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89–730 PDF 2014

AN UPDATE ON THE IRS RESPONSE TO IT’S 

TARGETING SCANDAL 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, 

JOB CREATION AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 23, 2014 

Serial No. 113–133 

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 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, JOB CREATION AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS

JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chairman 

JOHN J. DUNCAN Jr., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

PAUL GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS Florida 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania, 

Ranking Minority Member 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MARK POCAN, Wisconsin 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 23, 2014 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. John Koskinen, Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service 

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

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

APPENDIX 

Timeline for OGR hearing with Commissioner Koskinen, submitted by Chairman Issa ................................................................................................................ 72 

E-mail from TIGTA’s Deputy Inspector for Investigations, submitted by Rep. 

Connolly ................................................................................................................ 73 

Pages from transcribed interviews of DOJ Officials Richard Pilger and Jack 

Smith, submitted by Rep. Horsford .................................................................... 74 

July 11, 2014 letter from IRS Commissioner Koskinen in response to letter 

from Chairman Issa and Mr. Jordan, submitted by Mr. Cummings ............... 84 

(1) 

AN UPDATE ON THE IRS RESPONSE TO IT’S 

TARGETING SCANDAL 

Wednesday, July 23, 2014, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, JOB CREATION & 

REGULATORY AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Jordan [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Jordan, DeSantis, Meehan, Lummis, 

Collins, Meadows, Bentivolio, Issa, Cartwright, Connolly, Horsford, 

Kelly, and Cummings. 

Also Present: Representative Gowdy. 

Staff Present: Melissa Beaumont, Majority Assistant Clerk; 

Molly Boyl, Majority Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; David Brewer, Majority Senior Counsel; Drew Colliatie, Majority Professional Staff Member; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; 

Christopher Hixon, Majority Chief Counsel for Oversight; Mark D. 

Marin, Majority Deputy Staff Director for Oversight; Jessica Seale, 

Majority Digital Director; Andrew Shult, Majority Deputy Digital 

Director; Sarah Vance, Majority Assistant Clerk; Rebecca Watkins, 

Majority Communications Director; Tamara Alexander, Minority 

Counsel; Portia Brown, Minority Counsel; Aryele Bradford, Minority Press Secretary; Susanne Sachsman Grooms, Minority Deputy 

Staff Director/Chief Counsel; Elisa LaNier, Minority Director of Operations; Donald Sherman, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel; and 

Katie Teleky, Minority Staff Assistant. 

Mr. JORDAN. The committee will come to order. 

I want to thank our witness for being here again. 

We will start with some opening statements. I will start first by 

recognizing the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from 

California, Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, that is very kind. 

Commissioner, I know that this is unprecedented, to have a commissioner of the IRS in front of this committee so often, and I appreciate the fact that you have been willing to be briefed and participate even beyond our requests at times. 

As we continue to explore a number of questions, the time line 

of the crash, the inconsistency of the probability of lost emails by 

multiple people within Government, we appreciate that you were 

not in Government; you were not doing this at the time. But as you 

can imagine, not just the Internet, not just Fox, but America is beVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:17 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89730.TXT APRIL
2 

ginning to question how convenient so many emails of so many people at the heart of targeting conservative groups for their views, for 

their politics, and for the fact that Citizens United was objected to 

by the President, how many of them had loss of data and how 

much is not available to the American people. 

A cover-up is normally described as something that happens during an investigation around here. In other words, things go missing 

during the investigation. But when it comes to the loss of data, it 

is clear that data began disappearing and not being able to be yet 

found at a time when Congress was just beginning to look at 

wrongdoing that is now confirmed that began with the President 

objecting to Citizens United, that began with Democratic members 

of the House and Senate writing letters asking for investigation of 

people that were politically the opposite of their party, not asking 

for investigations about all people who may be involved in political 

activities in addition to their nonprofit work. 

It is clear they were driven within the IRS, and perhaps other 

areas, by political bias and a belief that the President wanted a fix 

and that the fix had to occur. 

Again, commissioner, you weren’t in Government at that time, 

but Government is today; it is their time, it is their watch. It is 

their responsibility. Whether it is the FEC, the IRS, the Department of Justice, or any and all of Government’s activities that led 

to the unfair treatment on the eve of campaign elections of conservative groups, it is clear that there was a convenient loss of far more 

data by far more people than is explained by the normal arithmetic 

probabilities. 

Today we will explore not only the time line, but when this committee received that time line. It was your watch to give us accurately and keep us up to date on developments related to Lois 

Lerner and other parts of our investigation. It is my view that you 

could have done better. You will and have paid a price in public 

opinion for not being as forward-leaning and proactive as you could 

have been. 

But that was yesterday. Today what we are asking you to do is 

to continue working with your IG, and, if we are fortunate enough 

to get a special prosecutor, work with him or her and, of course, 

work with the groups that now have Federal judges ordering the 

IRS to show particular information and bringing it all together 

back to this committee, because this committee has an intent to 

make to the greatest extent possible public what we can find is 

being done on behalf of the American people to bring back the confidence in the IRS. 

So, again, I appreciate your willingness to be here. These are not 

easy hearings, and each time you come you leave with more questions from us than you come with answers to us, and that is the 

nature of an investigation that continues to evolve. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for recognizing me early. 

Commissioner, again, you need to be part of the solution. I believe you have to a certain extent and I believe you are committed 

to do more, and for that I thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. I recognize the member from Maryland, the ranking 

member of the committee, Mr. Cummings. 

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

3 

Commissioner Koskinen, I want to thank you for testifying before 

this committee yet again. This is the third time in the past month 

you have appeared before us, and that does not count a fourth appearance you made before the Ways and Means Committee last 

month on the same topic. 

Unfortunately, it appears that you and other IRS employees are 

now becoming collateral damage in a fight for the spotlight among 

two Republican committee chairmen, Representative Issa and Representative Camp. This is unseemly, it is embarrassing, and is not 

a proper way to run an investigation or to spend millions of dollars 

in taxpayer funds. 

As the commissioner knows very well, when Chairman Camp 

was informed about the crash of Lois Lerner’s hard drive, he quickly announced that he would be holding the first public hearing before the Ways and Means Committee. Ten minutes later Chairman 

Issa issued a unilateral subpoena compelling the commissioner to 

testify first before our committee. You did not contact the commissioner before issuing the subpoena and you did not hold any debate 

on the vote or vote. In response, Chairman Camp chose to move his 

hearing up several days so he was the first one in front of the cameras. 

It did not seem to matter to either chairman that the IRS provided numerous contemporaneous documents showing that Ms. 

Lerner’s computer crash was a technological problem that she and 

multiple IT officials attempted to remedy. Those facts apparently 

were irrelevant. The goal was to stoke the fire and to be the first 

to do so publicly. Chairman Camp has now asked the inspector 

general to conduct an investigation into Ms. Lerner’s hard drive 

crash, which he has agreed to do. Commissioner Koskinen testified 

last time he was here that the inspector general asked him to 

make his investigation the top priority, which meant not subjecting 

IRS employees to any other interviews while the inspector general’s 

interviews were going on. That was the IG’s request. 

Rather than waiting a few weeks, Chairman Issa disregarded the 

IG’s request and demanded that the IRS make its employees available to him now. Commissioner Koskinen explained that the inspector general did not want IRS employees subjected to multiple 

interviews, but Chairman Issa just began issuing more unilateral 

subpoenas. He forced the IRS employees to appear before the Oversight Committee and he excluded Chairman Camp’s staff from participating. When the commissioner testified here before, Republicans accused him of obstruction, claiming that he was hiding witnesses from the committee. When he again explained that the inspector general asked him not to subject IRS employees to multiple 

interviews, Chairman Issa said he was going to follow up with the 

inspector general directly. 

Well, that apparently didn’t happen. Yesterday I asked my staff 

to contact the inspector general’s office to find out exactly what was 

going on. They spoke with the Deputy Inspector General for Investigations, and I can report what he told us. The Deputy IG for Investigations confirmed that his office is now conducting the investigation that Chairman Camp requested. He confirmed exactly 

what Commissioner Koskinen told us, which is that the inspector 

4 

general prefers that IRS employees not be subjected to multiple 

interviews in order to avoid ‘‘tainting their testimony.’’ 

Without directly criticizing the chairman’s actions, the Deputy IG 

for Investigations stated that, as investigators working for the inspector general, they want everyone to allow them to complete 

their interviews first ‘‘without distraction.’’ As he stated then, there 

is no confusion of witness testimony and the integrity of the investigation is not impaired. 

Contrary to these requests, Chairman Issa has been forcing IRS 

employees to come before our committee for transcribed interviews, 

and since he is excluding Chairman Camp’s staff, IRS employees 

are also being forced to appear before Ways and Means. Invariably, 

after each of these interviews, Chairman Issa and Chairman Camp 

issue dueling press releases with tidbits of information or cherrypicked transcript excerpts in their effort to compete for more headlines, no matter how unsubstantiated their claims are. 

The Deputy IG for Investigations also told us something else. 

