving mercies of then British colonial justice. It 

stung so much that they wanted to protect every American citizen 

from that kind of treatment, even if they might be hiding something, even if they weren’t heroic figures. Precisely why the Fifth 

Amendment was there. 

So, Mr. Koskinen, there are some of us here who wish you well 

and will certainly cooperate with you and try to make sure yours 

is a successful tenure. Obviously, to the extent that you can cooperate even more fully with this committee, that would be welcome. 

But be aware that unfortunately this committee has a habit sometimes of cherry-picking facts and of leaking. I heard the chairman 

complain about the IRS actually leaking documents. My, my, that 

would be a terrible thing if true; certainly not something we ever 

do on this committee. But just in case be prepared, because that 

may happen to you, too. So thank you for your cooperation, but be 

on your guard, because there is something else at work here. 

I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. Members may have seven days in which to submit opening statements for the record, including extraneous materials therein. 

The chair now welcomes the Honorable John Koskinen, who is 

the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. Welcome. 

Pursuant to the rules, all witnesses will be sworn. Would you 

please rise, raise your right hand to take the oath? 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witness responds in the affirmative.] 

Chairman ISSA. Please be seated. 

8 

Let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. 

You are a seasoned pro at this, but I will remind everyone your 

entire statement is in the record and it has been distributed in the 

packets, and you may summarize as you see fit. You are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN KOSKINEN, 

COMMISSIONER, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, members of the committee. Thank you for 

the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss IRS activities 

in regard to the determinations process for tax-exempt status. I am 

honored to serve as the IRS commissioner and to have the opportunity to lead this agency and its dedicated employees because I 

believe that the success of the IRS is vital for this Country. 

One of my primary responsibilities as IRS commissioner is to restore whatever public trust has been lost as a result of the management problems that came to light last year in regard to the application process for 501(c)(4) status. Taxpayers need to be confident 

that the IRS will treat them fairly no matter what their backgrounds, their affiliations, who they voted for in the last election. 

I am committed to ensuring we restore and maintain that trust. 

I am pleased to report to you that the IRS has made significant 

progress in addressing the issues and concerns with the 501(c)(4) 

determinations process. First of all, we have been responding to the 

recommendations made by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax 

Administration. It was the inspector general’s report in May of last 

year that found applications for 501(c)(4) status had been screened 

using inappropriate criteria. 

As of late January of this year, we completed action on all nine 

of the inspector general’s recommendations. Our actions have included reducing the inventory of 501(c)(4) applications, including 

the group of 145 cases in the so-called priority backlog, that is, 

those that were pending for more than 120 days on or before May 

2013. As of this month, 126 of those cases have been closed, including 98 that were approved. Of those 98, 43 took advantage of a selfcertification procedure re-offered last year. 

Also in response to the inspector general, the Treasury and IRS 

issued proposed regulations in November that are intended to provide clarity in determining the extent to which 501(c)(4) organizations may engage in political activity without endangering their 

tax-exempt status. As you know, we have received over 150,000 

comments on that draft. Although I do not control by myself the 

rulemaking process, the Treasury and IRS have a longstanding history of working cooperatively in this regard, and I will do my best 

to ensure that any final regulation is fair to everyone, clear, and 

easy to administer. 

Along with the actions we have taken in response to the inspector general, we continue to make every effort to cooperate with the 

six ongoing investigations into the 501(c)(4) determinations process, 

including this committee’s investigations. Over the last 18 months, 

the IRS has devoted significant resources to this committee’s investigation and requests for information, as well as those of other congressional committees. More than 250 IRS employees have spent 

9 

nearly 100,000 hours working directly on complying with the investigations, at a direct cost of $8 million. We also had to add capacity 

to our computer systems to make sure we were protecting taxpayer 

information while processing these materials. We estimate that 

work cost another $6 million or more. 

To date, we have produced more than 690,000 pages of 

unredacted documents to the House Ways and Means Committee 

and the Senate Finance Committees, which have Section 6103 authority, which means they can see taxpayer information. We have 

already produced more than 420,000 pages of redacted documents 

to this committee and the Senate Permanent Committee and Subcommittee on Investigations. Last week we were pleased to announce that we believe we have completed our productions to the 

Ways and Means and Finance Committees of all documents we 

have identified related to the processing and review of applications 

for tax-exempt status as described in the May 8, 2013 inspector 

general report. 

We are continuing to cooperate with this committee, and I would 

stress that, we are continuing to cooperate with this committee and 

others receiving redacted documents, and we will continue redacting and providing documents until that process is complete. As part 

of that process, it is my understanding that we will be delivering 

a substantial number of documents to this committee later today 

as part of the ongoing process. In light of those document productions, I hope that the investigations of the (c)(4) determinations 

process can be concluded in the very near future. 

In the event that this committee would, at some point in the future, decide to investigate other matters pertaining to the (c)(4) 

area, such as the rulemaking process or the examinations process, 

the IRS stands ready to cooperate with you. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I would be happy 

to be take your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Koskinen follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Thank you. I will recognize myself for a round 

of questioning. 

Did you need to upgrade your computers in order to produce all 

of Lois Lerner’s emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am sorry, could you clarify? 

Chairman ISSA. Did you need to upgrade your computers to 

produce all of Lois Lerner’s emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We had to upgrade our computers to produce all 

of the emails and documents. 

Chairman ISSA. Commissioner, I appreciate that, and my time is 

limited. I recently pulled all of my emails off of the House computers. It took one person at House Call a part of, a very small 

part of a morning to gin it up and produce it. I understand it takes 

a while to go through them, but, if I am correct, in a matter of 

hours, not after we subpoenaed, but after we showed interest, your 

agency had taken all of Lois Lerner’s, all of Holly Paz’s, all of William Wilkins’s, all of Jonathan Davis, former chief of staff, all of, 

or maybe or maybe not, all of them pertaining to the White House. 

But the first four take a matter of minutes to do. 

So my question is our subpoena, which is not extensive, for those 

four particularly, asked for all the emails that somebody who has, 

in the emails we have seen, both Government and non-Government 

emails in some cases, acted overtly political in her speeches and 

her activities, including what Mr. Jordan quoted. We asked for all 

of her emails. Do you have any privilege or any reason that you 

can’t and shouldn’t have delivered that months ago? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You seem to have more information about this 

than I do. We have 90,000 employees and my understanding of the 

process is that to go through all of those emails, which are millions 

of emails, to make sure we have not only the outgoing emails, but 

the incoming emails, is not a matter of a few minutes or a few 

hours. But, in any event, we have provided for all of those people, 

or are in the process of providing, all of the information and all of 

the emails related to the determinations process. 

Chairman ISSA. Commissioner, that is not the subpoena, and I 

want to be very clear. We issued you lawful subpoenas because you 

didn’t cooperate based on letters. Our subpoena says all of Lois 

Lerner’s emails. Is it your position today that you intend to give 

us those responsive to some key search word or you intend to give 

us all of Lois Lerner’s emails, all of Holly Paz’s emails, all of William Wilkins’s emails, all of Jonathan Davis’s emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We are working through the process. We have 

never said we would not provide those. 

Chairman ISSA. Will you provide all of the emails for those four 

individuals? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We will provide you—we are actually trying to, 

in an orderly way, conclude the investigation on the determination 

process, which is what the IG report reported to. We have had over 

250 people at various times working on this investigation. We are 

producing emails. You will get email copies today, redacted, and 

you will continue to get them. Our hope is that you could concentrate on the determination process. GAO is already, at the congressional request, doing a review, starting a review on the examVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Jul 08, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88494.TXT APRIL
20 

ination process. As I have said in my letters to you, if you would 

like—— 

Chairman ISSA. No, commissioner, you said something and I 

want to focus on that. You said your hope is that we would focus 

on the determination process. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I can’t tell you what to focus on. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It is up to you to focus on whatever you would 

like. 

Chairman ISSA. We are focusing on those individuals. We have 

asked for all of their emails in a legal subpoena. My question to 

you today: Will you commit here, today, to provide all of the 

emails? Not all the emails you believe are responsive, not all the 

emails you choose to give, not all the emails that are other than 

embarrassing; all the emails. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Mr. Chairman, we are prepared to continue to 

work with your staff. As you can understand, when you say all of 

the emails, you are going to get hundreds of thousands of pages, 

irrelevant documents. 

Chairman ISSA. No, no. No, I am sorry. Lois Lerner is an individual. We are asking for all of her emails. She obviously had a 

limited amount of emails. Quite frankly, we asked for all the 

emails. We believe that the emails, for example, where she talked 

about the outcome of the Senate races maintaining Democratic control because of Indiana and other States, the outcome of the Maryland pro-gay initiative, all of those are responsive to who she was 

and why she did what she did. Therefore, we have asked for, in the 

case of these individuals, all of their emails. Holly Paz, for example, said she didn’t know what Citizens United was, while Lois 

Lerner made it clear that she was trying to find a way to enforce 

around Citizens United at the IRS. And we have already seen the 

documents for that. 

Will you today commit to deliver all of the emails, not all that 

you think are responsive, all the four squares that any lawyer can 

read of the subpoena says we are asking for, which is all the emails 

for Lois Lerner, all the emails for Holly Paz, all the emails for William Wilkins, and all the emails for Jonathan Davis? Now, these 

are all of the ins and outs from their mailboxes. It is not difficult. 

You already have pulled them. There is no question at all; it is a 

question of will you deliver them. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Mr. Chairman, we are happy to continue to work 

with you and we will advise you—I am not aware that we pulled 

them all, but to the extent we have, they all have to be redacted, 

and we will work with you and advise you as to what the volume 

is. The reason the search terms were selected, they were selected 

by committee staff here and in the other investigations so that—— 

Chairman ISSA. No, your people—and my time has expired. You 

previously selected search terms, asked us to give priorities. That 

is all fine. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is not true. 

Chairman ISSA. The subpoena that was personally delivered to 

you, which we expect you to comply with or potentially be held in 

contempt, those emails were very specific based on individuals who 

have become specific focus on why they did what they did and what 

21 

they have said, whether it is true or not, is critical to this committee’s discovery of intent. Will you commit to deliver all of those 

emails, redacted only for 6103? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. As I said, we have never said we wouldn’t 

produce those emails. The search terms, just to clear the record, 

were not selected by the IRS, they were in fact selected in cooperation with various congressional investigations on the House and 

Senate side to try to limit the volume of material you are going to 

get. We will be happy to provide you volumes of material. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, my time has expired, but let me make it 

clear in closing. It does not take any search terms to respond to all 

the emails of Lois Lerner. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You are going to get a lot of emails, and, as noted 

earlier, you may want to have this investigation go on forever. We 

have provided you all of the emails relevant to the IG report. We 

are providing you Lois Lerner’s emails with regard to issues that 

you have raised about the examination process, about the appeals 

process, and about the regulatory process. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that. 

The gentleman from Maryland. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I think the chairman has asked some very good questions, and 

I want to give you an opportunity to respond. So when you all are 

going through these emails, the last part of what you said is very 

significant. You said something about they have to be relevant. I 

mean, where are you getting all of that from? You remember what 

you just said, the last part of it? It sounded like there were certain 

things that were used, terms that were used to decide what you 

think is responsive to the subpoena. Now, can you explain that to 

us? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. In other words, if she had a personal email and 

she was talking about shopping or something, whatever, are you all 

separating? Is that part of the process? I don’t understand. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Part of the process—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You said something about relevance. Can you explain that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Part of the process when this started, because 

there are literally millions of emails, was to take a look at, in 

agreement with the staffs of the investigating committees, take a 

look at 83, ultimately it was originally a smaller number, the IRS 

added to the custodians as it were, that is, the people sending and 

receiving emails, there are 83 of those that we agreed to look at. 

The terms in terms of what would be relevant were determined by 

congressional committees, as well as the IRS, to try to limit the 

volume. As I say, limiting the volume, you still have 700,000 pages 

of relevant documents. To the extent that somebody wants to look 

at hundreds of thousands more pages of what the search terms defined by the Congress would be termed irrelevant, at some point 

we are happy to provide those. We will provide those in the orderly 

course. 

But I will tell you that our experience is it is going to be an overwhelming volume of materials. They will take us some significant 

time to redact taxpayer information, a significant part of which will 

22 

have nothing to do with this investigation. But if that is the way 

the committee wants to go, we will go that way. But the other committees, and staff of this committee in the early determinations, decided that that would be a fruitless task of overwhelming the investigators, not us, overwhelming the investigators with thousands of 

pages of irrelevant documents. Therefore, they suggested with us 

and selected with us search terms of what would be relevant: Tea 

Party, examinations, whatever else they picked. There are a whole 

series of those terms designed to limit the volume of materials. 

We still have provided a lot of duplicative and probably irrelevant materials within those search terms, but we have not determined anything within those search terms. We have said if those 

are the terms that will help you winnow it down, we are happy to 

work with you. But if the committee wants to get simply large volumes of personal emails from a lot of different people, we will go 

through again, making sure that we redact those appropriately. As 

I say, we have provided unredacted copies of all of this in terms 

of the relevance determined by the committees to the other committees, and we provided all of the redacted information available now 

and we are continue to redact it. It cannot be done overnight. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

I want to go to the recommendations of the inspector general, because this is Oversight and Government Reform, and I think the 

committee ought to take some credit for what you have said that 

there were nine recommendations and apparently you all have 

been able to address all nine of them. We don’t hear that quite 

often in this committee, by the way. So the inspector general’s report, which was issued in May of last year, made nine recommendations. I have a chart here that lists each one of these nine 

recommendations from the inspector general. The title of the chart 

is Exempt Organizations’ Recommended Actions Ending February 

24, 2014. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that this chart from the 

IRS be entered into the record. 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Commissioner, in addition to listing each of the 

nine recommendations, this chart describes in detail the status of 

each recommendation. It describes the work that has taken place 

over the last 10 months, as well as the specific reforms that were 

implemented, is that correct? Are you familiar with the chart? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. If I am reading this chart correctly, it appears 

that all nine of the inspector general’s recommendations have been 

fulfilled. Is that right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let’s look more closely at the status of these recommendations. 

The inspector general’s first several recommendations begin on 

page 10 of his report. They propose that the IRS change its procedures for how screeners in Cincinnati classify applications. All of 

these recommendations are now marked as completed. 

Commissioner, can you explain what new guidance the IRS has 

provided to screeners in Cincinnati about how they should classify 

and process these applications in an appropriate way? 

23 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. The criteria for exemption under (c)(4) are 

complicated because it is a ‘‘facts and circumstance’’ determination. 

The guidance and the new training has provided more guidance to 

those reviewing as to what is appropriate political advocacy and 

what is direct political campaign intervention. It is the campaign 

intervention that if it becomes your primary activity, you, in fact, 

are not eligible to be a 501(c)(4). There obviously are complicated 

terms. We provided better guidance and we have also provided improved and new supervision for any determination that is going to 

be delayed. We also have provided clear lines of authority so if anyone needs advice or additional assistance they can get that automatically and easily. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. On page 17 of the inspector general’s report he 

lists another recommendation: ‘‘Provide oversight to ensure that potential political cases, some of which have been in process for three 

years, are approved or denied expeditiously.’’ In response, the IRS 

chart says that this ‘‘As of February 21st, 2014, 112 cases in the 

original backlog, 85 percent, have been closed.’’ 

Commissioner, this is good news, and I understand from your 

testimony today that this number has gone even higher, to 87 percent. Can you please explain how this expedited review process 

worked? I think I have one minute left on my time. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The way that worked is Interim Commissioner 

Danny Werfel, who I think did a great job as the interim, established a process for expedited review, and any applicant who would 

simply certify that they were not going to spend more than 40 percent of their time on political activity could be approved immediately. And that streamlined process continues for new applicants. 

Forty-five or so of the existing at that time pending applicants filed 

that paper and were immediately reviewed and approved. Of those 

that are still pending, they have decided not to, in fact, sign the 

affidavit that they would not spend more than 40 percent of their 

time on political activity. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. My final question, I understand that the IRS has 

now completed all of the inspector general’s recommendations, but, 

going forward, what additional plans do you have to ensure that 

these management problems have been fully addressed? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have agreed with the inspector general that 

before any election we will conduct additional training sessions and 

try to sensitize all of the people reviewing applications to make 

sure that we handle them appropriately, no matter what the political background of any of the organizations; and this would apply 

to people at one end of the political spectrum or the other. That 

will be done before every election as we go forward. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Before I call another member, I want to make it clear staff has 

informed me, for the record, that early on with the IRS they did 

mutually agree to search terms. That was before the subpoenas 

were issued. There was never an assurance that those search terms 

were being used, and to this day we don’t know if those search 

terms were actually used, so one of the challenges is that that was 

abandoned in favor of subpoenas because of what they believed to 

be noncompliance a number of months in. But there was an initial 

attempt to work cooperatively but, as I said, there was a question 

24 

of whether or not those search terms ever actually got used. So 

thank you. 

We now go to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We have had an opportunity to interact in the past and always 

appreciate your candor. At the very heart of this matter is a basic 

fact that IRS appears to have been used prior to the election, the 

presidential election, in a concerted effort to close down or keep at 

bay conservative organizations by targeting them. You are aware 

of that, sir? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am aware, as was noted earlier, that the inspector general found inappropriate criteria were used to select organizations for further review. He did not refer to it as targeting. 

Mr. MICA. But you heard one of the principal IRS officials who 

was involved with Lois Lerner, who came to the chair where you 

are sitting now and took the Fifth Amendment. She is at the heart 

of most of this activity. It was pointed out by Mr. Jordan that she 

concocted it was almost a Hollywood production before the inspector general, May 14th, came out with his report to blame the people in Cincinnati, some rogue IRS employees who gathered around 

the water cooler and concocted a scheme to again target. And I 

think she laid that out, is that not correct? 

I mean, historically, you know that as a fact. She appeared before the American Bar Association before the report came out and 

made those statements, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. She did make those statements. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would note that because she took the Fifth, as 

I said in a letter to the chairman—— 

Mr. MICA. Again, this committee, it is nice to be here for a while 

because you see how people try to throw people under the bus. 

Whether it is the chairman, Mr. Cummings said the case is closed. 

We started our investigation on June 9th. In May we started. June 

9th Mr. Cummings, the ranking member, said it appears the case 

is closed. And then June 9th—well, he said I see the case is solved. 

If it were me, I would wrap this case up and move on, to be frank. 

So he tries to throw the case under the bus. He tried to throw the 

chairman under the bus. He sent a letter just before that: Your actions over the past three years do not reflect a responsible bipartisan approach to investigations. 

Now, he has a constitutional and a House responsibility for investigations and oversight. You have a responsibility to provide us 

with information. We have asked you specifically for about a half 

a dozen individuals’ emails, including Lois Lerner, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. And you said, you just testified to us probably 

most of—and you said you gave 640,000 to the Ways and Means 

and 420 to our committee. But you also said here, and we can play 

the tape back, probably most irrelevant material, right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Most irrelevant material. 

Mr. MICA. Probably mostly irrelevant material were your words. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Of the material we provided. 

Mr. MICA. At great expense. IRS and most bureaucracies have no 

problem spending lots of money doing things we don’t need. We 

25 

asked you very specifically for the emails from six individuals, a 

half a dozen individuals, and you have not complied, including Lois 

Lerner. Is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. My point was what you are going to get is mostly 

irrelevant material. 

Mr. MICA. I know. And we aren’t interested in it. We are interested specifically in Lois Lerner and others to find out who did 

what. Are you aware of Cindy Thomas’s statements? She was the 

chief person out in Cincinnati, and she said, May 10th, with a copy 

to Lois Lerner, we have a copy of that—— 

Chairman ISSA. To Lois Lerner with a copy to Holly Paz. 

Mr. MICA. To Lois Lerner with a copy to Holly Paz. And she said 

Cincinnati wasn’t publicly thrown under the bus; instead, it was 

hit by a convoy of Mack trucks. Are you aware of her statement 

as to what took place? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am. I am aware of the fact that you already 

have a significant number of Lois Lerner emails, obviously, and, in 

fact, we have been trying to—— 

Mr. MICA. But we don’t have what we want. And, again, it is a 

game of you providing us with probably huge amounts of irrelevant 

material. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is what you are going to get. 

Mr. MICA. And we aren’t interested in personal. You could give 

us a billion documents. That is not what we asked. We asked specifically—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. And what you are going to get—and I 

would like to—— 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired, but you may 

answer. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Can I answer his question some time? 

Chairman ISSA. Of course. That is what I said, the gentleman’s 

time has expired, but you may answer. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Thank you. First of all, your earlier comment 

about your staff being concerned about whether the search terms 

were being followed is the first time I have heard that. We have 

followed those search terms. No other committee, none of the other 

five investigations going on have raised any question about whether we have in fact followed on those search terms. So if your staff 

has that concern, I would appreciate it if they would let us know, 

because none of the other five investigations and none of the other 

five staffs have raised that issue; and, as far as I know, we have 

abided by those search terms and provided everything that the 

committee has requested pursuant to those search terms and with 

regard to the determination process. 

With regard to Lois Lerner, as I said in my letter to you, because 

you have not been able to cross-examine her because she is not an 

IRS employee, the first priority we have, we have already been providing you the emails. In fact, your staff report cited a number of 

them that you have had, her emails with regard to the determination process. You have been able to cross-examine over 30 witnesses about anything you wanted to talk to them about, but because you could not talk to Lois, we are providing you, and they 

have to be redacted, we are going to provide you Lois Lerner emails 

with regard to not only the ones you have about determinations, 

26 

but Lois Lerner emails with regard to the examination process, the 

appeals process, and, to the extent there are any, with regard to 

the development of the proposed regulations that were issued. 

Those were the issues that have been raised, concerns about 

what her involvement was. We have committed that we will provide those to you. We have not said we are not going to provide 

you the rest of them. We have prioritized trying to complete document production so that we would be able to get you the information that we thought would be appropriate for the determination 

process. As I said in my letter to you, if you now want to actually 

run an investigation of the other areas with those employees or 

others, we are prepared to work with you. As I say, if you just want 

all the documents, once redacted, no matter what they are, we can 

give those to you, but I can guarantee you that you are going to 

go under and it is not going to further the investigative process. 

But if that is way you would like to do it, that will be our next priority. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, a quick unanimous request. I would 

like this email from Cindy Thomas to appear in the record at this 

point in the proceedings, and also a copy of The Washington Post 

June 9th, Case is Closed article to appear in the record. 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman ISSA. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Unanimous request just for a minute. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. He just said something, Mr. Chairman, and I 

want to make sure it is clear. It sounds like, Mr. Chairman, that 

he has an impression of what is being subpoenaed using certain 

lists and we have an opinion, and they don’t coincide. Is that accurate? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. I think what has happened is the subpoena 

that was delivered to me in February said it wanted all the emails 

for a set of people. What we have been trying to do is all of those 

people, you have emails from those people with regard to the determination process pursuant to the search terms that we have been 

working with. The subpoena now says we would like them all for 

anything. We have now finally completed, although we are still 

working on the redaction, all of the production of documents regarding the determination process, which is what the IG report focused on. We have said that that is the first priority we have had. 

We have never said we are not going to provide you the rest of the 

documents, and in fact, trying to figure out the most efficient way 

to do it, we have said we will provide you Lois Lerner emails on 

everything with regard to examinations, appeals, and the regulatory process as it goes forward. 

And I have said when we are done with all of that, if you want 

to actually get emails, if you want them all, we will give them all 

to you, but if you want to actually take a more focused investigation on the regulatory process or otherwise, we are happy to work 

with you to figure how that goes. But in light of this chairman’s 

view, as soon as we can finish the rest of these redactions and go 

forward, we will provide you volumes of emails, which many of 

them are going to be irrelevant, which is what I said in CongressVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Jul 08, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88494.TXT APRIL
27 

man Mica’s comment. Not that the materials you have are irrelevant; the ones you are likely to get in volume are irrelevant. And 

if you want it without any selective process, we will redact them. 

There are going to be thousands of pages and we are happy to provide them to you, but it is not going to expedite the conclusion of 

this investigation and, as I say, a significant part of it is going to 

be irrelevant. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. For the gentleman, because it is a good question, 

one of the reasons that we requested all is that, back when we 

were in the minority, we began digitally evaluating this kind of information, and when we have all, and the ones that the commissioner is talking about, if they are irrelevant, then, quite frankly, 

there is no redaction because if they don’t have 6103, there is no 

redaction appropriate. If that is the case, we do search terms and 

we look at only what we need to look at. But we can constantly 

search and research to try to get to the bottom of it. 

As you can imagine, we would not have found Lois Lerner talking to her daughter about overtly partisan political activity if we 

had only looked for determination. It wasn’t relative to determination, but it was relative to possible motivation. The IG, as you 

know, was not aware of the speech at Duke University in which it 

was clear that Lois Lerner was saying in pretty plain terms that 

she was going to act on what the FEC couldn’t act on. So this is 

part of the investigation; it is the reason we have asked for all. 

And, quite frankly, it takes a lot less time to just go through and 

view these things and say, oh, that has no 6103, and you just start 

sending it. And that is what we had hoped for when we issued the 

subpoenas for all, because these are people, as you know, who have 

said things before our committee, or failed to say things in some 

cases, in which they become what law enforcement might call a 

person of interest; and Lois Lerner and Holly Paz and so on, and 

the other individuals, are people of interest because of their possible role. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, in other words, any email with anybody, talking to their daughter, if there is any relevance whatsoever, if they 

say I just don’t like Democrats, I mean, in any way you could connect that with an investigation, and they are talking to their 

daughter. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that, but remember—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am just trying to make sure I understand. 

Chairman ISSA. I just want to make sure of the context. These 

are Government emails from a Government account, back in and 

out. This is the use of IRS assets to communicate. We would presume that the majority of it is not shopping online. As a matter of 

fact, in the case of Lois Lerner, she did her shopping online in a 

Hotmail account, which she also did 6103 material on. So, in a normal case this would not be something you would look through. And 

the Department of Justice, if they are actually doing the investigation they claim to, we have an obligation to look and figure out 

whether we can opt out these communications, which in this case 

were always the product of the Government, always available and, 

as you know, it is a given that communication on Government computers is in fact open to Government review. 

28 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just wanted to make sure the public understands that. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would say to the 

ranking member it sounds like his understanding is correct. And 

I would hope we would do the same with, oh, I don’t know, the IG, 

Mr. Russell George. I would like to see all of his overt partisan political emails. I would like to see if he has emailed relatives, if he 

has emailed staff members of this committee. I think that would 

be relevant to putting in context his findings and to determining 

whether he, in fact, is an objective source of information and analysis. But that is a different matter. 

Mr. Koskinen, as I read the Declaration of Independence, it is 

written largely initially, the first draft, by Thomas Jefferson, but 

it was subject to an editorial committee. He didn’t like that; he 

thought his words were pretty good. Among those words were 

Americans were entitled to life, liberty. Now, here the editorial 

committee did not act. He said and the pursuit of happiness. But 

it sounds like some people would substitute for that an unfettered 

and unquestioned access to 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) tax exempt status. Do you read that in the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Commissioner? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I never thought of it that way, but I don’t read 

it that way, no. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, it doesn’t read that way. So it is not really 

an explicit entitlement or right; it is a process you have to qualify 

for, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. There are many different ways of trying to figure 

out how somebody qualifies and whether they qualify, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And, by and large, historically, IRS has had a 

standard operating procedure for determining that status, either 

501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) or other status, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. In this particular case, what we are all excited 

about is that a filter was created in a regional office that seemed 

to target people for their political views, both right and left, but apparently mostly right, is that right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As noted, the inappropriate criteria used primarily the name of the organization to select them for further review. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Now, one of the problems we have here is an adverb. The word used in the statute is exclusively; a social welfare 

exclusively devoted to that purpose, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And yet, despite the fact that Congress wrote 

that adverb into the law, IRS took upon itself, long before your tenure, to actually interpret that meaning primarily, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Now, if I said to my spouse, honey, we have an 

exclusive relationship, and I mean by that 49 percent, I would 

29 

probably have problems in my relationship. To her and to me exclusively means just you all the time, 100 percent. So how in the 

world did we get to a situation where the IRS, on its own, outside 

of statutory authority, decided to interpret this as primarily? Because, to me, that is part of the problem. Exclusively ought to 

mean exclusively. And if Congress wants to change that, we should 

change the law. But I don’t remember Congress investing IRS with 

the authority to actually decide to interpret it radically different, 

not just kind of a little fudge factor here. This is radically different. 

And it seems to me therein is the problem, because clearly some 

of these organizations are not exclusively social welfare agents, I 

mean, clearly, they are largely designed to be political, partisanly 

political, that concern the chairman has, overt partisan communication, and I share that concern. And all too many of these organizations hide under the umbrella of social welfare when in fact 

what they really mean is partisan political activity. Can you address this dilemma for me, how the IRS could possibly take the 

word exclusively and reinterpret it to mean mostly, sometimes, just 

shy of 50 percent, primarily? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Needless to say, I wasn’t around in 1959, when 

that regulation was given to the IRS. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Which is stipulated. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. One of the reasons, in response to the inspector 

general’s recommendation that clarification be provided, that the 

draft regulations were issued for comment was to in fact solicit discussions about what the definition of political activity ought to be, 

how much of it ought to be allowed before you jeopardize your tax 

exemption or are ineligible for tax exemption, and to which organizations in the 501(c) complex should that be applied. The 150,000 

comments address all three of those issues. The proposed draft was 

designed to in fact review and revisit with the public and with comments and with Congress exactly that issue, what should exclusively really mean. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. My time is up. 

Mr. Chairman, I certainly hope, after all the storm and drum of 

this issue, we actually might come together in a bipartisan basis. 

Chairman ISSA. I certainly hope so, and I hope the gentleman remembers that 501(c)(4)s are not tax exempt to the contributor, so 

they really are no different than any corporation that spends all of 

its money doing anything. But it is an interesting question of what 

social welfare was in 1959 and whether promoting a reduction in 

smoking or something else would have been considered political 

prior to the creation of the Federal Election Commission. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And you know, Mr. Chairman, if I may, to your 

point, we may even decide, frankly, look, let’s just have a new category. You want to be political and you want to hide who your donors are, hopefully you don’t, there is this category, so that we are 

not playing, frankly, with words and, in the sense, all being 

complicit in this disingenuous exercise. So I take the chairman’s 

point and would add to it. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

30 

Mr. Koskinen, what part of all don’t you and the IRS understand? You have said like ten times now if you give us all Lois 

Lerner’s emails, we are going to get irrelevant information. Frankly, with all due respect, we don’t care what you think is irrelevant. 

The committee has asked for every single—I asked for it clear back 

in August from Danny Werfel and he told me the same thing you 

did; we are trying, we are hoping, we are going to get there someday, sometime. We want them all. Because if you limit it to what 

you said earlier, to determinations, appeals, exams, and rulemaking, just those categories, what if there is an email to Lois 

Lerner from the White House that says, Hey, Lois, keep up the 

great work, we appreciate what you are doing? What if there is 

that kind of email? That wouldn’t fit under the categories and the 

search terms that you are talking about. When we say all, we want 

every single email in the time period in the subpoena that was sent 

to you, plain and simple. 

Now, let me ask you this. You agree with the TIGTA audit report 

that came out, you agree there were problems and you are trying 

to comply with the TIGTA audit report, is that accurate, Mr. 

Koskinen? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. All right, I would like to put up slide one. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. JORDAN. These are inappropriate criteria and questions that 

were sent out to Tea Party groups that TIGTA identified as going 

too far, inappropriate things asked: issues that are important to 

the organization, things asked that the organization indicate positions regarding such issues, type of conversations you have in your 

meetings. Inappropriate questions you concede that are highlighted 

there. 

Second slide. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. JORDAN. This is Judith Kendall, email that she sent to Holly 

Paz. Judith Kendall, Senior Technical Advisor to Lois Lerner. Same 

list, talking about how these were inappropriate questions that 

were asked of Tea Party groups. 

Now we move to the proposed rule that has got so much controversy. I think approximately 150,000 comments, more comments 

than any other rule that the IRS has ever proposed, is that accurate, Mr. Koskinen? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Actually, if you take all the comments for the last 

seven years and double them, and you get to that number. 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. And is it fair to say the vast majority of those 

comments are negative? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no idea; they are being analyzed right 

now. 

Mr. JORDAN. Based on what we have heard, based on the hearing 

we had just a few weeks ago, where we had the ACLU and the Tea 

Party all saying this thing stinks and we shouldn’t have it, vast 

majority of those, I am going to hazard a guess, are negative comments. 