Over the past year and a half, they have obtained no new evidence 

that would change the conclusions in the audit from 2013. 

As I close, there is simply no evidence whatsoever of any White 

House involvement in the screening of tax-exempt applications. 

The IRS has already spent $18 million responding to the duplicative congressional investigations, and Commissioner Koskinen is 

now testifying before Congress for the fourth time in just over a 

month. Yet, Chairman Issa informed committee members yesterday 

that he will be holding yet another hearing on the topic next 

Wednesday. We have the notice here. 

With that, I will yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. JORDAN. The chairman of the full committee is recognized. 

Mr. ISSA. Point of privilege. There were a number of words in the 

gentleman’s statements that disparage me, and I object to his 

words and debate, and ask that he withdraw or modify them, and 

ask unanimous consent that among the terms that be withdrawn 

would be not only the unseemly statement, but in fact when the 

ranking member disparaged me for a number of areas, including 

my intent and essentially said that the items I said were not true. 

Additionally, the ranking member, while objecting to multiple 

claims of cherry-picking releases or interfering with the IG, fails to 

mention that in June of 2013 he released the entire John Schafer 

transcript, which has compromised this investigation by statements 

made in future transcribed interviews, saying that they had reviewed these in preparation for those. 

So I certainly would say that while questioning the intent in 

some argument about Republicans not getting along, the ranking 

member managed to go beyond the ordinary opening statement and 

claiming the intent. In fact, the ranking member, in June of 2013, 

went on national television claiming the investigation was over. 

This investigation is not over. I would ask that such items, including unseemly, be taken down. 

Mr. JORDAN. Without objection? 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. I object. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. 

5 

Mr. ISSA. The gentleman objects. I understand, but I would reiterate that the decorum of this committee should not lead to personal attacks as to the intent of individuals on either side. The fact 

is this committee is conducting vigorous oversight. We do so as a 

matter of our obligation as a committee. 

And I would make one last request. I ask unanimous consent 

that the staff be able to place the time line into the record so that 

the ranking member’s clearly erroneous claim that our request for 

the first hearing came after the events, when in fact the time line 

will show that the subpoena had been served prior to the announcement from Ways and Means. And as the ranking member 

would know if he had ever chaired this committee, the fact is it 

takes a long period of time to prepare a subpoena, to write a subpoena, to go to the clerk and get it approved, and then to serve it. 

So I would hope that the ranking member, once he sees that in the 

record, would recognize that in fact he has been clearly erroneous 

in his claims. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

If we can, without objection, let’s allow the time line in and let’s 

move to the next opening statement. Would that be satisfactory 

with—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. JORDAN. Would that be satisfactory? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. It certainly is satisfactory. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I just wonder, though, would just a brief response to the distinguished chairman? 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you really have to? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, I don’t really have to, other than to say to 

you, Mr. Chairman, I certainly associate myself, and I know my 

colleagues do on this side of the aisle as well, with the sentiments 

expressed by the distinguished chairman that we should always 

speak with respect about each other. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well said. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. We should never question each other’s intentions. 

That has not been the practice as often as I would like on this committee. So I certainly hope that this would reflect a new day dawning here in the committee and that we can proceed civilly. 

I thank the chair. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank the gentleman for his comments. 

Our subcommittee meets today to continue its oversight of the 

IRS and the targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants. We 

welcome back our witness, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. All 

kinds of questions need to be answered, and that is why, for the 

third time in a month, we have Mr. Koskinen here to answer and 

address many of those unanswered questions. 

First, we were promised that the IRS would produce all of Lois 

Lerner’s emails. Then we learned that some of Ms. Lerner’s emails 

had been destroyed and there was absolutely no way he could 

produce all of Ms. Lerner’s emails to Congress. 

Second, we were told the IRS had confirmed that all backup 

tapes with Lois Lerner’s emails had been destroyed. Then we 

6 

learned last week from IRS attorney Thomas Cain that a backup 

tape may in fact exist. 

Third, we were told that there was one hard drive crash, Lois 

Lerner’s. Then the Ways and Means Committee disclosed that 

there were seven or eight total crashes. And now we learn from Mr. 

Cain that there may be as many as 20. 

Now, think about this. The IRS has identified 83 custodians of 

documents and information. The IRS has identified these people associated with this targeting of conservative groups and now almost 

a fourth of them may have had hard drive crashes. Unbelievable. 

Fourth, we were told that the IRS found out in April 2014 that 

Ms. Lerner’s emails were lost. But then we learned from Mr. Cain 

that the IRS knew on February 4th, 2014 about Ms. Lerner’s hard 

drive crash and that it found out just days later that the hard drive 

had been recycled and its contents were unrecoverable. 

That is why we continue to have hearings. That is why we have 

Mr. Koskinen back for the third time in a month. We would like 

to get some straight answers. 

We have convened this hearing because today, over a month 

after the IRS first told Congress that it lost Ms. Lerner’s emails, 

there are still many unanswered questions. There are still unanswered questions about why the IRS delayed for several months in 

notifying Congress, the Justice Department and the American people about the problems with Ms. Lerner’s emails. 

Deputy Attorney General Cole told us last week that the Justice 

Department learned of the missing Lois Lerner emails from press 

accounts in the media. Imagine that. One of the highest profile investigations in years, and the Justice Department has to learn 

about critical evidence by the central player in this investigation. 

They learn about that in news accounts, not directly from the Internal Revenue Service. And that is why last week, sitting at this 

very table where Mr. Koskinen sits today, Deputy Attorney General Cole said he would have liked to have known about the emails 

earlier and he announced that the Justice Department was investigating why Commissioner Koskinen failed to disclose the missing 

emails in a timely manner. 

Let me just reiterate that. James Cole, Deputy Attorney General 

of the United States Department of Justice, said last week, in that 

same chair, to this same committee, that they are investigating 

why the Internal Revenue Service delayed months in telling the 

Congress, the American people, and, most importantly, the FBI and 

the Justice Department about the loss of Lois Lerner’s emails. 

Rather than the IRS coming to Congress and informing us what it 

knew when it knew it, the IRS waited four months. The IRS only 

came forward to finally acknowledge the missing emails when it 

had no choice, and it disclosed the news the only way it knows 

how, by burying the information on page 7 of enclosure 3 in a Friday afternoon letter to the Senate. Information obtained by the 

committee in the last few days provides more questions than answers about the missing emails. 

But remember this isn’t information the IRS is offering up willingly. It has taken almost a month for the IRS to finally start coming clean and it has taken subpoenas to get people to talk. Mr. 

Cain, we tried for weeks to get Mr. Cain to come talk. We finally 

7 

had to subpoena him. The IRS wouldn’t provide him. We had to 

subpoena him to get him to come for the deposition last Thursday. 

The American people have this information only because the 

committee has been asking questions, and that is why Commissioner Koskinen is here today. He is the individual handpicked by 

the President to clean up this agency, and that is why he is here 

today, to answer our questions. Until we know all the facts, until 

we clear up all the confusion and all the misstatements about Lois 

Lerner’s missing emails, the committee will continue to press for 

the truth. That is the mission of the oversight committee and, 

again, that is why we meet today. 

With that, I yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, 

Mr. Cartwright. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First off, thank you, Mr. Koskinen, for coming today. You know, 

we schedule these things on these little doohickeys, and it asks you 

do you want to make this a recurring entry. And when I see 

Koskinen, I want to say yes at this point. 

At this point, I am concerned that committee Republicans are no 

longer using these hearings for the purpose of investigating what 

happened to the groups that were the subject of the inspector general’s May 14, 2013 report. This seems to be something different. 

And I want to say we all ought to agree that the point of this committee, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is not 

publicly to harass Federal agency heads, Mr. Koskinen; it is to conduct responsible oversight of the legitimate critical issues within 

our jurisdiction. I believe that these repeated hearings that we are 

seeing today are both an abuse of authority and a dereliction of 

this committee’s duty. I think it is abundantly clear that Chairman 

Issa and Chairman Camp are in some kind of taxpayer-funded footrace over who can make the first headlines about Lois Lerner’s lost 

emails. 

And we heard about requests for a time line, and we ought to 

look at that time line because it was on June 16, shortly after 

Chairman Camp, of Ways and Means, announced that he would be 

holding a hearing with you, Commissioner Koskinen, on June 24th, 

that Chairman Issa of this committee issued a unilateral subpoena 

compelling the commissioner to testify before this committee on 

June 23rd. In response, Chairman Camp moved his hearing up to 

June 20th. So it is something like a children’s fairy tale that we 

are looking at here. 

In addition, Chairman Issa is no longer allowing staff from the 

Ways and Means Committee to participate in the Oversight Committee interviews. Chairman Issa’s refusal to hold joint interviews 

is resulting in wasted taxpayer money, as IRS employees like you, 

Mr. Koskinen, are now being subjected to multiple, duplicative 

interviews. 