If we could go to the third slide now. 

[Slide.] 

31 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, this is a newsletter that came out just three 

weeks ago. IRS Exempt Organization Newsletter, March 4, 2014. 

Are you familiar with this newsletter that goes out from the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do not see those. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. Well, this is put out by the Exempt Organizations Division, same division where all these problems took place 

over the last three years. It came out, again, just five days after 

the comment period on the proposed rule ended at the end of February, and I want to just highlight a few of the questions that are 

asked. So there is a category that says what if the IRS needs more 

information about your (c)(4) application? New sample questions. 

So if we could put them up side-by-side. 

Now, the first slide are the targeted questions that TIGTA said 

were inappropriate and that you agree are inappropriate, Judith 

Kendall agreed are inappropriate. Those are those questions. And 

now, just five days after the proposed rule comment period ends, 

you issue a newsletter from the Exempt Organizations Division 

highlighting the new questions you are going to ask, and I just 

want to look how similar the two questions are. 

Let’s just take the second category, whether an officer or director, 

etcetera, has run or will run for public office. The new question 

says this: Do you support a candidate for public office who is one 

of your founders, officers, or board members? It is basically the 

same. This reminds me of when I was in grade school and the 

teachers told us you shouldn’t plagiarize, so you change a few 

words and basically plagiarize. This is the same thing. 

So here is what I don’t understand. If you are trying to comply 

with the TIGTA report, if the new (c)(4) rule is a way to deal with 

what the audit said and not as what I believe is a continuation of 

the project Lois Lerner started, why are you asking the same darn 

questions? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I noted, I haven’t seen that and can’t read it 

on the chart. I would be delighted to sit down and go over all of 

those questions with you and with the exempt organizations. All of 

the TIGTA report didn’t blanket say you should never ask questions about this. Thank you for the chart. 

Mr. JORDAN. Let me read from your testimony, Mr. Koskinen. 

Page 7 of your testimony that you submitted to the committee yesterday, talking about our notice of proposed rulemaking is consistent with the TIGTA recommendations. You said this in your 

testimony you gave the committee. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, okay, I am just—— 

Mr. JORDAN. And yet consistent with TIGTA recommendations. 

TIGTA said these kind of questions are inappropriate, and now, 

just three weeks ago, Exempt Organizations Division issues a 

newsletter where you are asking almost verbatim, a few word 

changes so you don’t look just like you are totally plagiarizing or 

doing the exact same question, almost verbatim—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t think they are exact—— 

Mr. JORDAN.—the same darn questions. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t think they are—the first question says, 

Provide a list of all issues that are important to your organization 

32 

and indicate your position regarding those. The new question says, 

Describe how you prepare voter guides. 

Mr. JORDAN. What do you think voter guides are about? They are 

about issues. They are about the issues important to organizations. 

It is the same thing. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I think—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Have you ever seen a voter guide? I have. I would 

be able to answer those questions. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would submit and I appreciate—— 

Mr. JORDAN. As a candidate, I have answered those. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would submit and I appreciate having a copy of 

this, that if I look at the first question and the revision, the revision is very different than the—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Very different. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Very different. 

Mr. JORDAN. Oh, yeah, right. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Look at the third question: What type of conversations and discussions did your members and participants have 

during the activity? That is now, Describe how you determine what 

questions to ask of candidates. It doesn’t say anything about what 

discussions or conversations your member had, including the scope 

of the—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You think they don’t discuss it? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It doesn’t ask for your conversation. It doesn’t say 

what your participants are. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay, you defend that. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It specifically says—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You defend that and you defend the statement that 

you are complying with the proposed rulemaking is consistent with 

the TIGTA recommendations. I don’t think it is. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is fine. 

Mr. JORDAN. What I know is the same day this comes out, you 

send me a letter, our primary goal, same day, March 4, 2014, letter 

to me, you responded to a letter we had sent to you; one of my primary goals and responsibilities is to restore whatever public trust 

has been lost over the course of the last several months, and yet 

you are asking almost, almost the same questions that your people 

said were inappropriate to ask Tea Party groups when all the targeting took place. And now, as a response to the new (c)(4) rule, 

oh, we have changed the questions a little bit. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I think if you ask an organization independently 

which are the questions, have there been changes, I think that 

these are new questions; they do not probe the discussions you had, 

the conversations you had, they didn’t disclose your position on the 

issues. These are in fact new questions. Now, we may have a difference—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I think we disagree. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is fine. 

Mr. JORDAN. And I think the vast majority of people who were 

harassed over the last three years would agree with my position. 

Mr. Chairman I yield back. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am happy to have this in the record and let the 

public decide whether or not we have responded appropriately. 

Mr. JORDAN. Oh, let me ask you one other question. 

33 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. I apologize. 

We now go to the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioner, Chairman Issa wrote a letter to you yesterday, 

complaining that you were guilty of a failure to comply with the 

committee’s demands for documents. He also said, ‘‘Your continued 

noncompliance with these requests also contravenes your pledge to 

fully cooperate with congressional investigations.’’ So even though 

you have already produced more than 400,000 pages to the committee, even though you have 250 employees working on producing 

more, he accuses you of violating your pledge and frustrating congressional oversight. I think this is shameful and it is even more 

so when you actually look at the unbelievably broad demands the 

chairman has made. 

Lets look at just one of these demands. Number 8 in Mr. Issa’s 

letter, it demands the following: ‘‘All documents referring or relating to the evaluation of tax-exempt applications or the examination 

of tax-exempt organizations from January 1, 2009 to August 2nd, 

2013.’’ Let me read that again: All documents from 2009 to 2013, 

nearly four years, referring or relating in any way to tax-exempt 

applications. 

Mr. Commissioner, how broad is this request? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That request will get you not thousands, but 

probably millions of documents. The chairman has been focusing on 

emails, but you are exactly right, the full sweep of the subpoena 

will mean that we will be at this for months, if not years, collecting 

that information, redacting it, and then providing it. 

Mr. CLAY. Let me ask you this. The evaluation of tax-exempt applications is the function of the Exempt Organizations Division of 

the IRS. It is my understanding that about 800 people work in the 

Division, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. CLAY. So the chairman has gone on national television and 

threatening you with contempt unless the IRS produces every document produced by 800 people over nearly a four-year time period. 

Mr. Commissioner, even if you wanted to comply with this demand, 

how long would you estimate that it would take the IRS to complete this document production? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have already spent 10 months, $15 million, 

and add 100,000 hours and 250 people working to produce the documents that we in fact agreed with the committee would be relevant. This is a much broader, more sweeping request to all of 

those documents, and I have continued to press our people, because 

I am anxious to get documents to the committees and investigators 

as fast as possible, how long it would take even to complete the redaction, and I cannot get a clear answer because it is a very complicated, difficult process. My guess is there is no way we would get 

you this information totally before the end of the year. 

Mr. CLAY. Wow. To me, this shows how our committee has 

moved from government oversight to government abuse. These ridiculous demands are not only over-broad and irrelevant, but they 

will force the IRS to continue wasting its precious staff and financial resources. 

34 

This is about being reasonable and demanding documents within 

reason, and I don’t get that sense from this committee that we are 

going in that direction. I think we are going in the opposite direction. To me, this is a partisan witch hunt which has already cost 

the IRS more than $14 million, and compliance with these outrageous requests will only cause that number to continue to grow, 

and it certainly doesn’t reflect good oversight, Mr. Chairman, and 

I am really appalled that this investigation has gone to this level. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CLAY. I certainly do. 

Chairman ISSA. Do you feel that asking for all of Lois Lerner’s 

emails so that we can search through to see whether or not she inappropriately was in fact actively doing more than we already 

know? Do you think that is inappropriate? 

Mr. CLAY. I don’t have a problem asking for Lois Lerner’s email, 

but I do have an issue with asking for 800 people’s emails. I mean, 

are all 800 connected to this investigation? 

Chairman ISSA. Well, like I say, we haven’t received all of Lois 

Lerner’s emails, which is one of the things we asked for. 

Mr. CLAY. Can we be more specific about what we are looking 

for for Lois Lerner, from her emails? 

Chairman ISSA. No, we cannot. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

We now go to the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Chaffetz. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the chairman. 

Commissioner, thank you for being here. I have a copy of the 

subpoena that you were issued. You did receive this subpoena, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The date on this is February 14th. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You understand what it means? Is there any 

question on what it means? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t think so. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you believe it was duly issued by the House 

of Representatives? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am assuming that. I have no independent basis 

for determining that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The schedule, which is just eight items, all communications sent or received by Lois Lerner from January 1st, 

2009 to August 2nd, 2013. Is there any ambiguity in your mind? 

Do you have any doubt as to what that means? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. If you want to go through all eight, I have 

no doubt what any of them mean. As noted, some of them mean 

you are going to take months or years to get the information and 

it is going to be voluminous. But there is no doubt about it. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you have no ambiguity about what it means. 

You believe it has been a duly issued subpoena. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And you have not complied with it, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. There is physically no way anyone could have 

complied between February 14th and now. We have never said we 

won’t comply. We have said, in fact, we are—— 

35 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Are you going to comply or not? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We are complying. And I will tell you to comply 

with this—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no, no. 

Mr. KOSKINEN.—you will be next year, you will be next year still 

getting documents. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Commissioner, what email system do you use 

there at the IRS? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. What email system do we use? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes. It is Outlook? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. We have, actually, Microsoft. At least I have 

Microsoft Office. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you have Microsoft. So you go on there and 

you want to find all the items you sent under your name. How long 

with that take? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, it would take a while because they are not 

all on my computer, they are all stored somewhere. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay. But your IT specialists, how long do you 

think it takes, of the 90-plus thousand employees there at the IRS, 

how long would it take to find all the emails that included her 

email address? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Just Lois Lerner’s alone? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Just Lois Lerner. Just Lois Lerner. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It would take a while. We would have to—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Like how long? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, there are millions of emails. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Minutes? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Minutes? I don’t know, but I don’t think it is minutes. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I mean, that is one of the brilliants of the email 

system, is you go in and you check the Sent box and the Inbox, and 

you suddenly have all the emails, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. They get taken off and stored in servers, 

and you have 90,000 employees and you have people—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I know, but I am not asking you to search; I am 

asking you to find one. They type in her email address. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We could find and we in fact are searching. We 

can find Lois Lerner’s emails. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. In how long? How long would that take? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no idea how long. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Would it take a day? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I just said I have no idea. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, I just don’t understand. You have a duly 

issued subpoena. If you were in the private sector and somebody 

was issued a subpoena and you didn’t comply with it, what would 

happen to you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. For this subpoena, the court would actually rule 

that it is far too broad—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Oh, so you are going to make the determination. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You asked the question. Let me answer the question. In a court of law, if you provided that subpoena, a judge 

would not enforce it because it is—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Wait, wait, wait. Now, stop, stop, stop right there. 

So you are going to be the judge. 

36 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not being the judge; I am just telling you 

what would happen. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes, you are. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You asked me what would happen. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You have a duly issued subpoena. Are you or are 

you not going to provide this committee the emails as indicated in 

this subpoena, yes or no? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have never said we weren’t—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I am asking you yes or no. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We are going to respond to the subpoena—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no. Sir—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes, we are going to respond to the subpoena. I 

am just telling you to respond fully to the subpoena, we are going 

to be at this for years, not months. That is the only thing I would 

like to—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And I don’t understand that. Just specific to item 

one, Lois Lerner—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Lois Lerner’s emails—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Sir, are you or are you not going to provide this 

committee all of Lois Lerner’s emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We are already starting—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes or—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes, we will do that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes. And then by when? When could we have 

that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I can only tell you it is going to take me, my 

group, I asked this question the other day, just to get you the Lois 

Lerner emails, redacted, because you have to get them redacted, for 

examinations, appeals, and—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no, no, no. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You asked the question. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is that what the subpoena says? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Would you like to hear the answer to the question? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No. I would like to know if you are going to fully 

comply with the subpoena; not your version of the subpoena, the 

actual subpoena. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You asked me how long it would take to respond 

to the Lois Lerner emails. I am explaining to you why it is going 

to take time just to respond to the categorization—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I don’t want you to redact it. I don’t want you to 

take the certain categories that you want. That is not what this 

duly issued subpoena says. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am telling you just to supply the Lois Lerner 

emails, which we are going to supply for examinations—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no, no, no, no. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Can I answer the question? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That is not—no, sir. When it says all emails, why 

are you qualifying them? Under what authority do you change this 

subpoena? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I was not qualifying. You were asking how long 

it was going to take and I was giving you an example of why it is 

going to take a long time, because we have to redact out of those 

emails all of the 6103 information. We are working very hard to 

37 

get you the Lois Lerner emails. It is going to take you several 

weeks to get you the Lois Lerner emails for examinations, appeals—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Wait, wait, wait. Why are you getting us just 

for—it would be easier to just give them to us all, right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, it would just take a lot longer because we 

have to redact the rest of them. We actually selected those because 

in a letter from the Ways and Means Committee also saying they 

need help, they focused on what they are looking for is those categories, so prioritizing we said we would provide both committees 

with those categories. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We are happy to provide you the rest of them—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I am yielding back, but this commissioner has no 

intention of fully complying with this duly issued subpoena. That 

is the case. That is where both of us, on both sides of the aisle, 

need to stand up for the integrity of the House of Representatives. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. When you have a duly issued subpoena, you comply with it. It is not optional. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. May I—— 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Maryland. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I ask unanimous consent just for a minute. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s unanimous consent for one 

minute. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I never heard the commissioner 

say that he was not going to obey the subpoena. As a matter of 

fact, that is all he has been saying. 

Chairman ISSA. Actually, if the gentleman would yield, he has, 

on every single question, failed to say, yes, I will give you all the 

emails. He has gone into the ones that he is prepared to give, the 

ones that he could give to Ways and Means in an hour, because 

once you do the search you just dump it to them. And even then 

he said that those would take—the ones that he says he is going 

to give us he said it would take a couple weeks and, of course, the 

subpoena is many months old. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, reclaiming just for a second. I just want us 

to be clear. I mean, time is precious, money is precious. Just tell 

us. I mean, you talk about relevance. You said if a lawyer were to 

see this subpoena, they would have some concerns. I just want to 

be clear. I mean, it sounds like, again, I am saying what I said before, you seem to have an understanding and we seem to have an 

understanding, and they don’t seem to be the same. So are you 

going to provide the documents for Lois Lerner? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. That were subpoenaed. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And how long will that take? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do not know. It know it is going to take us several weeks, I asked that question yesterday, simply for the categories we are already working on, and I was told that to redact 

those will take us several weeks longer. It will take us much longer 

38 

than that, but we will provide them. And I have said with regard, 

notwithstanding the congressman who has now departed view that 

we are not going to comply, we are going to comply. We never said 

we wouldn’t comply. We are simply trying to help refine the search 

so that, in fact, we could get this done sometime in the near future, 

that is, this year. But at the rate we are going, as noted by an earlier question, if you want all the categories of all the applications 

of everybody who has been through the (c)(4) process for the last 

four years, we can do that, and we will do that, but it is going to 

take years. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Very well. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. I thank you for your 

questions, but hopefully we all understand that asking for all the 

emails, the ones that you seem to be least willing to put first are 

the ones that probably have no 6103. They are very quick to go 

through and somebody simply looks and says, oh, she is talking to 

an outside entity; by definition, there can’t be any 6103 there, 

right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. All the ones that are easy are easy; the 

ones that are difficult are difficult. And there are more of the difficult ones than we would all like. 

Chairman ISSA. Of course, the ones that the gentleman was asking for before he had to leave were the ones that were not being 

given, which, by definition, very often are easy. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. And I would just note for the record that 

all of the Lois emails we are talking redacting have been provided 

already to the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate 

and Finance Committee, because they don’t have to be redacted. So 

there has been no question there about, in fact, the fulsome response. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioner, just to take this from the top, the probative depth 

of our inquiry usually depends on the importance of the information that we seek and also the danger that we are trying to expunge, and I have to admit there is a deficit of trust here between 

the Congress, many of its members, and the IRS on this issue, and 

that is because, on its face, there has been an admission here that 

the IRS, a very, very powerful Government agency, has inappropriately targeted United States citizens for enhanced scrutiny, some 

would say harassment and denial of statutory and constitutional 

rights based on their own political views. That is why my colleagues are after this information. That is why many of us on this 

side are after this information, so it is incredibly important. So 

when we say we need all of the emails, in a normal circumstance, 

in a normal case you might have a judge say that is overly broad, 

but in this case, in this case, whether the taxpayer was a Tea 

Party or was occupy whatever, a progressive group, the fact that 

the IRS, a very powerful agency with a lot of information on a lot 

of individuals here, is now targeting or has been targeting U.S. citizens, that is serious stuff, and I think that justifies the scope of 

this committee’s inquiry and the urgency that we get to the bottom 

of this. 

39 

Now, that is not just good for Republicans, that is not just good 

for Democrats; that is good for our democracy here. So this is a 

very, very serious issue. You know, in his seminal work, Congressional Government, President Woodrow Wilson described the oversight function of Congress as follows. He said, Quite as important 

as legislation is vigilant oversight of the administration. It is the 

proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every 

affair of Government and talk much about what it sees. It is meant 

to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will 

of its constituency. 

In fulfillment of this solemn duty to inform the American people, 

it is imperative that we as legislators and members of this committee conduct robust oversight when we receive reports that a 

powerful Government agency has subjected American citizens to 

excessive scrutiny based on unwarranted and unjust criteria. Certainly no American citizen should have their constitutional and 

statutory rights withheld by the Government on the basis of their 

political affiliation, or simply because they criticized the way that 

the Government is being run, and any reports to that effect clearly 

warrant meaningful congressional oversight. 

And that is why I have, in the past and today again, supported 

the extensive investigation conducted by this committee and to the 

targeting of certain applicants for tax-exempt status. 

Now, regrettably, this investigation has thus far been guided primarily by politics and partisanship, rather than a genuine commitment to fully inform the American people as to how these troubling 

events at the IRS unfolded. In particular, the chairman has routinely released to the American public only partial excerpts of the 

transcripts from transcribed interviews conducted by both of our 

staffs with the relevant IRS officials, and most recently the chairman again released a staff report on the committee’s investigation 

without first soliciting input from our side of the aisle, after denying a request by our ranking member to share the report with 

Democratic members and minority staff prior to its release. 

So I understand the importance of this inquiry, I really do. I 

think it is incredibly important. But I also think that we have 

missed the opportunity here because of the chairman’s very partisan and one-sided approach to this hearing, and I think it has 

hurt the American people because I think it is incredibly important 

that we get to the bottom of this, but because it is being fumbled, 

this opportunity is being fumbled, we are not getting the answers 

that we need. But I do support the idea that our inquiries necessarily have to be very broad and deep because of the danger we 

are trying to excise here. We want to send a message to the IRS 

that you don’t do this to our people. You do not do this to American 

citizens. You do not target people because of their political views 

or because they complain about the Government. I complain about 

the Government and I am part of the Government. So that is a precious freedom that we need to protect, and the IRS, in its recent 

approach, is threatening that very freedom and that is a danger 

that we have to be together in opposing on both sides of the aisle. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg. 

40 

Mr. WALBERG. I thank the chairman. 

Mr. Koskinen, are you aware that your predecessor, Doug 

Shulman, in a testimony to Congress in March of 2012, gave very 

strong assurances that the IRS was not targeting conservative taxexempt applicants? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am aware of that. 

Mr. WALBERG. Just for the record, his statement where he testified, ‘‘First, let me start by saying yes, I can give you assurances. 

As you know, we pride ourselves on being a nonpolitical, nonpartisan organization, and so there is absolutely no targeting. This 

is the kind of back and forth that happens when people apply for 

501(c)(3)(4) status.’’ 

That was what he said. Do you think that Mr. Shulman’s testimony was accurate? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know what Mr. Shulman knew, what his 

relationship to the Exempt Organization Department is, so—— 

Mr. WALBERG. But was his statement accurate? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The statement may have been very accurate from 

the standpoint of what he knew. From the standpoint of the improper use of improper criteria, obviously, as the inspector general 

noted, in the determination process inappropriate criteria were 

used. 

Mr. WALBERG. Was it complete and forthcoming as it should 

have been? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Again, I don’t know what Mr. Shulman knew. 

What I have done is I—— 

Mr. WALBERG. From your perspective right now. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. From my perspective, I have no way of knowing 

what he knew or didn’t know. 

Mr. WALBERG. From your perspective, was the information accurate? Not what he thought, but what you know right now. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. From what I know right now, as a result of the 

IG report, I know that inappropriate criteria were used to select organizations for review in the determination process. 

Mr. WALBERG. Can you give assurances—and I refer back to my 

colleague, Mr. Jordan from Ohio, when he listed a number of agencies and entities that have great concern about what has gone on 

with IRS that we know now took place, such as home school—I am 

a home schooler, my family; I am a life member of the American 

Motorcyclists Association; I am a member of HOG, Harley Owners 

Group; I am an NRA charter member, Tea Party caucus member 

here in Congress, member of Right to Life. And I could go on with 

organizations, but my question is can you give us assurances here 

and now that the IRS is no longer targeting conservatives or treating conservative groups differently than any other applicants? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I can give you assurances that I am committed 

and I am confident the agency is committed to not discriminating 

against any organization or any individual no matter what their organizational capacity, what their political beliefs are, who they 

voted for in the last election. If you deal with the IRS, you have 

a right, and I agree with the earlier comments, you have a right 

to assume and you need to be protected to assume that you are 

going to be treated the same way everyone else is treated—— 

41 

Mr. WALBERG. Absolutely. And our concern is that Mr. Shulman 

gave us that same certainty in his testimony in front of us. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know how he ran the organization. I have 

just been to 16 of the largest 25 IRS offices. I have listened personally to over 7,000 employees, and my message to them has been 

that, going forward, we need to have information flow from the bottom of the organization to the top, and if there is a problem I need 

to know about it because we will fix it. 

Mr. WALBERG. Great. Let’s go with that. Let’s go with that, that 

testimony that you took. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Let me just tell you, just to make you comfortable, if there is a problem, I don’t know about it, then that is 

my fault, because that means I haven’t created a culture where 

problems and issues get raised from front-line workers and go easily and freely—— 

Mr. WALBERG. What is the morale of the front-line workers now, 

Cincinnati and other places? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Morale actually is surprisingly better than I 

would have expected in light of what has happened to Federal employees for four years and the IRS for the last year. I have found 

professional, dedicated, energetic employees focused on the mission 

of the agency. Their overriding concern is we don’t have enough 

people to allow them to provide the services to taxpayers that they 

feel taxpayers prefer. 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, they ought to feel that way, because they 

were asked and they were put in situations that didn’t allow them 

to do the job that they are expected to do but, rather, to target conservative groups. I would be a low morale, and I am glad to hear 

you say that it is coming up, but we have spoken with several IRS 

employees during the course of this investigation. They have told 

us that Lois Lerner’s announcement that low level people in Cincinnati were responsible for the conduct was a nuclear strike to 

them, and I would assume that you would agree, from what you 

have heard. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It clearly is. As I told you, my view of running 

an organization, if there is a problem, it is my problem, it is not 

somebody else’s problem; we will work on it together. And my sense 

would never be that it is not my responsibility. Everything that 

happens in that organization is my responsibility. 

Mr. WALBERG. I am glad to hear that. Then I just again question, 

with the difficulty in getting information, what are we hiding at 

the IRS. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank you. 

You answered the question partially, but the gentleman asked 

you essentially was it Cincinnati or was it Lois Lerner in Washington. Did you reach a conclusion on whether this was in fact low 

level people in Cincinnati or, in fact, Lois Lerner and possibly others in Washington that were responsible for what effectively became targeting? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I haven’t done an independent investigation; I 

have reached no conclusion about that. I am looking forward to the 

reports from the various investigations—— 

42 

Chairman ISSA. But you agree with the IG’s report which found 

that essentially it wasn’t low level people in Cincinnati? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I agree with the IG report in terms of the recommendations. In fact, in response to the earlier ones, I would 

stress to this committee that we have, in fact, adopted all of the 

IG recommendations. My commitment to people applying for applications now, whether it is a (c)(4), (c)(3), (5), (6), or (7), is that they 

will be treated fairly no matter who they are. It goes back to the 

earlier question. Whatever your political beliefs, whatever the 

name of your organization, you deserve to be treated fairly and on 

the same basis of everyone else. 

Chairman ISSA. If only that were true. 

Mr. Davis is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Commissioner. I know that we have hashed and 

rehashed and gone over and under the whole issue of the document 

requests, but I want to make sure that I understand as well as I 

can what the issues are here. The chairman says that he wants all 

of Lois Lerner’s emails, not just the ones related to (c)(4)s, not just 

the ones related to tax-exempt applications, but all of her emails. 

Obviously, this would include emails that have absolutely nothing 

to do with our investigation. In other words, the committee is going 

to what I would call the mat, and even threatening contempt for 

what everyone agrees are irrelevant emails. 

I don’t think this makes any sense, and this is not what the 

Ways and Means Committee did. The Ways and Means Committee 

worked with you to identify the emails that are relevant to our investigation, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. DAVIS. And if you are required to produce all her emails, you 

have to examine each and every email for private taxpayer information covered by 6103. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. That is why we were able to provide the Finance Committee and Ways and Means Committee with 

all those emails last week, and why it is going to take us several 

weeks to be able to provide the committee with her emails going 

forward. 

Mr. DAVIS. And, of course, you cannot provide this committee 

with that information, and you would have to redact it. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. DAVIS. If I understand this, by definition, the Internal Revenue Service would be wasting time and money producing documents that will not fulfill any investigative purpose. Would you say 

that is correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is what we have been concerned about. 

Mr. DAVIS. You know, I kind of grew up with the idea that you 

don’t ride or you don’t get much from riding a dead horse to death; 

that if he has already died, if everything that you can get out of 

him has been gotten, then you are wasting time to continue. I 

think that we should reconsider this misguided approach. We 

should go back to standard investigative procedures and develop 

search terms that are relevant, instead of this other method, which 

appears to be nothing more than a fishing expedition trying to conVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Jul 08, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88494.TXT APRIL
43 

nect some decisions to the White House or to some place that did 

not exist. 

I was very pleased to hear you indicate that the morale among 

IRS employees is at a level beyond which one might have expected. 

What would be the best utilization of your time to make sure that 

it stays where it is and goes up, rather than being bowed down 

with an irrelevant investigation? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, I think one of the most important challenges we have, and we have been trying to do it with the six investigations going on, is to try to produce information as quickly 

as we can in an order that will allow the committees and the investigators to conclude their investigation, because I think one of the 

important things for not only restoring public confidence in the 

IRS, but employee morale, would be to come to closure on these 

issues. 

Whatever I have said from the start, whatever the facts are that 

each of the investigators find, we will review, we will respond appropriately to and move forward. No one has more interest in concluding these investigations promptly and in an orderly way than 

I do and than the employees of the IRS, which is why we will continue. We have tried to provide information and work with the 

staffs of each of the investigators to provide the information they 

need in the most appropriate order, but ultimately, as I have said, 

whatever information the committee wants, they have a right to 

get. The question is how long is that going to take and can we get 

you the most relevant information at the front end so you can in 

fact do your work. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Recognize the gentleman from Tennessee. 

Could I have just 10 seconds of your time? 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Yes, Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. I might note for the record that, in the case of 

Lois Lerner, we delayed bringing her back in hopes that we would 

get all the emails, and obviously we didn’t have them. She took the 

Fifth ten more times and we were very disappointed. We made that 

very clear, that when you have somebody who has taken the Fifth, 

I can’t imagine a law enforcement agency or a judge saying that 

a subpoena relative to that person’s government communication 

would be irrelevant. 

I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you. 

Commissioner, thank you for being here today. We have had several commissioners in our presence since this story has broke. 

Commissioner Shulman, Commissioner Miller were two that would 

not acknowledge that wrongdoing had taken place and they would 

not apologize to the American people for what had happened. 

Danny Werfel did say that something wrong has gone on here and 

apologized to the American people. So I was encouraged to hear 

you say that what you know now, that you do believe that inappropriate criteria were used to target specific organizations. So at least 

we are to the point that we do acknowledge that something did go 

wrong, correct? 

44 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. Inappropriate criteria were used. I don’t 

think I used the word target, but I do acknowledge that applications were delayed unnecessarily and for too long. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay. Just a housekeeping item. I was back 

home in the district last week and Rachel Killibrew, who is a treasurer of the McMinnville Breakfast Rotary Club, is sending a letter 

to the IRS to ask for a 501(c)(3) organization, which will, among 

other things, help alleviate childhood hunger. I can tell her with 

confidence that you don’t think their group will be targeted or delayed? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I can guarantee them they won’t be—inappropriate criteria won’t be used in any way. Delays are a different 

issue. One of our big challenges is, as a result of a lot of other 

things going on, we built a backlog in the (c)(3) area that we are 

aggressively dealing with. Our goal ultimately, especially for smaller, local organizations, is to have a streamlined process that will 

be up and running by June. So I can guarantee she will get appropriate consideration. I wish I could promise her right now it would 

be very quick. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. All right. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. By the end of this year we are going to be in 

much better shape in processing (c)(3)s. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. I will pass that along. I am sure they will be 

happy to hear that. 

Our colleague, Mr. Clay, earlier called this a political witch hunt. 

Do you agree with that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have made no judgments about any of the six 

investigations going on. I think it is important for the public to feel 

satisfied that there have been thorough investigations. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would like to see them concluded earlier, rather 

than later—— 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Sure. 

Mr. KOSKINEN.—but we will play the hand we are dealt. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay, what do you think, does it kind of handicap this process when officials from the Justice Department announce that there would not be any criminal charges in this investigation, and this, of course, was before any of the witnesses had 

been questioned, or that the President goes on TV on Super Bowl 

Sunday and announces that there is not a smidgeon of corruption 

within the IRS? Can you agree with either of those things, knowing 

what you know now and depending, I guess, how you define inappropriate tactics being used? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I have noted in the past, I haven’t done any 

independent investigation of what went on. There have been people 

across the political spectrum, in Congress, outside of the Congress, 

in this committee and other committees, making conjectures and 

judgments about what happened. My view is I am waiting for the 

investigations to be completed; we will respond to the facts and we 

will proceed. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. You heard my colleague, Mr. Jordan, in his 

opening statement, he played out a pretty good timetable I think 

for anyone listening about how this has gone down. Do you underVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Jul 08, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88494.TXT APRIL
45 

stand the timetable that he gave and does that give you a lot of 

concern? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I understand the timetable he gave. There is 

other information. You have volumes of documents. What the purpose of a final report is is that you would have a committee report, 

you would come up with facts as you found them. There may or 

may not be a bipartisan report, there might be dissenting reports; 

we will have several investigator reports. When they are done we 

will know what the consensus is is what happened. More importantly, as I have said, it is important for the public to know we 

have adopted all of the IG recommendations, so whatever the management failings were that existed have been resolved. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. I think we are getting a little gun-shy on this 

committee because this scandal, the Benghazi scandal have been 

referred to as phony scandals. We know inappropriate targeting 

went on. I am afraid if Hillary Clinton were sitting out there, she 

would probably look us in the eye and say the President has always been re-elected; at this point, what difference does it make. 

You are not going to be that way, are you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have never said it doesn’t make any difference. 

My position is that this was a serious issue, it deserved to be treated seriously; the IRS has done that, I think, as a general matter, 

the investigators are doing that. As I say, again, my hope is that, 

as soon as possible, we can come to closure on it; agree on what 

the facts were. If there are additional things that need to be done, 

we will do them. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. All right. Well, please get us the subpoenaed information and we can probably wrap this up much more quickly, 

and I thank you for your time. 

Mr. JORDAN. [Presiding.] The gentlelady from California is recognized. 

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Commissioner, thank you. You give me great confidence in the 

work that will be transpiring relative to this evaluation. I must 

say, though, that when I think that $10 million has already been 

spent responding to inquiries by this committee, I am curious at 

how much fraud could be unearthed within the persons within this 

Country that don’t play by the rules. No one likes the IRS. No one 

likes paying their taxes, but we do it. Most people follow the rules, 

but some people don’t, and that is why you have an enforcement 

unit that for every dollar you spend there you return $9.00 to the 

taxpayers of this Country. Just speculating that if you had taken 

the 100,000 hours and 250 personnel that have devoted all their 

time to complying with the endless requests by this committee, we 

might actually be doing some good in terms of the coffers that we 

are all so concerned about. 