I also want to address Republican claims that the alleged targeting of conservative groups is this Government-wide conspiracy 

initiated after the Citizens United decision involving the President, 

the IRS, a conspiracy including the Department of Justice and 

other Federal agencies. This committee has obtained no evidence 

linking these accusations to what we all know now were inappropriate criteria used by IRS employees in Cincinnati. Some of my 

8 

colleagues on the other side of the dais have chosen to overlook the 

funneling of dark money into the political system of the United 

States. Republicans have demanded accountability from the IRS, 

but have not demanded the same from corporations who influence 

our national elections. 

In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five to four decision on Citizens United, allowed for-profit corporations, unions, and 

nonprofit groups to raise unlimited funds and register for tax exempt status under the 501(c)(4) designation, and the IRS then became flooded with applications for this kind of status. The 501(c)(4) 

designation is exclusively meant for organizations whose primary 

activity is social welfare, defined in the tax code as making charitable, educational, and recreational contributions to a community. 

Now, while 501(c)(4)s are not barred from participating in political campaigns, it is stated plainly and clearly that political participation must be an insubstantial amount of the group’s overall activity, accounting for less than 50 percent of expenditures. The 

IRS’s job was to make sure these groups were following the rules 

so they weren’t taking tax breaks meant only for groups contributing to the community, not hiding the influence that a select few 

individuals have on our nation’s electoral politics. 

As I said before in previous hearings, this is about groups doing 

everything they can do to hide where they get their money, obscure 

their true intentions, and have undue influence on the political system tax-free. Anonymous money in politics is something we don’t 

need in this Country, something that disrupts the democratic process, and something that has to be changed. 

I commend Chairman Leahy and Senator Udall of the Senate Judiciary Committee for advancing S. J. Res. 19, a joint resolution 

proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would negate these damaging effects of Citizens United. 

I have cosponsored the House companion to that bill, introduced 

by my friend, Representative Ted Deutch of Florida. 

With that, I will conclude my comments and yield back to you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Members will have seven days to submit written statements to 

the committee. 

We are pleased to have with us today the Honorable John 

Koskinen, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. 

Mr. Koskinen, you know how this works; you have done it a few 

times before. Please stand and raise your right hand. 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, so help 

you, God? 

[Witness responds in the affirmative.] 

Mr. Koskinen, you are now recognized for your opening statement, and then we will get right to questions. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN KOSKINEN, 

COMMISSIONER, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Thank you. Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member 

Cartwright, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. With your permission, I will 

9 

provide a brief introductory statement and submit a copy of my 

complete testimony for the record. 

Before beginning my statement, I want to thank the subcommittee for its willingness to work around my travel schedule. 

In attempting to set the original hearing date, my understanding 

was you were interested in an overview of IRS interactions with 

the Department of Justice. I would like to touch briefly on that 

subject, which is covered in more detail in my prepared statement. 

In general terms, the IRS regularly and routinely interacts with 

the Department in the investigation and prosecution of criminal 

and civil tax matters, and also other financial fraud. Our Criminal 

Investigation Division investigates and develops cases and recommends them to the Department’s Tax Division for prosecution. 

These cases represent a variety of tax issues, including refund 

fraud, abusive tax shelters, return preparer fraud, and international tax non-compliance. 

The international area offers a good illustration of what our coordinated efforts can accomplish. Recent examples include the 

guilty pleas by Credit Suisse and BNP, two major financial institutions that were found to be in violation of U.S. laws. 

Routine interactions between the IRS and DOJ also involve the 

IRS Office of Chief Counsel, which reviews all criminal tax cases 

developed by our Criminal Investigation Division before those cases 

are recommended for prosecution. In addition, when the Department of Justice’s Tax Division litigates a civil matter, IRS Chief 

Counsel attorneys are actively involved, collaborating on the arguments and positions taken. 

Let me now turn to an update of the efforts that the IRS has 

made to cooperate with the investigations into the use of inappropriate criteria to evaluate applications for tax-exempt status under 

section 501(c)(4) of the Revenue Code. These include four investigations by Congress, one by the Department of Justice, and one by 

the inspector general. Added to that has been the recent new investigation by the inspector general of circumstances surrounding the 

crash of Lois Lerner’s hard drive three years ago. 

To date, we have now produced more than 960,000 pages of 

unredacted documents to the tax writing committees and more 

than 700,000 pages of redacted documents to the House Oversight 

and Government Reform Committee. In addition, at the request of 

the Oversight Committee and other committees, the IRS has been 

working on the identification and production of Lois Lerner emails. 

As part of this document production, the tax writing committees 

have received 67,000 emails that we found involving Ms. Lerner. 

We are continuing to provide redacted versions to the Oversight 

Committee, which to date has received more than 54,000 emails 

from Lois Lerner. We are working to provide these documents as 

quickly as we can. 

In the course of collecting and producing Ms. Lerner’s emails, the 

IRS determined that her hard drive crashed in 2011. At that time, 

Ms. Lerner had asked IT professionals at the IRS to restore her 

hard drive, but they were unable to do so. Nonetheless, the IRS has 

or will produce 24,000 Lois Lerner emails from the period between 

2009 and 2011, largely from the files of other individuals. 

10 

The IRS provided information about the hard drive crash to all 

six investigating entities in a public report we released in June. I 

would note that our June report, to the extent that it focused on 

Ms. Lerner’s hard drive crash, was based in part on emails we had 

already provided to the congressional committees, the inspector 

general, and the Department of Justice. Some of those emails were 

produced as long ago as last fall. Those emails were provided in the 

normal course of production related to the search terms agreed 

upon previously. So all six investigators have had initial information about the hard drive crash since last fall. Also, additional 

emails about Ms. Lerner’s hard drive crash were produced this 

spring to investigators, prior to the release of our June report. 

I also want to point out that, consistent with a bipartisan congressional request, the inspector general has noted he is proceeding 

with its own investigation regarding the crash of Ms. Lerner’s hard 

drive. The IG, as was noted earlier, has asked the IRS not to do 

anything that would interfere with its investigation, and we are 

honoring that request to the extent possible. 

In addition, on July 18 we responded to a recent court inquiry 

with detailed information regarding the crash of Ms. Lerner’s hard 

drive. This information is consistent with what was previously provided in the six investigations, but we have provided the Oversight 

Committee and other investigating entities with a copy of that information. 

I understand that during last week’s hearing with DOJ there 

was a question as to what information the IRS gave to the Department about the hard drive crash. We provided all investigating entities with the same information in our June report which we released to the public. DOJ did not receive any additional information. 

Since releasing our June report, we have continued to cooperate 

with the investigations. Since mid-June we have produced to the 

Oversight Committee more than 100,000 pages of documents and 

made witnesses available for interviews with congressional staff. 

Five of those interviews have already occurred. Our deputy chief 

information officer has given three briefings for congressional staff, 

including one for the Oversight Committee, and, as noted, I have 

testified at four hearings, including the one today. 

This concludes my statement, and I would be happy to take your 

questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Koskinen follows:] 

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Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Now turn to the vice chair of the committee, the gentleman from 

Florida, Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, Commissioner. Mr. Koskinen, are you aware that 

you currently are under investigation by the Justice Department 

regarding your role in determining when to produce Lois Lerner’s 

emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not aware of an investigation. I did see the 

deputy attorney general’s statement last week before this committee that he would be interested in why we had not provided him 

information in April, as opposed to June, but I have not received 

any notice of an investigation. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, he told us that it was something that the 

Justice Department would look into, and he said that it was information that they did wish they had at the time that you discovered 

it. 

Let me ask you this. The committee interviewed IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Cain, and he testified that senior 

IRS officials, including Catherine Duvall, the counselor to the commissioner, realized that Lois Lerner’s emails were missing, that 

there was a hard drive crash on February 4th, 2014, and that by 

mid-February they realized that the emails would not be recoverable off that hard drive. Yet, you testified in front of this committee 

on March 26th, 2014, and after being asked numerous times 

whether you would produce all of Lois Lerner’s emails consistent 

with the subpoena, you said you would. 

So if the senior IRS officials knew in mid-February that the 

emails could not be recovered off the hard drive, why did you tell 

this committee that you would produce them? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I have testified before, when I testified at previous hearings, when I testified in March, I said we would provide 

all Lois Lerner emails, as I have also testified since then. I did not 

mean to imply that if they didn’t exist, we would somehow magically provide them. We have provided you all Lois Lerner emails 

we have. 

With regard to when officials at the IRS knew the impact of the 

hard drive crash, as I have testified several times in the 11 hours 

of hearing since June 13th, what I was advised and knew in February was that when you took the emails that had already been 

provided to this committee and other investigators, and, instead of 

looking at them by search terms, looked at them by date, it was 

clear that there were fewer emails in the period up through 2011 

and subsequently. And there was also, I was told, there had been 

a problem with Ms. Lerner’s computer. It was not described to me 

in any greater detail than that. 