But let me move on to the inspector general’s report. We have 

studied you to death over the last year. The inspector general made 

a number of recommendations. My understanding is that you have 

complied with all of them. You have said that in this hearing a 

number of times. One of the concerns the inspector general did 

have was that IRS employees did not have enough training and 

guidance to properly handle politically sensitive applications for tax 

exemption, and I am curious, from your standpoint, what kind of 

46 

training has now been provided to all of these personnel to make 

sure that they are properly trained? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, we have provided training trying to give 

them better understanding about what is advocacy, which is allowed for social welfare organizations, and what is political intervention, which is only allowed to a minor amount so you don’t jeopardize being primarily a social welfare organization. So there have 

been more cases developed, more examples developed so that people could understand better what is the dividing line between advocacy and political activity. 

I would note there are thousands of 501(c)(4) organizations that 

aren’t advocacy or political organizations, they are garden clubs 

and civic associations and a lot of other types. So the vast majority 

of (c)(4)s, in fact, aren’t involved in this discussion. But the question has been for the training, especially for new employees or relatively young employees, to try to give them a better roadmap as 

to what fits into which categories and how they should be approaching any application, no matter what the political level of activity is. 

Ms. SPEIER. So is this training also going to be provided to the 

screening agents? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. It is actually provided across the board and, 

as the IG recommended, we will renew that training before every 

election so that, again, as political activity gins up before a campaign and election, people will have as clear a roadmap under a 

very foggy area as possible as to what is social welfare allowable 

activity and what is political activity, which, if you engage in too 

much of it jeopardizes your tax exemption. 

Ms. SPEIER. So this training has already taken place? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The preliminary training has already taken place, 

but the bulk of it will take place as we get closer again. So you will 

get training if you are a new employee now or an existing employee 

that training has taken place, but as we get closer to the election, 

we will do it again. 

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Chairman, I just want to reiterate what I believe is the real problem here. The law that passed said that if you 

wanted to be a 501(c)(4), you had to exclusively be associated with 

a social welfare activity. The word was exclusively. Then the IRS, 

back in the 1950s, if I am not mistaken, came up with a regulation 

that said that if you wanted to be a 501(c)(4), you have to be primarily focused on social welfare. Now, that violated, in my view, 

the statute. It violated what Congress passed. How can you go from 

being exclusively to primarily? So now we have expended millions 

upon millions of dollars trying to figure out whether or not something is primarily or exclusive. If we said the 501(c)(4)s should be 

exclusively for social welfare purposes, we wouldn’t be having these 

hearings, because none of the political activity, whether it was advocacy or political, would be relevant because it wasn’t exclusively 

for social welfare; and that is what 501(c)(4) should be about. And 

I think that if we went back to redraw this, we would say the regulation did not meet the standard of the statute and we wouldn’t be 

having these hearings. 

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. SPEIER. I certainly would. My time has expired, though. 

47 

Mr. ISSA. I want to ask you just a quick question, because I agree 

with the gentlelady that we should try to clarify it. One of the challenges that I face looking at it, and it is not our committee’s primary jurisdiction, it belongs to Ways and Means, but one of the 

things that I think we have to ask ourselves, for example, is if a 

501(c)(3) like the American Lung Association, if they endorse a 

California initiative related to smoking and so on, which they did, 

is that at least a nuance of political, even though it is not partisan? 

And, of course, the answer is no; they are promoting social welfare. 

One of the challenges with 501(c)(4)s and Tea Party specifically 

is these folks are walking around handing out constitutions and 

wanting to promote the Constitution. Many would say that is political, but, if we go to evaluate it, is it political to say that this what 

the First Amendment says and means? Is it political to say this is 

what the Second Amendment says and means? Or in the case of 

the NSA’s activities, the Fourth Amendment. That is the challenge 

that hopefully the gentlelady and I can work on. 

Of course, the question of whether 501(c)(4)s were targeted because of their political views is in fact a different question, and 

that is what is before us today with the commissioner. 

I thank the gentlelady for yielding. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioner, Lois Lerner sat where you are sitting right now 

and said, I have broken no laws, I have done nothing wrong, and 

I have violated no IRS rules or regulations. Now, as a very highly 

accomplished attorney like yourself, you would have to concede 

that is pretty broad testimony, wouldn’t you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is a statement. Whether it is broad testimony and what its relationship is to the—— 

Mr. GOWDY. No, it is broad. Your scope of cross examination, if 

we had been in trial, would have been unlimited. You mentioned 

a judge earlier, what a judge would do with this subpoena. Let me 

tell you what a judge would do with that testimony. You could ask 

just about whatever you wanted to ask. When a witness says I 

have done nothing wrong, that is tantamount to saying I have done 

everything right. I can’t think of any testimony broader than that. 

So, necessarily, our line of inquiry would also want to be broad, 

wouldn’t you agree? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I think your line of inquiry ought to be what it 

is no matter what people—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, no. You said a judge would throw our subpoena out, and I can’t help but note you haven’t moved to quash 

our subpoena, but you think a judge would throw our subpoena out 

as being overly broad. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If we were in the private sector, which we are 

not, the judge—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I want to make it easier for you. How long will 

it take you to produce Lois Lerner’s emails that don’t involve 6103 

material from January of 2010? Could we have that by Friday? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Absolutely not. 

Mr. GOWDY. Why? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Because there is no way physically we can get it 

by Friday. 

48 

Mr. GOWDY. January of 2010. That is one month, no 6103 material, just one month. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Just one month? 

Mr. GOWDY. Just one month. When can we get that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, we have to go through each of those emails 

to make sure it has no 6103 material. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, how long is that going to take? Can we have 

it by Friday? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no idea. 

Mr. GOWDY. Just one month, commissioner. Just January of 

2010, no 6103. And let me tell you why I am interested in it. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, I will tell you today is Wednesday. I would 

be happy to ask the people who do the work and get back to you 

as to whether we could do it by Friday. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right, let’s do January of 2010 and then let’s get 

ambitious and do February of 2010. And then let’s go March 2010. 

And I think you know why I am doing 2010, commissioner. When 

the President likes 5–4 Supreme Court decisions, he calls that 

subtled law, like the ACA. When he doesn’t like 5–4 Supreme 

Court decisions like Citizens United, he attacks it, which is what 

he did in January of 2010. And that is why the time line is so important, commissioner. The jury is never entitled to know the motive, but they always want to know the motive. You don’t ever have 

to prove why somebody did something, but the jury always wants 

to know why did this happen. And if you start in January 2010 

with the President’s State of the Union Address and then you move 

through Lois Lerner’s emails that have nothing to do with 6103 

material, you begin to see a motive develop. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Great. You are going to get 20,000 pages of documents this afternoon. Some of them may well be January 2010. But 

I will check with our people, because if you would like us to stop 

that production of Lois Lerner emails and go January 2010, I will 

go and find out exactly how long it will take to get it for you. 

Mr. GOWDY. What I want is this: I want the subpoena complied 

with. I want it complied with in a timely fashion. And you and I 

both know that if there is no 6103 material, whether or not you 

think we need something or we ought to have it, or that we are 

on a wild goose chase, frankly, I could care less what you think 

about that. Our subpoena is our subpoena. If you don’t like it, move 

to quash it. Otherwise, comply with it. Because you noted that our 

search was overly broad. I want you to tell me what search you 

would use to find an email when IRS employee responded Yoohoo 

when she was told that a Democrat won a special election. What 

search terms would you recommend that we use to find that email? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have worked from the start of this investigation—— 

Mr. GOWDY. What search terms would you use to find an email 

where the response was Yoohoo when a Democrat won a special 

election. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We might actually work together to see if there 

are search terms that would involve political campaigns, elections, 

political party. 

49 

Mr. GOWDY. What search term would you use when Lois Lerner 

responded that a GOP Senate would be worse than a GOP President? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would actually, if you wanted to, we would go 

through and say look at political parties, look at references to elections, GOP and Democrat—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Or we can do this: just give us all of the emails she 

sent or received in January of 2010 that don’t involve 6103 material and we will decide what we think is relevant and not, because 

she said I have done nothing wrong, I have broken no IRS rules 

or regulations, and I have broken no laws. That is pretty broad, 

Mr. Commissioner. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Now, if I could just have a moment. This is exactly the discussion we have been having for the last year and we 

would be delighted to have, which is out of the universe, what is 

it that you think would be most important? We will give you the 

universe but, as I say, that will take you more than this year. If 

we could figure out—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I just told you it is January of 2010, because that 

is when the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Citizens United; 

that is when the President of the United States famously, to their 

faces in the State of the Union, criticized that; and that is when 

Lois Lerner began to say IRS can’t fix it, we need a plan, we need 

to be cautious, we need to make sure it is not per se political. Let’s 

start with January 2010. Can we have that by Friday? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And as I would say, I am delighted, and it is this 

kind of discussion, for instance, where—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Koskinen—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Could I just respond? With a four years worth of 

applications of (c)(4)s, we might be able to say, well, which ones 

would you like so that we don’t spend three years at it. January 

2010 is a perfectly understandable definition, and we will actually 

respond to you as quickly as we can. 

Mr. GOWDY. Commissioner, you need to understand our perspective, though. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. GOWDY. Maybe this started off as an investigation into the 

targeting of (c)(4)s, but when you have people who are supposed to 

be apolitical responding the way that she has responded, Tea Party 

dangerous, maybe the FEC will save the day, we have to make 

sure it is not per se political, when you have people in positions of 

authority and responsibility that are expressing overtly political 

commentary on Government email, I think we ought to be entitled 

to all of them, and that is why we asked for them. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would just simply note that, for the record, that 

you already have all those emails, which is why you have all of 

that information. 

Mr. GOWDY. If we don’t know what we don’t know, Mr. Commissioner—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Koskinen—— 

Mr. GOWDY. We know the ones we have. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I asked for—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I got it, I got it. 

50 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We will go to January 2010. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Koskinen, here is the point. There are 2,400 

employees in the chief counsel’s office of the IRS. A bunch of those 

people are lawyers. Mr. Lynch said this, not Republicans. Mr. 

Lynch said this is about First Amendment free speech rights, political speech rights. This is so important. What Mr. Gowdy is saying, 

what we all have been saying is take some of those lawyers, of that 

2,400, a bunch of them are lawyers, take some of those lawyers, get 

every single email that Lois Lerner sent. Start with January 2010, 

go through those as quickly as possible and get them to this committee. 

And it is not just Republicans who want that; Mr. Lynch has said 

he wants that, Mr. Cummings, the ranking member, said he wants 

that. Make it a priority. We asked a year ago; we asked in May 

of 2013 get us Lois Lerner’s emails. Then we subpoenaed them and 

you are still telling us it is going to take forever, we can’t do it. 

We don’t want the excuses anymore. Prioritize it. Put more lawyers 

on the job. There are 2,400 in the chief counsel’s office. Assign 

someone to do exactly what Mr. Gowdy has asked for. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. This has been a priority; that is how we have selected and produced 690,000—— 

Mr. JORDAN. But we are talking about the First Amendment. 

You are not working fast enough, it is that simple. You are not 

working. This is fundamental. Mr. Lynch said it. Mr. Cummings 

has said it. We have all said it. Get on the job. Put some more lawyers on this. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We are on our job. We have 89,000 employees 

having nothing to do with this doing very important work for the 

Government. We have 10,000 fewer employees than we had four 

years ago. So it is not a question of just pushing—— 

Mr. JORDAN. We have to move on. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I just need one minute. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Please. I just need a minute. 

Mr. JORDAN. You got it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. You know, the gentleman, the commissioner has said he is willing to produce the documents. We have 

almost every member now asking for documents. One of the things 

that I am saying is that we need to be very clear, at the end of 

this hearing, that we do what you apparently have done with Mr. 

Camp, Chairman Camp and others, to make sure that we are all 

clear on what we want, because different people are saying different things. No, no, listen to me. Or we will end up right back 

where we are right now. So we need clarity. The chairman wants 

certain things, Gowdy wants certain things, I want certain things. 

So some kind of way we need to come so that we have a meeting 

of minds of exactly what we are trying to get. That is all I am saying, Mr. Chairman. I mean, that is reasonable. And I think one of 

the mistakes that we are making, we are beating up on him and 

he is clearly trying to cooperate and trying to give us what we 

want, but, again, he has his own restrictions. So I want to make 

sure that he is saying to you he is willing to give us what we want. 

We now have to be clear on what we want. That is all. 

51 

Mr. JORDAN. I would just say to the ranking member I think we 

have been. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, apparently we haven’t been. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, no, no, no. All means all. All means all. Because 

if we let any type of restriction happen, any type of parameters be 

set, then they are determining what we get and the American people aren’t going to be able to see everything. That is why we subpoenaed all. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, therefore, and hopefully this will be helpful. 

So do you understand that? And I see that the chairman of the full 

committee, I guess he is in agreement with what was just said. Do 

you understand that, as to what we want? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. What they want is something that is going to 

take years to produce, not just the emails. What they want is documents. And, again, our point is not that we are not going to give 

it; we are just telling you it is not going to happen overnight. We 

have tried to prioritize. First you got 690,000 to Ways and Means. 

Tried to prioritize that to Lois Lerner emails. We said we would 

provide them. We said the first priority is we will get them that 

say this. We have to redact them. We have given them to Ways and 

Means. To the extent I said it was very helpful if you say the 

months that we are really interested in are these, thous, and those, 

we can prioritize those. It doesn’t mean we won’t give you the rest 

of the months, but this doesn’t happen overnight. It is not a question of showing up with another 150 people who become 6103 experts overnight. We have a team. We aren’t a document production 

team organization, but we have created one. 

Mr. ISSA. If the gentleman would yield. For the foreseeable future there is only one person you have to work with on priorities, 

and that will be the people working for the committee, and I will 

work with them. When Mr. Gowdy said he is very interested in 

January, so am I. I want to attach my comments to the ranking 

member here to the greatest extent possible. We do not want to be 

overly burdensome. We do, Mr. Lynch and others, think that certain individuals we want all of their emails. I would note for the 

record that of your six investigations there are only two that you 

have to do 6103 for. You don’t 6103 for the TIGTA, you don’t do 

6103 for Senate Finance or Ways and Means. And I am assuming 

the Justice Department has a way to fast-track getting what they 

want. 

So of the two entities, us and our counterpart in the Senate, one 

of the challenges is we have watched Ways and Means negotiate 

to get less than all of Lois Lerner’s emails, when in fact, six 

months ago, you could have pumped out all of Lois Lerner’s emails 

and dumped them in one fell swoop on Senate Finance and Ways 

and Means. You did not do that. They eventually negotiated, to my 

consternation, a subset of all of her emails. I find it less than helpful and I find your talking about redaction and time inappropriate, 

when you could have given Ways and Means all Lois Lerner’s 

emails in a matter of seconds. It really is that simple. You have 

already gathered them and I assume that TIGTA has access to 

them. 

So I appreciate that we will have to work with you to prioritize, 

and we will and we always have. In the case of any parts of the 

52 

document production in which there are massive numbers of potential documents, we will particularly prioritize. For today, for the 

record, on behalf of people on both sides that have spoken, Lois 

Lerner’s emails, all of Lois Lerner’s emails is the highest current 

priority of this committee, and it will remain so as long as I am 

chairman. So I am not going to get into January, because I believe 

that if your team had been actively working in a matter of days 

you would have been able to give us substantially all of Lois 

Lerner’s emails, and within a matter of a couple weeks have given 

us the ones that required 6103 redaction. And I know this based 

on how long it took my people to hand-read the emails we got. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. I would just say that that is not the information I have. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentlelady from New Mexico is recognized. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to 

take something the chairman said, and I hope he doesn’t mind, and 

use it out of context. So all means all. I am going to go back to 

none means none. And I want to talk about the exclusivity requirements of 501(c)(4)s and the fact that we don’t do that, and I am 

going to do what other members have done, and I hope you will 

take me back through these baselines again. 

So, commissioner, your agency administers how 501(c)(3)s or 

charities are treated under the tax code, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And under Federal statute, charities cannot 

engage in any political activity, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. How much did charities spend on partisan 

political campaign activities in the last presidential election? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I assume none. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. I hope that is true. I am assuming that it 

is zero dollars as well. 