I was advised near the end of February that we were now reviewing all of our production capacity to make sure nothing had 

been done in the production capacity that would have explained or 

would have caused the loss of any emails. That process went forward, but at the same time I would remind everybody we were focused primarily on the request from this committee and the Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Committee to complete 

the production of all documents we had related to the determinaVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:17 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89730.TXT APRIL
17 

tion process, and we did that and, in mid-March, provided to the 

tax writing committees a letter saying we had now produced all the 

documents we had regarding the determination process. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay, I appreciate that. We even asked Mr. Cole 

if someone responds to discovery requests and they say they will 

produce all of them, they can’t just do that, represent that, and 

then know, well, gee, we are not going to be able to produce all of 

them; and then once they figure that out, they have to come immediately and tell the opposing party. In this case it is a congressional investigation, so it is not the same. And yet you guys sat on 

the information for several months, and that caused this investigation, from our end, to be obstructed. 

Let me ask you this about these backup tapes. The IRS has told 

Congress that backup tapes from 2011 no longer exist. Yet, Mr. 

Cain testified in terms of the interview with this committee that 

backup tapes may in fact exist. So can you now, under oath, definitively state that the relevant backup tapes that this committee has 

sought do not in fact exist? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I understand from your press release, what 

Mr. Cain said was the information we provided in June was accurate to the best of everyone’s knowledge at that time. What he said 

since then is that the inspector general—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, wait. You said, too, with all due respect, you 

said, on June 20th, 2014, to the Ways and Means Committee, that 

we, meaning the IRS, confirmed that backup tapes from 2011 no 

longer existed because they had been recycled pursuant to the 

IRS’s normal policy. So that was a definitive statement on your 

part. Now we are getting information from Mr. Cain, well, the IRS 

isn’t exactly sure that that is in fact true. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. What Mr. Cain reported was information that the 

inspector general has started to review tapes to see if there is additional information on them. Mr. Cain said, therefore, there may be 

backup tapes that were recycled, but may be recoverable. We have 

no information, I have no information what the inspector general 

is doing with those tapes. In fact, the inspector general advised us 

that he was reviewing those tapes and asked us not to do any further investigation, not to have any further conversations. And I understand he asked this committee as well not to make the existence 

of their review of those tapes public. But at this point I have no 

information as to whether there is anything usable on those tapes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. We have been told obviously about Lerner’s hard 

drive failure, then Ways and Means has identified as many as 

seven or eight additional individuals who are relevant to the investigation whose hard drives also crashed during this period. Now, 

based on testimony from Mr. Cain, it could be as many as 18 or 

19 different hard drives that have crashed that would be relevant. 

So can you definitively state to this committee the number of hard 

drives from relevant individuals that crashed during the period in 

question? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I can tell you what I know at this time, which 

is in the first six months of 2011, over 300 hard drive crashes occurred, and there were over 5,000 reports of hardware problems. In 

the first six months of this year, for example, over 2,000 hard 

drives have crashed. Not every hard—— 

18 

Mr. DESANTIS. I understand. But that is your whole agency. We 

are talking about people who happen to be relevant in a relatively 

small universe of people, and the number of hard drive crashes 

seem to be getting higher the more we investigate. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. And in May I asked our people, once we 

knew that there was an issue with Ms. Lerner’s crash, I asked for 

what the industry standards were for hard drive crashes, was advised that 3 to 5 percent of hard drives crash. I asked then for a 

review of the question you are asking, of custodians, how many of 

those 83 had hard drive crashes. 

We reported on June 16th to the Ways and Means Committee in 

a staff interview that we knew there were probably at least six or 

seven. The next morning, promptly on receipt of that information, 

the Ways and Means Committee issued what turned out to be an 

erroneous press release saying that all of those emails had been 

lost, including the emails of Nicole Flax. It turned out, in a little 

further investigation, that it appears no emails for Ms. Flax were 

lost because the hard drive that crashed was not her office computer. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am sorry, can I answer the question? 

Mr. DESANTIS. But my question was the number of hard drive 

crashes. I understand you have mentioned the Ways and Means 

press release in numerous statements that you have made before 

Congress and I have read your other statements, but the numbers. 

Where do we stand on the number of hard drive crashes? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Where we stand on the number is thereafter the 

IG was requested by Congress to do an investigation and the IG 

asked us not to do any further interviews or investigations, so we 

have not pursued further what the additional implications are, how 

many hard drive crashes of custodians or what the implications are 

because the inspector general is investigating that very issue. So 

I cannot give you a definitive answer at this point as to either how 

many custodians had crashes or, if they did, how many of them lost 

emails, because I would emphasize not every crash leads to a loss 

of emails. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, Mr. Cain put the upper limit at 20, so there 

seems to be a contradiction there. 

My time is up. Mr. Chairman, thank you for indulging me, and 

I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

The ranking member of the full committee is recognized. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Commissioner, I want to thank you for testifying 

before the committee today and for the third time in a month. 

When you testified on June 23rd, 2014, and July 9th, 2014, you 

told us that the IG was investigating circumstances of Ms. Lerner’s 

computer crash. On June 11th, 2014, you wrote to this committee 

reiterating that the IG is conducting an investigation into the loss 

of Ms. Lerner’s emails and that, as you previously testified, you 

would honor the Inspector General George’s request to prioritize 

his investigation. 

Has the inspector general expressed concern to you about the release of non-public information about an ongoing IG investigation? 

19 

Mr. KOSKINEN. When the inspector general first talked to me and 

asked us to give a priority to his investigation and not to do any 

further investigation or witness interviews ourselves, he explained 

to me that they were concerned that they did not want to muddy 

the waters, they wanted to have their ability to talk to witnesses 

and then go back and talk to them again without anyone having 

conversations in between time. So they were very concerned that 

witnesses that they were interviewing in the investigation be allowed to proceed with the inspector general only. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And do you know when that was that you had 

that conversation with the inspector general? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The conversation was shortly after they were 

asked by the Finance Committee and Congress to make the investigation. I can’t remember which the date was in mid-June. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The IG has expressed similar concerns to our 

committee. For example, on July 2nd, 2014, committee staff held 

a conference call with the inspector general in which the IG described the investigation into Lois Lerner’s hard drive as ‘‘very active, open, and ongoing,’’ and asked our committee to refrain from 

publicly disclosing the non-public information regarding this ongoing investigation. Is the IG’s investigation into this matter still active and ongoing, to your knowledge? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. To my knowledge, it is still active and ongoing. 

Mr. JORDAN. Would the ranking member yield for just a question? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Were majority staff member present at that briefing 

where the inspector general conveyed that information? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Our staff says that they weren’t. And if I could, and 

you will get all your time plus some extra, if you would like. The 

inspector general called our counsel yesterday, he happened to be 

in my office with Mr. Meadows, and said that they had talked to 

you but did not express any of the comments you made in your 

opening statement or, frankly, any of the comments you are making in your line of questioning now. So I just wanted that on the 

record. 

The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, why don’t we have him here next week 

under oath, since we are having all these IRS hearings, and see 

what he has to say? 

Mr. JORDAN. I am open to that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Because we can go back and forth on this, and 

I want to be very clear as to what he said. So when you are talking 

about he say, she say, it is better that we have him here and we 

will do that, if you so choose. But I would be happy to. 

The IG has expressed similar concerns, again, to this committee. 

So it is your understanding that the IG’s investigation is still ongoing. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It is, as far as I know. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So in spite of the inspector general’s request, on 

July 21st Chairman Issa issued a press release stating that based 

on the interview of IRS Deputy Associate General Counsel Thomas 

20 

Cain, ‘‘new developments’’ have created uncertainty regarding the 

existence of backup tapes. 

Commissioner Koskinen, is it your practice to release non-public 

information about an ongoing IG investigation? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And why not? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Because we made a commitment to the IG that 

we would honor his priority, that we would not do anything that 

would interfere with his investigation. He could talk to anybody he 

wanted, they could look at any evidence they wanted, and we 

would not have an ongoing discussion with any of the witnesses he 

was talking to because we did not want to interfere. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Of course, Chairman Issa’s press release released 

statements from Mr. Cain and other witnesses that undermine a 

partisan narrative. Mr. Cain told the committee that he was aware 

of a ‘‘potential issue’’ regarding the backup tapes, but he did not 

know any additional details. When asked whether he had seen 

‘‘any evidence that any IRS employee intentionally destroyed documents or emails to avoid their disclosure,’’ Mr. Cain said, ‘‘I have 

not seen anything to that effect.’’ 

Have you seen any evidence of obstruction by IRS employees? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have not. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yesterday the committee staff interviewed IRS 

National Director for Legislative Affairs Leonard Oursler. He told 

the committee staff that based on the information available at the 

time, your June 13th, 2014 letter to the Senate Finance Committee 

stating that backup tapes from 2011 had been recycled was accurate. Is that right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know what he said, but I understand from 

the press release about Mr. Cain that he said the information we 

had and provided on June 13th was accurate and that is what everybody knew at the time. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, Mr. Oursler also told us that earlier this 

month he was made aware of an issue with a backup tape, but that 

he did not know if the backup tape was from 2011 or whether it 

was mislabeled. He said that even if the unrecycled backup tapes 

exist from 2011, the IRS does not know whether they contain 

emails from Ms. Lerner not previously produced to the committee. 