Now, you also administer social welfare organizations, 501(c)(4)s. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And under Federal statute, laws that Congress passes—we get very excited when the administration and 

others don’t follow the laws and the rules that Congress passes— 

we said, Congress, that social welfare organizations must operate 

exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And political campaign activities are not a 

(c)(4) social welfare, not part of their mission, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Campaign activities, with regard to supporting 

individual candidates, are not social welfare activities. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. That is exactly what I mean. I understand 

that they can do advocacy, and I might even ask that again. So we 

are creating our baseline. 

How much did social welfare organizations spend on political 

candidate campaign activities in 2012? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Quite a bit. I have no idea what the final number 

is. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Well, let me tell you that it is pretty close 

to a quarter billion dollars. A quarter billion dollars on political 

campaign activities in 2012. 

53 

Do social welfare organizations have to disclose their donors behind this quarter billion dollars? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. So social welfare organizations must exclusively promote social welfare under Federal law but, instead, they 

are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaign 

activity while keeping their donors secret. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Social welfare organizations are blatantly 

violating Federal law. Doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t think 

it makes sense to most of the people who are here. What will it 

take for the IRS to enforce Federal statute for social welfare organizations, just as you have successfully done for charities, so that 

social welfare organizations are exclusively promoting social welfare agendas and not their partisan political agendas? Does it take 

another act of Congress? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, at a minimum, it would take a new set of 

regulations under 501(c)(4) because, as you know, the present regulations adopted in 1959 provide that a social welfare organizations 

only has to be primarily involved in social welfare activities. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And I have to tell you I don’t understand 

that because the law is clear. We have a reg that, in my mind, is 

completely in violation, and I am a little worried, although I have 

a bill that proposes to do just that, require the IRS to follow the 

Federal law and not make decisions after the fact, subsequent to 

that, that are some interpretation that, I have a dictionary, exclusive means exclusive, none means none. I need to know that another act of Congress would actually be taken seriously and be followed exactly as the law says. If we pass another law, will the IRS 

follow that law? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We will follow that law, although the IRS and the 

Treasury Department always issue regulations for interpreting and 

applying the law in a way that seems to be most effective. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And I certainly don’t want to push you 

into—you didn’t, I think, come up with this regulation on your own, 

but in fact I don’t understand how any regulation would be interpreted to allow up to 49 percent when the law says you must do 

exclusively social welfare. Because my bill clarifies that that is 

what we should do because I want to ensure that political money 

is disclosed in the way that it is supposed to be. 

I can’t believe, really, that we are here, but I am encouraging the 

IRS, because I don’t think that we should be doing the regulatory 

work because I think exclusively means exclusively, but given the 

reality that we are there, that this did occur, I encourage you to 

implement a regulation that complies with the Federal statute, ensures that the social welfare groups do not engage in political activities, instead of continuing to debate how you would go about 

identifying what constitutes political activity and continue on a debate like this about what might have gone wrong, if it went wrong. 

I would suggest that you go back to what the law said you must 

do and go back to exclusive, and not allow social welfare organizations to engage in any partisan campaign activities. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, as I noted, the draft regulation asks for 

public comment on three issues. One is what is the definition of poVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Jul 08, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88494.TXT APRIL
54 

litical activity; two, how much of it should you be allowed to do 

without jeopardizing your tax exemption; and, three, to what organizations should it apply. So we have comments and we will have 

a public hearing, and the issue about how much is appropriate will 

be available for comment, and any final regulation will have to deal 

with that. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Thank you very much. And I realize I am 

out of time. I disagree that there ought to, still, be any effort not 

to hold them accountable based on what the Federal law says. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized. 

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Commissioner, I am a dentist, I am not an attorney, so I want to talk about the leadership and how we do things 

efficiently. So I have a patient, and when they come in I want to 

make a diagnosis, so I kind of want to know the storyline, true? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am sorry, you want to do what? 

Mr. GOSAR. I want to do a diagnosis. I have a problem. I want 

to do a storyline, I want to figure out what the story is, right? In 

your world it is called discovery? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yeah. We actually would want to do—if you are 

interested in finding out what a problem is, you would actually go 

find what the—— 

Mr. GOSAR. So it makes sense that you would create this 

storyline from where it started and move it back, don’t you think? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Actually, if you—— 

Mr. GOSAR. One of the lines of my colleague over here, Mr. 

Gowdy, asked—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, I am not quite sure. If I were doing an investigation, I would actually want to know what the facts were before I developed the storyline. 

Mr. GOSAR. But you base the facts off of the inquiry about documents, like all of this stuff that has all these redacted comments. 

But if you want to start at the beginning of the storyline, you don’t 

want to start in the middle. I mean, most authors will start at the 

beginning of an instance and move forward, right? And it takes 

leadership to direct troops or direct people within the IRS to do so, 

wouldn’t you think? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It certainly takes leadership to direct the employees. 

Mr. GOSAR. And I guess that is my point. If I am doing my job, 

I want to create a storyline to facilitate this oversight committee, 

true? Make it easy. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not sure what you mean by a storyline. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, you want to make sure that you are presenting 

this to us in a rational manner that allows us to do our job. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. I have made it clear to our employees, a, 

that a priority is to cooperate with the six investigations, get the 

documents as quickly as we can to them, and, to the extent that 

they are voluminous, try to figure out with them what the priority 

is in terms of providing them. 

Mr. GOSAR. I am going to catch you right there because it is the 

comments I keep hearing here. It is the storyline. I can tell all my 

employees, okay, I need an x-ray of this, this, this, and this, and 

55 

they can just go off on tangents; and it is not efficient in giving us 

the documentation in which we want to learn, true? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Again, if we give you heaps of documents—— 

Mr. GOSAR. But once again I am going back to a storyline, because it seems like—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not sure where the storyline—— 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, the storyline starts at the beginning of the 

story, right? You want to go back. Mr. Gowdy asked don’t you think 

it is important that we start in January. Doesn’t that make sense? 

I mean, you rationally put this together and you want to have oversight from this committee, so you rationally want to put this 

storyline together in a rational manner. I mean, you can do all you 

want, throw stuff at us, and it is going to take us a lot of time. 

But it seems like more efficiently, from a director of your position, 

that you would direct employees to say let’s start at the beginning 

or what we think is the beginning. We are going to start giving you 

all this information starting in January of 2010. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, we didn’t do that and we wouldn’t do that. 

We actually sat down with the committees and their staffs and said 

what documents do you want, how should we search them, what 

issues are you looking for; and we took the storyline from you all. 

Mr. GOSAR. And you took it from oversight that when we said we 

want Lois Lerner’s, all of her emails, the comment from you would 

have been, then, if I am logistically thinking as somebody that is 

choreographing this story, you want me to start in January? Where 

would you like me to start. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. For the Lois Lerner emails, as I said, with Lois, 

the idea is if January is a good place to start, that is fine. Ultimately, as I said, we have provided already, and you will get more 

this afternoon—— 

Mr. GOSAR. You are running around and around and around. I 

am from the private sector and this makes no sense. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I spent 20 years in the private sector. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, then you should know better. You should know 

better in producing a storyline that makes sense, to say, listen, you 

are here to serve, right? Because I am here to serve. How do I 

make this easier for you to have oversight? 

So I am going to stop there and let’s go to something here. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. All right. 

Mr. GOSAR. Since Lois Lerner didn’t comply with our questions, 

we need all those emails. And I want to make sure you are willing 

to provide them, like we said. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Mr. GOSAR. Okay. And would you be interested in 

choreographing them start, finish, kind of in bulk? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. We already have a search going on for examinations, appeals, and the regulatory process because that was 

determined to be the storyline that would be most helpful. We have 

added now, the next thing we are going to do is January of 2010. 

And, in fact, if we can do that first, because if it were easy, I would 

be happy to comply with that request. But the storyline is, thus 

far, of her emails, which will take us weeks still to redact, the suggestion and request wasn’t—because we try to deal with all invesVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Jul 08, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88494.TXT APRIL
56 

tigators the same day, start with exams, appeal, and regulatory 

process. 

Mr. GOSAR. I got you. I have one more question to ask. Is it true 

the IRS has given the same documents to the White House and to 

Congress that had different redactions? It is my understanding 

that may have occurred. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no understanding that we redacted differently for anybody. There are those who have no redactions, and 

those who get redactions get 6103 redactions, and they are 

redactions for 6103 apply to everybody. 

Mr. GOSAR. I would want to make sure that that is followed up 

and—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is fine. If you have other information, again, 

we would be delighted to know it. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Koskinen, if I could, real quickly, while Ms. 

Holmes Norton is talking to the chairman, prior to being nominated, did anyone from the White House approach you, ask you, 

talk to you about the proposed (c)(4) rule? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did anyone in the course of before you were officially nominated, anyone from the Administration talk to you about 

the proposed (c)(4) rule? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. And I am just curious of your mind-set. Do you view 

your role as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, do you 

view that as an independent role, or are you part of Treasury and 

part of the Administration? How do you view your role as commissioner of the IRS? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The IRS is a division of Bureau of the Department of Treasury, but it runs independent as far as tax administration. And, as I said, I view it as a critical issue. Randolph Thrower 

died recently who set a standard that the IRS should be independent, should not be—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You view the IRS as an independent agency even 

though it is housed within Treasury. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And not a political agency at all. 

Mr. JORDAN. And when you prepared your testimony, did you 

and the people at the IRS prepare that, or did someone from the 

Administration or the Treasury help you prepare that testimony? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Testimony for today? 

Mr. JORDAN. Testimony you submitted. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I prepared it. 

Mr. JORDAN. Came from you and the IRS. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN. If I could real quickly, I want to put up a couple 

slides here. I want to start with slide 1. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. JORDAN. This is a letter that Chairman Dave Camp received 

one month ago from—okay, I will wait. 

Ms. Norton was talking with the chairman and I thought I would 

use the time, Mr. Ranking Member, to get some important information. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Can we get equal time? 

57 

Mr. JORDAN. I would be happy to. If you let me go, I would be 

happy to give additional time. 

Ms. NORTON. I would just like to go because I have something 

at 12:00, if I could. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentlelady is recognized. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. 

I wanted to come because John Koskinen is a good and should 

I say an old friend because we were in law school together, and he 

turns out to be the man who, if there is a job in the Government 

that can’t be done, they call on John Koskinen. So I think this is 

one of those jobs. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Eleanor started law school as a very young person; I was older. 

Ms. NORTON. I do want to say that the committee’s obsession 

with Lois Lerner I think could have been avoided. The committee 

asked her attorney would he be willing to engage in a proffer; a 

proffer would have said what she would have testified. And then 

I think all that, a lot of what is in the emails would have come out 

in an attorney’s proffer. If the point is to find out the truth, it 

seems to me at least we could have gotten through a lot of that 

here. 

But I do want to clear up something about these so-called lists. 

And I looked at what the IG had found and I am intrigued and I 

think the record needs to show this. It is clear that the IG found 

that they had used inappropriate lists for these so-called BOLO 

lists, the Be-On-The-Lookout lists. But he also found, is it not true, 

that high level management was not involved. Apparently, IRS 

people do these kinds of things all the time. They did not know, 

only first-line management knew about the references that trouble 

us, to Tea Party. And so this just stayed in place, is that not the 

case? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That was the IG’s report, yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Then the IG later found that Lois Lerner, who has 

been the obsessive subject of these hearings, didn’t even learn 

about it, these inappropriate criteria, until a year later; and then 

she immediately ordered the BOLO lists to be eliminated. And 

again, and isn’t this interesting, for lack of proper, I think, oversight, perhaps, these workers just went back to it because they 

couldn’t figure out a way to deal with the issue that has been discussed earlier in these hearings, which is how do you know which 

are primarily and which are not, so they went back to the lists. 

And when the IRS learned that their subordinates were again 

using this criteria, they then said you will have to have executive 

approval. 

Well, what impressed me was that your predecessor has gone beyond the notion of getting executive approval and he said there is 

to be no more use of these Be-On-The-Lookout lists, these BOLO 

lists. Is it correct, commissioner, that the IRS no longer uses these 

Be-On-The-Lookout lists for anybody at any time? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Ms. NORTON. So they have gone further. The IRS has gone further than the IG asked to go. As I understand it, the IRS has now 

complied with or is in the process of complying with all of the recommendations of the IG, is that correct? 

58 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Ms. NORTON. I must tell you, John Koskinen, if we want to find 

out anymore, I think what I would do, rather than trouble you to 

go through thousands more emails, is to take the agreement, apparently, of Lois Lerner’s attorney to offer a proffer so that we 

could find out what she would have testified, and then we may get 

closer to the truth and eliminate some of the need for some of the 

emails. 

Thank you very much for coming forward and thank you for 

agreeing to do this job. 

Chairman ISSA. [Presiding.] Mr. Collins. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A lot has been said about emails, when you produce them, and 

we are going to talk about that in a minute, but I think one of the 

issues that really hits at the heart here of people not understanding when it is portrayed and it is put out that the IRS has 

done something that was wrong, that was misguided, the terms 

that I have heard you use today, this is what has drawn the parallel of looking at Government and not trusting it, and heightened 

it even more. So if we started off with a bad taste, now we are getting worse, and then when it seems like we are obfuscating and we 

are keeping back and we are hiding behind requests and defining 

all and every and what are these definitions, people don’t get that. 

And to come to this committee, for either one of us, and to say simply, well, we are going through them, we are working that out, people don’t get that. And both sides. This is actually from a hearing 

we just had a few weeks ago. Groups on the left and the right are 

tired. They don’t get this and they don’t understand why the IRS 

acted this way. 

But I do have some questions. You officially took over when? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I started on December 23rd. 

Mr. COLLINS. So you started December 23rd. Are you familiar on 

the date that the first subpoena was issued to the previous commissioner? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The first what? 

Mr. COLLINS. The first subpoena for documents for these—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The first subpoena actually went to the secretary 

of the Treasury. 

Mr. COLLINS. And do you know what date that was? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That was in August. 

Mr. COLLINS. Yes, it was. You came in in December. You were 

issued a subpoena on February 14th, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Mr. COLLINS. At what stage did you find what we will just say 

is the compliance to the first subpoena when you took over in December? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I was not familiar with it and wasn’t focused on 

the first subpoena; it went to the Treasury Department. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. When it was being worked on the IRS to get 

to when you get the subpoena on February 14th, are you saying, 

then, that basically we just started over to answer the subpoena 

that you got? 

59 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. Actually, it turns out we had already provided and have provided significant information on all of the categories of the subpoena. 

Mr. COLLINS. Significant. Okay, but the February subpoena 

asked for what? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The February subpoena asked for all emails, all 

documents related to 501(c)(4)s. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. And does significant mean all? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. We actually have not provided all, we have 

provided—— 

Mr. COLLINS. And I think we—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And we have said we are going to continue to 

work with the committee to provide the other documents. 

Mr. COLLINS. And this is where it gets to the point of understanding, because this has not been discussed in the last three 

months. It has not been discussed since December. This has been 

going on for coming up on a year now. It has been discussed and 

understood and has been talked about, and especially as it got targeted around several individuals, Lois Lerner being one of them, 

that there seems to be—this is what I think previously was talked 

about—a storyline or however you want to put it. It is not a 

storyline, it is the fact that there is information wanted, there has 

been information requested, and that—you made a statement earlier and you said that the public needs to feel satisfied about what 

is going on. Do you feel they are satisfied right now? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I think the public will be very satisfied when this 

committee issues its report. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. But one of the issues that they are right 

now, that they are being satisfied, is they feel like they are not getting—wouldn’t it be—you said you wanted to get this as soon as 

possible. I agree with what I believe the chairman said earlier and 

others. Make this a priority. Get this off the table. Wouldn’t it 

seem to me that if you want to provide all, and you said and I take 

you at your word that you want to provide all, that this would be 

something that you would go ahead and get off the table as quickly 

as possible? And I am not sure we buy the fact that it is going to 

take this in redaction, because you have already said most of it 

might not even need redacting. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, I did not say that, others have said that. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay, so you are saying that every one of them is 

going to need redacting? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, every one has to be reviewed to see whether 

it has to be redacted. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. And—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We cannot give you any taxpayer information, 

and every document, every page has to be reviewed. 

Mr. COLLINS. And nobody is asking you to do that. But I think 

the problem here is this: You have walked into a position in which 

the trust level is zero. And now this committee has asked for all 

documents, and it is not a matter of what we are going to redact, 

it is just get all. We are asking and you said we need to do that. 

But the people don’t trust us anymore. 