Sitting here today, do you know any additional details regarding 

the backup tape issue that the IG is currently looking at? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. All I know is actually what Mr. Cain said, 

that at this point nobody had any information as to what was on 

those tapes or whether they were relevant. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And until the IG determines the facts regarding 

this backup tape issue, are you in a position to correct your earlier 

statements? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. My point has been that we are going to honor 

the IG’s investigation. I look forward, as everybody does, to his 

completion, and we will see what his facts are and what he determines happened three years ago and we will respond accordingly. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you were asked earlier about computer 

crashes and you said that you were not aware of the folks who may 

have some relevance to this investigation concerning their crashes. 

Would you normally have that kind of information? 

21 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Normally, if things had proceeded as they might 

do, when I asked in May for the answers to this question, that is, 

how many custodians had hard drive crashes in light of the fact the 

industry says they crash regularly, I had asked for a review of how 

many had crashed and what the implications were. We had not 

completed that review when we provided our June report, and basically we had that morning, the following Monday, our IT people 

had been advised, I had not been advised, that we knew there were 

six or seven custodians that had had hard drive crashes. That information was actually provided to the Ways and Means Committee. We have not been able to pursue whether there are 6, 12, 

or 15 because, once the IG started, we agreed that we would not 

pursue any of those issues until they have completed their investigation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, just a last question. When the DOJ was 

here the other day, and you were asked about this a bit earlier, 

they talked about the fact that they had not gotten information 

about the crash back in April. They got it in June, I think, like everybody else. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Why is that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. When we, in April, determined that in fact there 

had been a hard drive crash and some emails may have been lost, 

our next step was to in fact investigate how many emails did we 

actually have and could we find, and our plan and proposal was 

that we would pull all of that information together, including information about custodians, and make a public presentation to the 

committees, including a description of why it takes us so long in 

our archaic system to actually respond to requests for documents. 

We provided that information in the June 13 report, as I testified 

earlier. We did that before the complete production of Lois Lerner 

emails, which is when we originally intended, because the Senate 

Finance Committee asked us for an update on both the determination process documents as well as the other searches we were 

doing. We gave them that. We noted that we had found nothing beyond what we had noted in our March letter with regard to the determination process, which was the subject of the investigations 

when they started. But we had not completed, at that time, the review of the custodians, nor had we completed, until the end of 

June, the production to the tax writers of all of Lois Lerner’s 

emails and we are moving toward producing the redacted version 

to this committee. 

So our plan was when we pulled it all together, we would be able 

to explain what our process was, the difficulties, what we had 

learned about Lois Lerner’s emails, what we had learned about others, and what we had been able to determine. As I noted, we were 

able to recover 24,000 Lois Lerner emails. We thought all of that 

was important information for people to have rather than simply 

saying, well, there is a problem with her computer and we are now 

investigating how many emails there were, which would have triggered hearings six weeks earlier, but we would not have known 

nearly as much as we now know. 

But we don’t know everything we would like to know because we 

have in fact stopped asking people about it while the IG is doing 

22 

his investigation, which we fully support. I have confidence that 

the IG is independent of us, he was appointed by a different administration. He has 15 people working on it, according to the filings 

they made last Friday, and we have told him and I have told him 

personally whatever he needs, documents, whatever people he 

wants to find, he can have access to and we will stay out of the 

way. So we have gone out of our way not to talk to anyone who 

potentially he might want to interview about what happened three 

years ago when the hard drive crashed. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Koskinen, real quick. Russell George told you 

that he did not want this committee and Congress interviewing the 

same witnesses he was interviewing? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. He told me that he did not want us interviewing any witnesses—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, that is fine. That is not the same as Congress. 

Why did you make it so difficult for us to get—why did we have 

to subpoena Mr. Cain? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Because the IG, in our discussions, had said he 

did not want us to do anything that would cause any of our employees to be interviewed before he had a chance to interview them. 

Mr. JORDAN. Just for the record, so the inspector general did not 

tell you that it would hinder his investigation if Congress interviewed the same people he was interviewing. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, the inspector general told us if we started 

providing names, let alone witnesses, it would interfere with their 

investigation, and that is why we did not testify—— 

Mr. JORDAN. That is not my question. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I testified two weeks ago and said that we were 

trying to cooperate with the IG, and as I recall Chairman Issa said 

he understood that, which is why you all don’t release full transcripts, and that you would work—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You have conveyed to this committee that the inspector general told you he didn’t want this committee interviewing 

the witnesses he was interviewing. And he did not say that to you. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, what I—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay, that’s all I need. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Okay. 

Mr. JORDAN. That is all I need. 

The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Commissioner, I want to go back to one thing that the gentleman from Maryland just asked and make sure I heard you correctly. So if you know the testimony that you have given to Congress is not correct, you are not going to correct that until we get 

a final report from the IG? Did I hear that correct? Because that 

is I thought what you said. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. No, what I said was the testimony I have 

given in the past was accurate as of the time with what I knew. 

I testified as to what I knew. Right now the question is do I know 

anything more about tapes, backup tapes, and the answer is I don’t 

know any more other than the IG is investigating whether there 

are backup tapes and whether in fact they are recoverable. 

23 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if you find, during the course of your normal 

business, that what you have told Congress is incorrect, you will 

come immediately to us and let us know, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am happy to correct. In fact, the chairman, with 

regard to—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So within 24 hours of you finding that you have 

given us incorrect testimony, you will come and let us know? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes, sir. If I know it is incorrect, and, in fact, if 

the committee has any questions, Chairman Issa was very thoughtful and said, when Lois Lerner’s lawyer talked about what she did 

with records, he sent me a letter and said here is what she said, 

here is what you said, take a look at it and correct it, and I appreciated that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, we appreciate the fact that you will come 

back to us, because I thought you were saying you were going to 

wait until the IG gave you a report. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, no. I said I wouldn’t know until the IG investigation is complete what the answer is in terms of how many 

custodians had—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But you won’t know what they found until they 

come back, but you will know what you—so are you saying that 

you are not talking to Mr. Cain or anybody? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you are not talking to anybody in the IRS 

about any of this? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not talking to any potential witnesses for 

the inspector general about what happened three years ago in the 

investigation—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So when you read the reports about Mr. 

Cain, did you talk to him and say, hey, this doesn’t jive with what 

I know? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, because Mr. Cain is someone that I assume 

the IG is going to be talking to in terms of what did he know and 

when, and what do we know about—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So did you talk to somebody who talked to him? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. All I did was I read the release that this committee put out. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So did you read the release of the Ways 

and Means press release that talked about a scratched hard drive? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I saw that this morning. It was put out last 

night, I understand. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Does that concern you, that it was scratched, and 

not crashed? Would that concern you? It concerns me. Does it concern you, if that is accurate? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know—if it is accurate. As I say, I haven’t 

talked. I don’t know the gentleman, I don’t know what he said. All 

I know is—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But if it is accurate, would that concern you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I understand—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. That it was scratched. Let me tell you why it concerns me. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Okay, good. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And this is an HP laptop. To get to the hard 

drive, it is no easy task. You have multiple screws that have to be 

24 

taken to get to it. Then once you get to that, you actually have a 

hard drive inside that has seven more screws that have to be taken 

off to get to the hard drive in order for it to be scratched. Would 

that concern you that if it were indeed scratched, that there may 

be some other motive? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It would be a piece of information that I assume—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Would it concern you, yes or no? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I wouldn’t know whether to be concerned or not. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know anything about whether—as I understand from the press release—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, it concerns me, and I am going to ask my 

staff to go and see how long it would actually take to get to that 

hard drive to make—if indeed it were scratched. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I know. But I assume there are a lot of ways hard 

drives get scratched. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I can assume that too. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I know nothing about that. I am sure the IG is 

going to look into that and I am sure he has already talked to that 

witness, or would like to have talked to him before—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I hope so. So let me go back to the numbers. 

I think earlier you just said you had 2,000 hard drive crashes this 

year? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Is that correct? All right, so let me ask you about 

numbers. And you know that I am a numbers guy, because I just 

did the numbers real quickly. If you look at your entire body of 

some 84,000 to 90,000 IRS employees, depending on which year, 

but let’s take that, that is a 2.2 percent failure rate. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. In the people that truly are involved in 

this, in that sphere of 80 people, if indeed we had 16 to 18 hard 

drive crashes, why would the hard drive crash of that group of people be 10 times greater than what you have throughout the agency? 

Can you explain? What would be the probability of that happening? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. First of all, I have no information as to know 

whether that is the actual number or not. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Well, let’s take the number that you do 

know, seven, that you testified. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right? That still would be four times greater 

than your overall average. Can you explain that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know what the details were. I do know, 

when I asked for the industry statistics, once you get beyond the 

warranty period, the failure rate goes to 10 to 15 percent. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But Lois Lerner’s laptop was a new laptop, it was 

not an old one. And, actually, the probability of her hard drive failing at that time was at the lowest, according to industry standards, 

was at the lowest possible time. Does that surprise you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. But it does surprise you that her hard 

drive failed? 

25 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. I tell you, my understanding about it is, from 

the industry, it is 2 to 5 percent, depending on the computers, are 

regularly—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So out of this circle, if you have 10 times that 

amount, would you say that is an anomaly? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If you had 10 times the amount, that would be 

an anomaly. I don’t know whether we—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I am giving you the numbers, so that would 

be an anomaly. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If you stipulate you have 10 times as many as the 

industry average, that would be an anomaly. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right, thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Koskinen, the very first question you got in your testimony 

today was something to the effect Mr. DeSantis, my colleague, put 

the question to you whether you were aware you were under investigation by the Department of Justice. You know, this is a very 

public hearing. This is a very, very public. We invite members of 

the press to come to these hearings, and these hearings are televised, and I think it is important that we don’t lead the public 

down the wrong path on what the truth is here. 

Mr. Koskinen, have you received a target letter from the Department of Justice to say that you are under investigation? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Has anyone, anyone told you verbally that you 

are under investigation by the Department of Justice? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Has anyone, anyone said to you verbally anything that would hint to you that you are under investigation by 

the Department of Justice? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Has anyone, anyone said anything to you to 

hint to you that you might be the target of a Justice Department 

investigation sometime in the future? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you for that. 

Another thing that you have been trying to get out, and you are 

continually interrupted in your answers, were comments about industry statistics about computer failures. I want to give you a 

chance now to make full sentences. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. In May, when I was advised we had this problem 

and we were proceeding to find how many Lois Lerner emails we 

could have, I asked, A, what are the industry standards for hard 

drive crashes, and I was told it is somewhere between 2 to 3, sometimes 5 percent within the warranty period. If you have older computers, which a lot of our employees have, it goes as high as 10 to 

15 percent. I then asked that we do a review of all of the 82 other 

custodians to determine what, if any, of them had hard drive crashes and, if they had them, whether it caused any loss of emails. We 

have, as I said, over 2,000 crashes already this year, but all of 

those didn’t result in loss of emails. In fact, you can lose emails 

without your hard drive crashing. 

26 

So at the time we were starting down that road to complete our 

review of exactly what were the situations with regard to the production of documents. As I say, that has stopped from coming to 

closure because the IG himself is actually looking at all of that. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you. 

Now, Mr. Koskinen, on June 20th you testified before the Ways 

and Means Committee that even after discovering Ms. Lerner’s 

2011 hard drive crash you said, ‘‘The IRS took multiple steps over 

the past months to assess the situation and produce as much email 

as possible for which Ms. Lerner was an author or recipient. During this time and into May we were also identifying and reviewing 

Lerner emails to and from 82 other custodians. By mid-May, as a 

result of these efforts, the IRS had identified the 24,000 Lerner 

emails between January 1 and April 2011.’’ 

Commissioner Koskinen, why did the IRS take these steps to recover Ms. Lerner’s emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It was an attempt on our part to produce as 

many Lois Lerner emails, either from her accounts or other accounts, as possible in response to the request of this committee and 

the Ways and Means Committee to produce all of Lois Lerner’s 

emails. So we were trying to make sure that there were no emails 

anywhere in the system to or from Lois Lerner that we had not located and had not provided. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. So despite the hard drive crash, the 

IRS has still produced 24,000-plus additional emails from Ms. 

Lerner, is that right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. Now, witnesses have told this committee that in February of 2014 IRS employees discovered that 

there were fewer of Lois Lerner’s emails from January 2009 to 

April 2011 than there were for other periods, and upon this discovery IRS officials immediately took steps to determine the reasons for this discrepancy and whether they could locate additional 

emails from Ms. Lerner during that time period. 

The question there is why didn’t you inform us about the discrepancy in Ms. Lerner’s emails when you testified before this committee in March? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Because in March I did not know and we didn’t 

know whether we had lost emails or not. One of the first things 

that was investigated in February and into March was to review 

all of our production processes to see if anything in the way we had 

reached into the system to produce the emails, put them into our 

search method had caused us to in fact misplace those emails, because it wasn’t clear initially as to whether, whatever her problems 

with her computer were, had resulted in any loss of emails. 

So the first process while we were producing all the other documents regarding the determination process was to make sure that 

we hadn’t ourselves done anything in the process to cause emails 

in that period to be lost. And we determined ultimately into April 

and May that nothing that we had done in the search process had 

caused the emails to be not producible. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. I thank you, Mr. Commissioner. 

I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman. 

27 

Now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Meehan. 

Mr. MEEHAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Commissioner, thank you for taking the time to come up and be 

with us again today. I know you came here before and I know we 

are going through a lot of detailed testimony, but the baseline is 

accurate, that to the best of your knowledge, when you testified before that the emails were not available from Ms. Lerner during the 

period that they had been, to the best of your knowledge, that they 

had been destroyed because they had been recycled on the tape. 

And I am not questioning that at this particular moment. 

But I think what has people interested is Mr. Cain came up here 

not so long ago and he is a pretty sophisticated guy. His job is to 

produce documents for investigations and litigation and other kinds 

of thing and, therefore, he not only has a very detailed understanding of the process, but a deep appreciation of the implications 

to do or failure to do, including exposure for failure to do things. 

He also has a very sophisticated understanding of how to answer 

questions with respect to this, appreciating that when he is under 

oath, anything that he says would put him in a particular position 

in which, if it is known to be wrong, it could expose him to further 

scrutiny. Let’s just put it that way. 

So I am curious as to why he would come and testify that, I don’t 

know if there is a, and this is his words, I don’t know if there is 

a backup tape with information on there or there isn’t; that he was 

now unsure about whether there were some backup tapes from the 

period of time that may not have been erased. I am using his direct 

testimony. There is an issue as to whether or not there is a—that 

all of the backup recovery tapes were destroyed on the six-month 

retention schedule. I don’t know whether they are or they aren’t, 

but it is an issue that is being looked at. 

What do we know about this issue and why would he have made 

that statement? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. What we know about that, or what I know about 

that issue is I was advised by the inspector general that they had 

taken tapes they had found, I don’t know how they found them, 

and they were reviewing those tapes to see if they had been totally 

recycled or whether they were not recycled and usable. I was advised about that because the inspector general, again, wanted us 

not to do any—because he knew, however they had found them, 

somebody knew that the IG had them. He didn’t want us to in fact 

do anything to investigate further what those tapes were, where 

they were found, who found them, what they did with them. 

So our guy said that was fine, and at this point, I haven’t talked 

to Mr. Cain about this, but according to his testimony, what he has 

said is what he knows is, because, as you say, he has been involved 

in it, is that the inspector general is looking at some tapes, I don’t 

know how many and which ones, to see whether in fact any of 

them turned out not to be recyclable or any of them have information that is recoverable. But at this point, as Mr. Cain’s testimony 

states, it is not clear whether they do or don’t. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Or whether in fact substantively there is information, when he gave you that identification that they are, as you 

said, it was believed that they had all been produced, but now 

28 

maybe some of them have been found. Weren’t you concerned about 

what procedure they used to potentially come up with new tapes? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. When the inspector general advised me of that, 

I was interested as to why they were looking at tapes that we had 

been advised had all been recycled, but I didn’t cross-examine the 

inspector general about it, I agreed with him that they would do 

the investigation, we wouldn’t do anything to interfere with that; 

I wouldn’t and none of our people would talk to anybody about it. 

So I can’t tell you how they found them, what they are, and, as Mr. 

Cain said, whether there is anything on them or not. At this point, 

we are supporting the inspector general. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Do you have any idea about what the issue is that 

he referred to? Because that was the very specific thing. There is 

an issue as to whether all of the backup tapes had actually been 

recycled. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. And the issue, as I just said, is that he obviously is aware of what the inspector general advised me, which is 

the inspector general has taken some tapes, I don’t know which 

ones, and is reviewing those to see if they have been recycled, if 

there is information on them that can be found or used. That is all 

I know and I assume that is all he knows. But beyond that I 

haven’t talked to anybody about this, I haven’t asked anybody 

about it because, again, our position with the inspector general is 

he is doing the investigation. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Just one follow-up question. But why are these not 

available from a third party vendor who, in the event of a cyber 

attack, would protect us against the destruction of all records 

which would put our Government in a remarkably perilous situation, so we take steps to ensure that essential documents are preserved by having them in third-party data storage situations? Why 

were the documents that are relevant to this period, particularly 

the documents relevant to the 2009, 2011 area, why were they not 

backed up and available today? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is a very good and important question. As 

I have testified earlier, there has been no loss of any information 

and no actions taken since this investigation started with regard 

to any information and production of documents. We have frozen 

and saved and backed up all emails from six months before the 

start of the investigation forward. 

What we are talking about is what happened three years ago, 

and three years ago the process was to use backup tapes for basically disaster recovery purposes and recycle them every six months. 

That was the protocol and the process that had gone on for some 

years and, in fact, it used to be they only kept them for one month, 

and it was increased to six months. But that was the process three 

years ago. Whatever emails were lost three years ago were not lost. 

They were lost then. Nothing has been lost, as far as I know, since 

this investigation started. We have gone out of our way to protect 

all of the data and all of the documents. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you. I have other questions, but my time 

has expired. Thank you. 