60 

With my last minute, though, I will yield to the gentleman from 

Ohio. He had a question. We need to get this off the table. Gentleman from Ohio. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding, but I don’t know 

if I have enough time to get through the material I wanted to with 

the commissioner, so would yield back to the gentleman from Georgia. 

Mr. COLLINS. With that, Mr. Commissioner, I take you at your 

word, but the people that I go home, we don’t talk about hardly 

anything else when I go home except IRS, Benghazi, these other 

issues that the people feel like they are not getting an answer on, 

and they are tired of these kinds of hearings in which we say, well, 

we are getting to it, we are coming around to it; and especially 

when they are asked for it, they are demanded the answers from 

the IRS or others when they are asked for it on a different time 

line. It is time to get this done. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. COLLINS. The gentleman will always yield. 

Chairman ISSA. I just want to make it clear of one thing. You know, every time you go back and talk about $6 million of new 

computer equipment and the time it takes to redact, I am reminded 

that Ways and Means, only a week ago, was still negotiating to try 

to get subsets of information when, in fact, there was no redaction 

necessary, you could just do a computer dump on them. So very 

clearly you did not use that $6 million of new equipment to grab 

all the emails and just send them over, but, in fact, your agency 

and Treasury was slow-rolling Ways and Means and Senate Finance exactly the same way as you are slow-rolling us, but without 

the excuse for redacting. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I think that is an improper characterization. We, 

with Ways and Means, have been working through the priorities, 

trying to figure out how we could get them the most important, significant information that they think is significant as quickly as we 

can. It is going to take time; it has taken time. There is no higher 

priority in this agency than providing the documentation, but oversimplifying how easy it is doesn’t help us very much; it won’t make 

it go any faster. We are committed to continuing to cooperate. I 

said earlier, to the extent we can work with you and identify within the broad range of the subpoena what you would like first, we 

are happy to do it. It doesn’t mean we won’t give you other stuff 

later. With Ways and Means, we have never said that is all you 

are ever going to get; with Ways and Means, we have worked with 

their staff very productively to say here is where we are, what else 

would be helpful to you, what else do you need, and we have been 

providing it. 

Chairman ISSA. Very productively for over a year and they still 

don’t have it all. That says a lot when there is no reduction required. 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioner, I want to go to that time frame. If you have someone where the IRS is requiring documents from an individual, 

audit or whatever, is it an excusable excuse to say that they don’t 

have the time and it is going to take a year or two to get you the 

61 

information? Is that a permissible excuse to not give the IRS documentation? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. In the course of examinations, we have audits of 

large corporations and it takes us years. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But me as an individual. Let’s say if I came to 

you and just said, golly, commissioner, it is going to take a long 

time to get it, at what point does the IRS say that that is not okay? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We would say that after we understood what 

your circumstances were. If there was a legitimate reason it was 

going to take time, we would take time. There is no way we would 

ask you to something you couldn’t do. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right, so you are saying that it is going to take 

years to get us this information, according to your testimony a few 

times ago. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. With regard to all of the documentation about all 

of the applications for four years, my understanding is it is going 

to take years. 

Mr. MEADOWS. We are talking about Lois Lerner, all of her 

emails. How long would that take? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I cannot tell you. All I can tell you is the redacted 

version of—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So let me ask you this. Let me change, let me ask 

this. At what point should this committee hold you and your agency in contempt for not complying? I mean, what is the time line? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, I think the time line is whenever you think 

you can actually sustain that in a court. I think we have a strong 

case that we have been cooperative, continue to be cooperative, and 

anybody looking at the systems we have and the time it takes 

would find that we have provided you more cooperation than in 

fact might be expected. And I think that, in fact, arguing and 

threatening contempt in that situation without understanding the 

circumstances is probably not going to be held up. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I appreciate your opinion. I can tell you the 

people that I represent, they believe that you are stonewalling, and 

this testimony today is an indication, because you have gone over 

and over again of trying not to answer the questions that many of 

my colleagues have answered, you have qualified those. 

But let me go on to another point. February 3rd you made an announcement that you were going to reinstate bonuses to the tune 

of $62.5 million and give those back, and go against the decision 

that was made on July 29th. On March 5th, Secretary Lew, I guess 

testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, said that the ‘‘senior managers who were anywhere in the chain of command who exercised bad judgment in the running of the program are no longer 

there,’’ implying that they would not get a bonus. Would you agree 

that they didn’t get a bonus? Anybody who could have been involved in this targeting did not get a bonus? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Those people aren’t in the pool. This is not a 

bonus pool, it is a performance award pool that goes to bargaining 

unit employees—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So anybody involved in the targeting—my question, let me make it specific. Anybody who was involved in the targeting did not get a bonus, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. First of all—— 

62 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes or no? Yes or no? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have never said there was targeting. So if you 

would let me clarify what the answer is. Nobody—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So today you are saying that there was not targeting? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am saying the IG found that—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am saying what did you say. You are the one 

here testifying. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have said that this committee and five other investigations will tell us what the facts are. I have made no judgment about what happened because I have made no investigation. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right, so anybody who might have been in 

what I would call targeting, did they get a bonus? Do you know? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. They would not have been eligible unless they 

were in a bargaining unit. I don’t know who is in the bargaining 

unit and who would have gotten those. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So somebody that was involved in this could have 

gotten a bonus? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. There are front-line employees in the Exempt Organization Division—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. What about senior level management employees? Those bonuses come out to the tune of 10, $20,000 per employee. 

Did anybody that potentially could have been involved in these decisions, in the bad management practices, could they have gotten 

a bonus? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Not to my knowledge; none of them, in fact, are 

there. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So let me ask you how do you make 

that definitive of a statement if the investigation is not done? Because we don’t know who is actually involved, unless you are making an assumption of guilt or innocence. So how would you know 

that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would know that because you have given us a 

list of everybody you think is involved. We have actually gone 

through the production of documents. So if there is somebody who 

has been involved that isn’t on any of those lists and hasn’t shown 

up, it would be a surprise to all of us. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So your testimony here today is everybody that 

we have identified is innocent. That is your testimony? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, you asked whether they got bonuses. I said 

nobody who is not there got a bonus. Whether they are innocent 

or not, I don’t know. I am waiting for the results of the investigations. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, so you can’t assure us that they didn’t get 

bonuses, because you don’t know who they are. 

Chairman ISSA. If I can clarify the gentleman’s answer, I believe, 

and correct me if I am wrong. If we have identified individuals as 

people of our specific inquiry, those names, I think the commissioner is saying he knows they did not get bonuses. Is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. And obviously there may be others involved, but if we haven’t identified them I can see the commissioner’s point. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the chairman. I yield back. 

63 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Michigan. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have been here all day or all morning listening to you and the 

questions being asked, and somehow I feel like you should have 

come in here with boots on because we are mucking out a chicken 

coop. That is what it feels like. Trying to get to the truth, the hardest thing to find in Washington. I have heard you say you made 

no investigation. You have been here four months, correct, working 

for the IRS for four months? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Made no investigation. Yet you said we have six 

investigations going and it is a serious issue. I think that should 

have been the first thing on your list. I have heard the opposing 

side say we are spending a lot of money on this investigation, why? 

And I can’t help but think my brothers and sisters in uniform 

fought for this Country on the beaches and jungles and deserts defending the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, and the IRS 

takes that with, well, it must not be very important to them. And 

that is insulting to me. It really is. 

Freedom of speech is very dear to my heart, as is the rest of the 

Constitution. I fought in two wars. I don’t care how much it costs 

to guarantee those freedoms. And I would like to thank the chairman and the committee for spending so much time and energy on 

this. 

But I am going to cut through everything, because I don’t really 

believe you when you say it is going to—20,000 pages and it is 

going to take years to get emails. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I didn’t say it about emails. I said it would take 

years if you want all of the (c)(4) applications for four years and 

all of the documents related to them. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Okay, we are just talking about emails. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If you are talking about emails, I never said it 

would take years. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Okay. You know what? I know students in my 

high school class who could probably go in there for you and get 

them done in a morning. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I bet they couldn’t make 6103 determinations. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. No, that is right, and that is not what we are 

looking for. What I am looking for is the emails from Lois Lerner. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Emails from Lois Lerner, every page has to be 

looked at to make sure there is no 6103 information on them. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Maybe we should just get those from the other 

committee where you didn’t have to do that. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is right. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. And they could do that. And you can just provide it to them, we can get them from them and redacted. 

But, anyway, I have some really quick questions. In four months 

you haven’t done any investigation, but I know that you have 

talked to people in your office. You have asked them some tough 

questions that you are not coming forth with us today. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is not true. Not true. 

64 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Well, let me ask you. In your opinion, were conservative groups targeted by the IRS to stifle opposing views prior 

to the presidential election? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. All I know is what the IG found, and he found 

that inappropriate—— 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. What do you know? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Pardon? 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Yes or no, do you believe, in your opinion, do 

you believe the IRS has done that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have not taken an opinion on this. My position 

is—— 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. That is an easy way out. Thank you. 

Did Lois Lerner, plan, organize, or target conservative groups in 

cooperation with, at the suggestion of, or at the direction of members of the Senate or White House staff? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no information about that. I am waiting—— 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. You have been there four months? You said it 

was a serious issue and there are six investigations. You would 

think you would ask your people directly those questions. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. What I have asked my people directly is have 

we implemented and accepted the IG’s recommendation to solve 

whatever management problems were in the system to make sure 

that whatever happened never happens again. That is what I think 

my job is, is to take the organization, manage it going forward. My 

job is not to look backwards in time, my job is to try to make sure 

that we can assure the American public that whoever deals with 

the IRS, no matter what their political background, their affiliations, what church they go to, who they voted for are going to be 

treated fairly. That is what I think my responsibility is. That is 

what I think I have an obligation to the American taxpayers to do. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to yield 

to the gentleman from Ohio. 

Mr. JORDAN. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. 

If we could go back to where we were just a few minutes ago, 

Mr. Commissioner. You had indicated that you view your role as 

independent from anyone in the White House, the Treasury, even 

though you are housed in the Treasury. You had indicated that 

your testimony you prepared, you put together, and you submitted 

and read from some of that today when we started the hearing. I 

want to just point out a couple things that I find interesting. 

Let’s go to slide 1, if we could. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. JORDAN. This is a letter from Alastair Fitzpayne, Assistant 

Secretary of the Treasury, to Dave Camp from one month ago. And 

then we have your testimony from today, March 26th, a month 

later. Second slide there your testimony, seven or eight pages, I 

think in your testimony. And then I want to go to page 7 of your 

testimony. 

Next slide, if we could. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, this is what I find interesting. This is your 

testimony side-by-side from a paragraph that the Treasury wrote 

to Chairman Camp, and this language is even closer than earlier 

65 

when I asked you about the proposed questions and the inappropriate questions and the similarity there. This is basically word-forword. There have been numerous misleading reports and public 

statements regarding post-regulations. Exact same language from 

yours. Then you talk about the first draft regulation does not restrict any form of political speech. Mr. Alastair Fitzpayne’s letter, 

exact same language. Second, exact same language. We will give 

you a copy of this. 

Go to the next slide, if we could. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. JORDAN. This is all, again, talking about the (c)(4) rule, the 

draft regulation. 

Chairman ISSA. You are going to have to wrap up. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. 

Draft regulation. What I want to know is if you are independent, 

if you put together your own testimony, why does it read word-forword exactly what the Treasury sent to Chairman Camp? It seems 

to me either it is plagiarism or it contradicts what you told me earlier, that you prepared your own testimony and that you are an 

independent agency. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. May I respond? 

Chairman ISSA. Please. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I respond on my time. I wrote this testimony. I 

read Mr. Fitzpayne’s letter to Chairman Camp. I did not have any 

role in drafting it. I thought the points he raised were good points 

and I thought it was important to put them in my testimony, that, 

in fact, it is important for people to understand that these draft 

regulations are open to public comment. I have an open mind about 

them, but it is important for people to understand that people can 

engage in political activity any way they would like. They could become a 527 and do nothing in an organization but engage in political activity. Whatever regulation we come up with is not going to 

be focused on, and should not be focused on, keeping people from 

doing whatever they want elsewhere; it is focused on what should 

501(c)(3), (4), (5), (6), and (7)s be able to do or not able to do, and 

I thought it was Mr. Fitzpayne’s letter to the chairman seemed to 

me accurately portrayed the situation and I thought that, therefore—— 

Mr. JORDAN. So you looked at the letter—— 

Chairman ISSA. No, the gentleman’s time—I apologize, but we 

are going to go to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So, commissioner, if you, right now, had a stack on the table 

there of every email to, from or that copied Lois Lerner and all the 

6103 information was redacted, would you have any problem just 

delivering all those emails to us immediately? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. If I could get them on a stack on the 

table—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. So it is basically about the process and the burden of getting the emails. You don’t have a substantive objection 

to the fact that we want this information. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

66 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. So do you know how long it would take to 

just pull those emails that I mentioned? Don’t do the 6103, just get 

the emails, most likely in electronic form. Do you have any idea 

how long just that first step would take? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do not. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Can you find out and report back to us? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would be delighted. 

Mr. DESANTIS. My understanding is that that part would not 

take very long. So you have no idea, as you sit here, how many of 

these emails involving Lois Lerner even exist, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no idea, that is right. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So you can’t say that going through the documents for 6103 information would necessarily be burdensome because we just don’t know how many emails we are talking about, 

correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. All I know is the burden of just 

trying to get you the redacted versions of her emails about exams, 

appeals, and the regulatory process is going to take several weeks. 

Mr. DESANTIS. No, I understand, but I mean, for example, we 

don’t know, there may be 50 emails of her cheerleading Democrats, 

criticizing Republicans. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. DESANTIS. There could be 500 of those. So we don’t know. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Exactly. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So I think you understand the committee views 

Lerner’s emails as the highest priority. I think if you could figure 

out for us how long it would take just to pull them, and then once 

that is done, let us know how many we are talking about. Because 

what we don’t want is to just see this being dragged on, dragged 

on. And that may not be your intent, but a lot of my constituents 

don’t believe that the IRS has been forthright, and I think that 

that is bad going forward generally. 

There is another issue that I get asked about a lot by my constituents, and you were not the commissioner so this is not on you, 

obviously, but Lois Lerner testified last May, she basically said she 

didn’t do anything wrong, then she took the Fifth Amendment. 

Now, obviously, we think that she waved at some people. Put that 

aside. Just as an IRS commissioner, if you have somebody that 

high-ranking that comes and they are being asked questions about 

their official conduct in office, what do you do if somebody invokes 

the Fifth Amendment? Now, we know that that protects them 

against criminal prosecution, but just running your organization, 

what then happens to an employee going forward if someone is in 

that situation, where they cannot discuss what they did in this official capacity? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, as you know, she doesn’t work for the IRS 

anymore. If an employee takes the Fifth—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, she did at the time, though, and I know you 

weren’t there, but I am just asking you how do you analyze that 

situation. Because we had another IRS official take the Fifth involving some fraudulent conduct, not related to this investigation; 

and it just seems like, when that happens, it is kind of like, okay, 

we will reassign somebody and you kind of go on your day. But a 

67 

lot of my constituents look at that and they lose confidence in that 

official’s ability to conduct their duties. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. And as you know the assertion of the Fifth 

Amendment is not meant in any way to cast doubt on the guilt or 

innocence of the party or what they would say, so what we would 

do in any normal circumstance like that is consult with our personnel people and our legal people to see what the circumstances 

are and what authority we have to take whatever action we do. But 

any time anybody exercises their constitutional rights, if that was 

grounds for dismissal, it clearly would undercut the vitality of 

those rights. So I don’t think you can automatically say everybody 

who ever asserts the Fifth Amendment on any issue would automatically have adverse personnel actions, but we would immediately take a look at it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So you think, though, that it could cause you to 

reevaluate that individual’s position and whether they can conduct 

their duties? Because I just think that this is the public’s business. 

If we can’t get answers to some of these questions, put aside what 

happens to them criminally, I am not talking about that. I am just 

talking about the transparency that I think the taxpayers deserve, 

especially given the power of your institution; that if you do have 

people who are misbehaving and targeting citizens, there are few 

organizations where that is more detrimental to freedom than the 

Internal Revenue Service. So I appreciate your diligence on getting 

us the answer on Lois Lerner’s emails and I yield back the balance 

of my time. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the dean of the Wyoming House delegation, Mrs. 