You are an attorney, and you talked about these documents having been missed. But at the period of June 29th, 2011, Lois Lerner 

is informed that some of the activities that she has been associated 

29 

with may have been involved with discriminatory practices. Now, 

you are a Yale lawyer, and you understand the situation in which 

there is a potential for litigation and the requirements that when 

there is a potential for litigation, that there is a requirement consistent with the record-keeping responsibilities to preserve the documents that may be relevant to that. All of this occurred before the 

period of time that we are now looking some years down the road. 

So if you were informed that somebody was holding your agency, 

or you in particular, as having potentially engaged in discriminatory practices, would you preserve the documents from that era? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have, any time there is an investigation, we 

have litigation document hold policies and procedures. As I say, we 

have done our best to protect every document for the last year and 

a half, almost two years now, and anytime anyone raises a serious 

question about the production of evidence, we go out of our way to 

protect it. I don’t know what the circumstances were three years 

ago. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, this was knowledge that there were discriminatory practices and she was informed that she was central to the 

potential that there were complaints about discriminatory practices 

on the part of the IRS. Would that be the kind of a document that 

you would preserve in anticipation of potential litigation? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Again, our protocol is if there is going to be an 

investigation, if there is a serious issue raised, we protect and preserve documents. As I have testified, one of the things I had asked 

about early in this investigation is we need to have an email system of record so that it would be easier to protect official records, 

preserve them, and it would be much easier to search them. As I have said, we should not have to spend $18 million answering straightforward questions for documents, but that is the system 

we have. The constraints on the budget have been significant over 

three or four years. Going forward, we are looking again at is there 

a way to get out of the late 20th century and into just the early 

part of the 21st century, because we should have an email system 

that is, as I say, much more searchable and a system that is a system of record. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, I thank the gentleman. I think his question 

cuts right to the chase. She was on notice that there was a problem 

and suddenly her computer crashes. But it is worse than that. The 

IRS has identified 82 custodians of information that are relevant 

to the investigation, and now we know from Mr. Cain’s testimony 

last week up to 20 may have had computer hard drive crashes. So 

this is way beyond the 3 to 5 percent that the commissioner keeps 

citing; this is approaching 25 percent of the relevant people that 

they have identified have had computer problems and may not be 

able to get us the documents. I appreciate the gentleman’s questioning. 

We recognize the gentlelady from Illinois for her time. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Good morning, Commissioner. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Good morning. 

Ms. KELLY. On July 7th, 2014, you testified that since you were 

confirmed in December 2013, the IRS has ‘‘probably provided 

30 

300,000 to 400,000 documents to Congress.’’ To date, how many 

pages of documents has the IRS produced to Congress in furtherance of the ongoing investigation about the IRS’s review of tax-exempt applications? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I testified earlier, we have produced 960,000 

pages to the tax writing committees; redacted documents we have 

produced 700,000 pages to this committee. 

Ms. KELLY. I would imagine amassing a document production of 

this magnitude takes an extraordinary amount of time and money, 

as you talked about the money. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. It has been a significant distraction. We spent, as I noted, at last count, $18 million responding. We continue to produce documents. We hope shortly to be able to complete 

the production of redacted Lois Lerner emails to this committee. 

But in an area of declining resources, most of it is done in our Office of Chief Counsel. There are 500 fewer people in the chief counsel’s office now than there were four years ago, so it has been a significant strain on our chief counsel’s office. 

Ms. KELLY. And how many employees have been involved in this 

process and how many hours have been logged in to comply with 

all of these requests, to comply with Congress? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have had over 250 employees at various times 

involved, we have had over 100,000 or 120,000 hours of efforts devoted to it, and we continue to work on the production of those documents. 

Ms. KELLY. I understand that current agency staff, many of 

whom have other job responsibilities, have been tasked with complying with congressional document requests. Is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. Our IT department has been 

asked for information. We have witnesses that are being interviewed as we go. As I have noted, the entire issue about the (c)(4) 

investigation and the (c)(4) operations involved about 800 employees in the entire exempt organization; only a portion of them work 

on this. That means we have 89,000 other hardworking, dedicated 

IRS employees working on matters of importance to the Government and to taxpayers. 

Ms. KELLY. The individuals working on this, they have had to 

put their, I would imagine, current workload aside. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. And particularly lawyers is a problem for us 

because they have obligations to represent the agency in tax cases. 

They have an obligation to continue to work with Treasury on the 

development of rules and regulations and procedures, so it is a constraint. 

Ms. KELLY. Thomas Cain, the IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel for Administration and Procurement, was interviewed by committee staff on July 17, 2014. He said that the IRS currently exists 

‘‘with an increased workload and a reduced staff from where we 

were several years ago. We have taken these people from their day 

jobs. They have no replacements for them because there are no replacements, so we have pulled together people from all parts of the 

organization to contribute to the project, again, on a full-time basis. 

But there is no one to backfill the work that continues to exist and 

pile up, and that is particularly critical when you are dealing with 

people in the field that ordinarily are trying cases that have deadVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:17 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89730.TXT APRIL
31 

lines. So that type of staffing commitment and resource commitment has been a drain on the entire Office of the Chief Counsel.’’ 

Commissioner, would you agree with Mr. Cain’s assessment of 

investigations impact on your agency’s workload? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would. 

Ms. KELLY. Mr. Cain was also asked about the impact that 

Chairman Issa’s subpoena for his testimony had on the morale of 

his team. He said that his employees have been working tirelessly 

to help the IRS comply with Congress who are ‘‘visibly impacted in 

a very negative way.’’ Commissioner, I would like to give you an 

opportunity to address any concerns you may have about the impact the various congressional investigations are having on your 

agency’s morale and ability to perform its core functions. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, as Mr. Cain apparently noted, we have a 

large number of people who have day jobs who have been in part 

or totally devoted to this who have been trying to be responsive. 

When they then are subject to depositions and recorded interviews, 

it sends, these are all career people, a deleterious effect on morale 

because they thought they were actually doing what they were 

asked to do, they were trying to provide information. Most of them 

have never had a deposition of theirs taken; they haven’t spent six, 

eight hours under cross-examination. So for everybody else who is 

working on this project, they are now looking over their shoulder, 

worrying about, well, am I going to get called up next; and all they 

have been doing is producing documents. 

Ms. KELLY. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your time. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. KELLY. Yes, I will. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I was sitting here listening to some questions 

that the chairman asked you, and I got convinced that you are 

damned if you do and you are damned if you don’t, and this is what 

I am talking about. The IG, appointed by a Republican, asked you 

not to engage in, I don’t want to take words out of your mouth, but 

what did the IG ask you not to do? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Not to do any further investigations or interviews 

or discussions with employees about anything having to do with 

the hard drive crash, any other hard drive crashes while they did 

their investigation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And the chairman went on to say that he didn’t 

tell you that this committee was under the same restrictions. That 

is accurate, right? He didn’t tell you, the IG didn’t say to you, what 

I am telling you about your restrictions does not have anything to 

do with the committee. You understand my question? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am going back to what the chairman said because I am trying to figure out how do you obey the law and obey 

the wishes of the IG. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, the question was, and I answered it, was that 

the IG didn’t tell you that he was telling the committee, giving any 

instruction to the committee. The only conversation I know he had 

with the committee was when he told me about the existence of the 

backup tapes and asked us not to do any further questioning about 

that. He said he had provided that information to the investigative 

32 

committees and had asked them to treat it confidentially while his 

investigation was going on. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So if something came up now where we contacted 

you and said we want to meet with X person in the IRS because 

we think, that is, this committee thinks that that person has something relevant to our investigation, is there any way you would 

treat that differently now than you would have if you had never 

had the conversation with the IG? You follow what I am saying? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. Actually, we have tried to be responsive as 

best we can to the wide range of requests we have. We have six 

investigations and a number of requests coming in, and requests 

for interviews. While we have tried with more success in some 

areas than others to try to figure out what the priorities are so that 

we can do it in the right order, which is at my hearing in March 

we agreed the next priority after we completed the determination 

issue was to provide all the Lois Lerner emails we had, and we had 

a long discussion back and forth and committed that would be our 

next priority, and we are getting close to completing that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I guess what I am getting at is that I assume 

you wouldn’t have a discussion, based upon what the IG told you, 

you wouldn’t have a discussion with an employee of the IRS now 

because the IG told you not to. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. So when we have had witnesses 

coming to testify and give depositions here and Ways and Means, 

we have not talked to them beforehand, they have simply come up. 