Lummis. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Koskinen, welcome to the committee. Thank you for being 

here. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It has been a wonderful day. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I am sure. 

I would like to ask you if you ever met Lois Lerner, Holly Paz, 

William Wilkins, or Jonathan Davis. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The only person I have met is William Wilkins, 

who is still the general counsel of the agency. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Have you ever spoken to him about tax-exempt organizations? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Tax-exempt organizations. I have not talked to 

him about specific ones. He has been in on meetings where we 

have talked about issues such as responding to the IG’s recommendations. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Have you ever talked to him about Lois Lerner? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Have you ever talked to him about Holly Paz? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Have you ever talked to him about Jonathan 

Davis? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. I should say I have never talked to him about 

any of those people in terms of who they are and what they did. 

He has been in meetings where we have discussed trying to comply 

with the requests for discovery and those names have been menVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:53 Jul 08, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88494.TXT APRIL
68 

tioned, but I have never talked to him about any of those people 

individually or their role at the agency. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Do I understand correctly that you are willing to 

respond to item 1 in the subpoena prior to responding to items 2 

through 8 in the subpoena? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Item 1 is Lois Lerner’s emails? 

Mrs. LUMMIS. It is. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. No, as I have said, we understand. We are 

going to start with January. We are going to continue, because we 

have already started that process and I think it is important to get 

you all of the emails in the areas that I talked about, and then we 

are going to find out about January; and we will continue to work 

with you as to what order and priority, and we will let, as noted 

over there, let you know how many emails there are and what the 

process would be. We are delighted to do that. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. Are you aware that there is a deficit 

of trust on the part of the American people with the IRS? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do not know that personally. I have heard from 

a number of people talking about their constituents being concerned, and I assume and I believe those are accurate representations. Whether they represent the entire public or not to me is not 

important. I think every individual member and every organization 

in the Country deserves to feel comfortable that they are going to 

be treated fairly by the IRS, so my view is whether it is the entire 

Country or only segments or parts of it is not the question; it is 

important that everyone feel confident and comfortable dealing 

with the IRS. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And, indeed, when I go home, as other members 

have stated, including Mr. Lynch, what I hear is there is a deficit 

of trust; that people feel that they are being targeted not only from 

the tax-exempt organizations, but from other entities within the 

IRS. I have a constituent who has been involved in an estate matter for years since her husband died, who has the IRS coming and 

asking what brand of bedroom furniture she has. And she has paid 

$50,000 to accountants to try to address the questions of the IRS. 

That seems to me—by the way, she just happens to be a national 

committeewoman for the Republican National Committee and has 

contributed to Republican candidates. 

I would inform you that there are people that believe that IRS 

targeting has gone beyond conservative groups in the 501(c)(4) and 

into other areas of the IRS. I would like to inform you that the deficit of trust goes beyond tax-exempt organizations, and I would like 

you to know that when 100 percent of those targeted tax-exempt 

organizations turned out to be conservative organizations and people start threading their other problems with the IRS into their Republican affiliation or conservative affiliation, it begins to create a 

connect-the-dots situation that has created an enormous deficit of 

trust. And I appreciate your willingness to address what is coming 

up. 

I do want to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 

Ohio, Mr. Jordan. 

Chairman ISSA. And, with that, we are going to give the gentleman from Ohio two full minutes to conclude. 

Mr. JORDAN. I appreciate that, chairman. 

69 

When do you anticipate completing looking at the comments and 

making a decision on the proposed rule relative to (c)(4) organizations? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Again, that is difficult to project. We obviously 

have a lot of comments—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You are obligated to look at all those comments. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We need to review those. We will hold a public 

hearing where the public and members of Congress can testify. If 

we are going to significantly change, which is possible, certainly, 

the regulation, we would probably have to republish it. So as I 

have said in the past, I think it is unlikely we are going to get this 

done—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you have an opinion on the proposed rule now, 

prior to looking at the comments? You said you haven’t looked at 

them. Do you have an opinion on the rule now? Do you think it is 

a good rule? Do you think you are going to stick with it or do you 

think you are going to change, you being the head of the IRS? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Head of the IRS, my position has been that I am 

going to keep an open mind about the entire thing so that I can 

look at all the comments fresh. I wasn’t here when the regulation 

was drafted, so I don’t have a dog in that fight. My commitment 

is that any regulation that comes out ought to be fair to everybody, 

it ought to be clear, and it ought to be easy to administer. 

Mr. JORDAN. I have 50 seconds. Let me go back to where I was 

earlier on your testimony. You indicated that you took this directly 

from Mr. Fitzpayne’s letter, lifted it from his and inserted it into 

yours. Do you view that as plagiarism, Mr. Koskinen? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If I were publishing it for credit of one kind or 

another I would. In terms of—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you think you should have cited where it came 

from? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Pardon? 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you think you should have cited that it came 

from the Treasury Department? I mean, your answer to me earlier 

was we are independent, I view my role as independent; no one 

talked to me about the (c)(4) rule during the nomination process, 

no one at the White House, no one asked me about it prior to being 

nominated, going through the confirmation process; and yet you 

take directly from the Treasury Department their exact language 

regarding the (c)(4) rule, insert it into your testimony and then 

come here and say you are independent. That is our concern. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If I find a good idea somewhere and I think it is 

appropriate to put into the public domain, I am happy to do it. 

Mr. JORDAN. I understand that, but you specifically told me you 

didn’t do that; that you work independent and you put together 

your own testimony and you didn’t work with the Treasury, no one 

influenced you about the (c)(4) and no one asked you about it when 

you went through the nomination process. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am independent of this committee. If you have 

a very good idea, I am likely to adopt—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You know what? We have a good idea. We have a 

real good idea. Give us every one of Lois Lerner’s emails as soon 

as possible. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. And we are going to work on that together. 

70 

Chairman ISSA. I thank you. 

We now go to the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, for 

his close. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, this hearing has been very helpful in that I think we were able to, to some 

degree, focus on an IG report. The IG had nine recommendations 

and they have all been met. 

And I want to take a moment to say to the IRS employees who 

are watching us, and to you, Mr. Koskinen, I just want to thank 

you for your service. You all have one of the toughest jobs in America, collecting taxes. At the same time, you have laws that you have 

to make sure are adhered to. And when people get those letters 

saying that they are about to have an audit, or they get anything 

from the IRS, except a check, their blood pressure probably goes up 

a little bit because they are concerned. 

And the reason why I say all that is I want to go back to something that Mr. Lynch said. I think that when you have any kind 

of breach of trust, what happens is that it makes everything suspect; and I know that you have come in to try to restore that trust, 

and it is not easy. On the one hand, you have come in and you 

have taken up where Mr. Werfel left off; and I give him a lot of 

credit, as I know you do. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And all those employees who are working hour 

after hour, giving their blood, sweat, and tears to try to make this 

work. But then, no matter what happens, there is still a search for 

what part Ms. Lois Lerner played in this, and she really brought 

on some of her own problems, to be frank with you. So you have 

the committee trying to get to that and, in reality, it is relevant 

to a degree, and that is so that we figure out what happens so that 

we make sure it doesn’t happen again. So that is significant. 

But I don’t want that to take away from what you all have accomplished, because I know that it has not been easy. And there 

has been much talk about the regulations, the proposed regulation, 

and I was just looking here at the recommendations of the IG. He 

recommended to IRS chief counsel and Department of Treasury 

that guidance on how to measure the primary activity of IRC and 

501(c)(4) social welfare organizations be included for consideration 

in the Department of Treasury priority guidance plan. That is what 

the IG said. 

And somebody here, I think it may have been Mr. Jordan, went 

on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how nobody 

is happy. Well, in my 32 years being in public life and looking at 

laws and regulations, I can tell you most people aren’t happy about 

something in a law. That is the way it is. So the thing that I want 

to make sure does not happen is that there is not a chilling effect 

on the IRS and the job that they are supposed to do. I don’t want 

them to be in a position where they become so paranoid that they 

don’t do what we, the Congress, had mandated that they do. 

So I am hoping that, again, the employees will do their jobs, will 

continue to do the very best that they can, use their best judgment. 

Hopefully, and I pray that they will, leave their political hats at 

the door so that Americans, all of them, will be served the way that 

71 

the Congress intends for them to be served, and that is everybody 

treated fairly and equally. 

With that, I want to thank you. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Can I just comment for a minute? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I hope the chairman will give you a second. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would have responded to the congresswoman 

from Tennessee that even with our restrained and constrained resources, we will do a 1,300,000 audits this year. Some of them are 

going to be Democrat, some of them are going to be Republican; 

some are going to be long to one organization or another; some will 

go to church, some won’t go to church; some will have been in a 

meeting two months ago. 

It is important for us and critical for the taxpayers to understand 

that no matter who you are, what your background is, at this point, 

dealing with the IRS, when you get an inquiry from us, it is because of something in the material you filed, and you are going to 

be treated fairly. And if anybody else had the same information in 

their material they filed, they would get an inquiry from us. It may 

mean we need more information, we need an explanation, maybe 

there has been a mistake. 

But, across the board I think the point is well taken, if there is 

a decline in trust, people are all going to try to figure out, when 

they get a letter from the IRS, why are they getting it; and what 

I want them to be comfortable with, and it will take time to reassure them, they get that letter because of something they filed in 

their returns. It has nothing to do with who they are, nothing to 

do with their political beliefs, nothing to do with who they voted 

for in the last election. And I understand that for some people that 

is hard to believe right now, but that is our commitment and that 

is our goal in the years going forward. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Often, for a chairman it is hard not to bring your past experiences into Congress. Sometimes it is helpful. When I was starting 

in business, my very first year, I was audited on my income as an 

Army 1st lieutenant. Went in with the paperwork and my fledgling 

new accountant from my new firm, and it turns out that the auditor was a former military officer and he was horrified that I had 

received so much per diem from temporary duty; and he kept saying, but I never got anything like this, it is not possible. He wasn’t 

a military expert, he was an IRS auditor, and he was just angry 

as hell that I was in TDY apparently full time except for one or 

two days a quarter for years. I was with an experimentation command; we were always there. 

Ultimately, I paid no new taxes and there wasn’t a problem, but 

it was remarkable to me to realize that he came with a prejudice. 

It wasn’t a Republican prejudice, it wasn’t a Democratic prejudice; 

it was a prejudice about the money I got tax-free as a per diem recipient. That is human nature. We are dealing with human beings. 

This investigation may be about politics or it may be about 

human beings, and your charge, of course, is to try to wring out 

the wrong behavior in both cases. You are charged not just with 

making sure they don’t pick on me because I am a conservative or 

72 

Mr. Cummings because he is comparatively liberal, but also the 

whole question of they audit a lot of people who make a lot more 

money than they do. That is not a get-even time. All of those and 

more are part of your charge. 

But the investigation before us primarily is about some past conduct, and I want to put into the record—these are from a previous 

hearing, but I will put them in at this point for continuity—July 

10th, 2012, two emails related to Lois Lerner’s emails in which it 

has in it Democrats say anonymous donors unfairly influence Senate races. It says, perhaps the FEC will save the day. Now, this 

includes Holly Paz, Sharon Light, and Lois Lerner in the train, and 

it also mentions Crossroads GPS and a number of other things; and 

it particularly says the Obama campaign, and then it is semi-redacted, filed e similar complaint against Crossroads GPS, watchdog 

groups, and so on. 

One of the things that we are finding, and it was here today in 

testimony that you made, it was definitely on a number of my 

Democratic members, Ms. Speier and others, Ms. Grisham, they 

have a real problem with the 501(c)(4) not disclosing their donors. 

They want 501(c)(4)s to essentially not be able to do what they do; 

they want them to be 527, another category, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know what they want. The 527 is another 

tax category for political organizations. 

Chairman ISSA. So 527s can do all the activities they want to do, 

political; they just have to disclose their donors. That falls under 

the Federal Election Commission. 

The charge this committee has in Government oversight and reform includes making sure that we properly allocate resources and 

authorities where they are supposed to be. In 1959, more than 50 

years ago, 50 years before Barack Obama was elected President, 

the American people made certain decisions on a 501(c)(4), and the 

ruling that came out of that stood for all those years, and there 

was clearly political activity by 501(c)(4)s and they did not report 

their donors. 

When Congress created the Federal Election Commission, and 

through Shays-Meehan, McCain-Feingold, and other reforms over 

the years, changes were made. I find no record that they made a 

decision that the American people, through their elected representatives, Republicans and Democrats, made any decision to make 

501(c)(4)s report their donors or to limit their ability beyond the 

majority decision that had been made and the rule for decades. 

It would appear as though, through these emails and other activities of Lois Lerner and others, individuals at a very high level 

in Washington working for your agency made a decision that they 

were going to do what the FEC was charged to do but use their 

authority. I believe that it has been well shown there. I believe 

that is one of the challenges we face, beyond the fundamental investigation of the targeting. 

If the IRS is allowed to become a wing of the Federal Election 

Commission, if you are allowed to create a rule, modify rules because you, the President, or executives within the IRS or Treasury 

believe that it shouldn’t be some way, that they should have to report, and that is the reason for changing a 501(c)(4), which cannot 

exclusively do politics, but can do some amount of politics, even by 

73 

your own self-declaration right now, 40 percent, without reporting 

their donors, that in fact the IRS is legislating and regulating 

using authority they don’t have to legislate and regulatory authority they don’t have that the FEC has. 

Congress, in its wisdom, and past presidents have, in fact, provided the rules under which the Federal Election Commission operates and where the disclosure is. Many members of this committee 

have expressed their willingness and their concern and their belief 

that the rule should be changed. Whether I share that or not, my 

concern, as the head of this oversight committee, and I would hope 

all the committees doing oversight, is that you not take it on yourself, or anyone that works for you or for the Executive Branch, to 

legislate a change. That is the exclusive purview of Congress. And 

reevaluating an existing law 50 years ago, quite frankly, belongs to 

the courts, not to an agency to conveniently reinterpret something 

based on who is using it and how, and whether it is politically acceptable. 

So our committee will continue to investigate on behalf of the 

American people because we do find the fundamental evidence, beyond the targeting of conservative groups, that the decision of Citizens United and the growth of the use of 501(c)(4)s to do some politics, but not exclusive, in fact appears to be the reason for action 

by the IRS. It is within our jurisdiction, it is within our purview 

to continue that. 

So, in closing, I must tell you we do want all of Lois Lerner’s 

emails. We do want all of Holly Paz’s emails. We don’t believe that 

you have been forthcoming in a timely fashion. We do believe that 

you have given us what you believe is responsive, hoping we would 

never get the rest, when in fact, when I issued the subpoena and 

then reissued a subpoena to you, I did so to make it very clear that 

our investigation as to emails like this one tell us we need to look 

at all of her correspondence for why she was doing what she was 

doing and who she was doing it with. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Can he respond to that? 

Chairman ISSA. No, it is a closing statement. And I didn’t ask a 

question, I made a statement. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. I may not agree with all the conclusions 

in the statement, but it is the chairman’s right to make whatever 

statement he would like. 

Chairman ISSA. It is only a statement. I certainly let him answer 

yours. But this was a statement and I wanted you to understand 

where the investigation was going, which is really what the close 

was about. 

Mr. Cummings, during the course of this investigation, you 

raised procedural questions related to Ms. Lerner’s conduct when 

she appeared before the committee on May 22nd, 2013, and again 

on March 5th, 2014. You had a consultant, Mr. Mort Rosenberg, 

look into this. He prepared a memo. The Office of General Counsel 

in turn prepared a memo to advise the members of the committee 

on this topic. I now ask unanimous consent that that memo be 

placed in the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Commissioner, I appreciate you were treated 

well in some cases and in some cases our members went off topic. 

You handled yourself incredibly well. We do have disagreements on 

74 

discovery speed; I am sure we always will. I do appreciate your 

being here today and your answering all questions. I did not weigh 

in when people went off topic and you handled yourself very well. 

I would have weighed in if I thought that you were sinking. You 

were not. So I want to thank you. 

Is there anything more, Mr. Cummings? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. No, just that we will provide you with our memo 

in response to yours, which has 23 experts who agree with us. 

Chairman ISSA. We can continue to play the tit-for-tat. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. No tit-for-tat, I was just letting you know, that’s 

all. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, very good. Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Very well. 

Chairman ISSA. And, Mr. Commissioner, thank you. 

We stand adjourned. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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