Again, we don’t feel that we want to do anything that would interfere with the IG’s investigation or this committee’s investigation, so 

people have come up and, to the extent they have been interviewed, 

they have done that on their own, without any conversations with 

me. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, the gentlelady just asked you about morale 

at the IRS. The IRS is a kind of tough position because nobody 

seems to like the IRS. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. On the other hand, if you don’t get revenue, you 

have a problem. We have a problem as a Nation. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But when you think about the reduction in employees, and based upon what Mr. Cain said that the gentlelady 

just read, it seems like something has to give, and I am just curious as to what is giving. You follow what I am saying? In other 

words, if you have, based upon what Mr. Cain said, you are pulling 

people from different areas to do certain things, you said that some 

of them have quit responsibilities and deadlines. The point is something has got to give, something. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Can you tell us what we are losing? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, what has to give is obviously we have 

10,000 fewer employees than we had four years ago; we have 500 

fewer in the Office of Chief Counsel. So what happens is people either have to spend a lot longer working. At some point you run out 

of things you can do. We have done our best and taken people from 

around the agency, particularly around Chief Counsel, and put 

them on the production effort. To do that means that the work that 

33 

they otherwise would have done doesn’t get done because we have 

no capacity to add more people, to hire more people. We are only 

replacing one in every five people who leave the agency, so we continue to shrink rather than expand. 

So we haven’t complained about it, we basically simply produce 

documents as fast as we can. We have explained that our biggest 

problem and obstacle is that we have this sort of arcane, archaic 

system where you have to search each hard drive to pull out data 

to actually get it into a search machine, which we would like to 

change going forward. But it does mean that, particularly in the 

Office of Chief Counsel, you put them under more stress, it makes 

it much more difficult with the other ongoing day jobs they have. 

My concern, more importantly, though, is over the course of certainly the three and a half years I am left, we will have other 

issues, and as we ask people to do productions and just respond to 

congressional inquiries, if they become subjects of depositions and 

cross-examinations, it is going to be harder to get people to decide 

they want to leave their day job and help us respond to Congress. 

So that is our only broader concern. But, again, we think it is appropriate and we are happy to cooperate with the committee as 

best we can. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. I would just make one point. The witness testified 

that they don’t talk about this issue and prepare and discuss and 

prep for it. That is just not accurate. We interviewed Mr. Oursler 

yesterday, and he told us specifically that when Steve Manning 

came and briefed the Ways and Means Committee, there was prep 

sessions done for Mr. Manning to get ready to come in front of Congress. So to portray it as you are not talking about this issue as 

you bring people before Congress is just not accurate. 

And regarding the morale issue, if the IRS would have been willing to let Tom Cain come and be interviewed, we wouldn’t have 

had to issue the subpoena. One thing that impacts morale is when 

you get a subpoena. I get that. But that is your cause. You caused 

the subpoena, Mr. Koskinen, we didn’t. We tried for weeks to get 

Mr. Cain to come and be interviewed, and you guys said, no, can’t 

do it, so we had to issue the subpoena; and we got all kinds of information that contradicts testimony you have given in front of 

Congress. 

So that is the issue. If we are talking about morale, you could 

have helped morale of the very employees you represent if you had 

let him be interviewed by us without a subpoena. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We actually agree. Subpoenas sound different, 

but when they come for an interview, it is still under oath and it 

is still a transcribed interview and it looks just like a deposition, 

and that is, for people who have never done it before, of concern; 

they get nervous. 

Mr. JORDAN. And my point is by you making it so we had to subpoena, that only adds to the anxiety of the employee. So that is 

your creation on your employees, not ours. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And that is why we were delighted to work out 

with you a schedule where there won’t be subpoenas, but people 

will still come—— 

34 

Mr. JORDAN. We appreciate that. But it took a subpoena to get 

that rolling. 

The gentleman from South Carolina is—oh, I am sorry. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just asked you for a—because we have a tendency to ask questions and not let him answer. I want to understand this, and I think it is for the benefit of the entire committee. 

Why did Mr. Cain have to be subpoenaed? Why is that? 

Mr. JORDAN. Because we tried—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. No, no, no, I didn’t ask you. I asked him. 

Mr. JORDAN. Oh. I didn’t know who you were asking. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. No, I am asking him. 

Mr. JORDAN. That is fine. He can answer. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We were in the process of discussing production 

of witnesses. We, as I say, were concerned about interfering with 

the IG’s investigation, and while we were doing that, as the chairman said, then Mr. Cain got a subpoena, which did, A, allow him 

to appear without any further ado and did allow us to basically 

have a conversation about setting up a production schedule of witnesses. So the chairman is right, we were in the process of trying 

to do this, but I would say we take some responsibility for the fact 

that you had to do a subpoena. I would agree with that. 

Mr. JORDAN. You take all of it. We asked. Mr. Cain told during 

his deposition, because he had to be subpoenaed, he told committee 

staff that he wasn’t even notified by you, Mr. Koskinen, or Ms. 

Duvall or whoever, that we had requested an interview. He didn’t 

even know that. All he knew was he got the subpoena. So you 

didn’t even tell him that we were trying to interview him. That is 

what he told us in the deposition last Thursday. So it is all on you. 

You are the reason we had to subpoena the individual to get his 

testimony. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But he eventually came voluntarily, is that 

right? 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. After he hired private counsel after we went 

his subpoena. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is good to see you again, commissioner. I want to read a quote 

to you from June of 2014. I want you to tell me if you know who 

said it, okay? ‘‘We confirmed the backup tapes from 2011 no longer 

existed because they had been recycled pursuant to the IRS normal 

policy.’’ Do you know who said that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Sounds like me. 

Mr. GOWDY. It is you. Can you tell us who ‘‘we’’ is in that quote? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The ‘‘we’’ is the IRS. I tend to take responsibility 

for the agency and talk about it. I was advised, when the draft report was submitted to me, that people had talked to everyone in 

the agency to ensure that in the course of our several months of 

looking for backup tapes—— 

Mr. GOWDY. So ‘‘we’’ is the royal we, just speaking on behalf of 

the entire IRS. How about the word ‘‘confirmed?’’ What does the 

word ‘‘confirmed’’ mean to you, that you ‘‘confirmed’’ the backup 

tapes no longer exist? 

35 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Confirmed. When I read that, I asked the question, was told—— 

Mr. GOWDY. By whom? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t remember who; we had four or five people 

who were working on the report. And was told, and I gather Mr. 

Cain said in his testimony, that that was accurate as of June 13th. 

Mr. GOWDY. What does the word ‘‘confirmed’’ mean to you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Confirmed means that somebody went back and 

looked and made sure that in fact any backup tapes that had existed had been recycled. 

Mr. GOWDY. Are you still confirmed? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. At this point, I have no basis for not being confirmed. I do understand the IG advised me that they were looking 

at tapes. I have not been advised as to whether any of those 

tapes—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, confirmed is a pretty strong word, commissioner. Are you still confirmed that no backup tapes exist? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, at this point, I know the IG is looking and 

he hasn’t found anything, so as far as I know. 

Mr. GOWDY. I am glad you mentioned the IG. And I find this confounding, I find it vexing, that once the IG is involved, nobody else 

can do anything. That is not supported by the law. Can there be 

a criminal investigation while there is an IG investigation? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. There can be all sorts of investigations. What I 

was talking about was the IG. 

Mr. GOWDY. Right. And there could be a congressional investigation while there is an ongoing IG investigation also, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Of course. 

Mr. GOWDY. And there can be an IRS investigation. If there were 

sexual harassment or discrimination in the workplace, are you telling this committee that you would wait until the IG investigated 

it before you would stop some insidious practice? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We would take whatever action was necessary. 

Mr. GOWDY. Precisely. You would not wait until an IG concluded 

his or her investigation. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Can I answer that question? 

Mr. GOWDY. Sure. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Our policy, and it has been my understanding 

when I chaired the Council of Inspectors General across the Government, that if the IG starts an investigation, the agency will not 

themselves run a competing investigation to try to get there first. 

Basically, the IG advises us what the investigations are. When 

they advise us about those investigations, we allow them to proceed. If there are—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Let me give you possibly an alternative view, commissioner, which is that people cite ongoing IG investigations when 

it suits them to not cooperate, and they don’t cite ongoing IG investigations when it doesn’t suit them. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is not my policy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you can certainly understand how a cynic 

might view it that way, right? Because there is nothing about an 

ongoing IG investigation that would keep you from doing your job. 

Just like there is nothing about an ongoing IG investigation that 

keeps the Department of Justice from a criminal investigation or 

36 

a committee of Congress from a congressional investigation. There 

is nothing talismanic about an IG investigation. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. In this particular case, as a general matter, my 

policy has always been if the IG is doing an investigation wherever 

I am, we won’t interfere with that investigation; we want it to be 

independent. 

Mr. GOWDY. Words have consequences, Mr. Koskinen. Nobody is 

asking you to interfere. You can have a dual investigation without 

interfering, can’t you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I think it is very difficult. 

Mr. GOWDY. So you are saying that if there is an allegation of 

sexual harassment or racial discrimination within the IRS, you 

would not look into that until the IG had completed his or her investigation? Is that what you are telling me? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not telling you that. I am telling you, as a 

general matter, that is not what the IG would be investigating. As 

a general matter, those claims would come to personnel; they 

would be immediately investigated by our legal department. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, the IG doesn’t have criminal jurisdiction; the 

IG doesn’t have jurisdiction over legislative policy; the IG doesn’t 

have jurisdiction over appropriations. All three of those are very 

important areas. So those should be ongoing even while an IG is 

doing his or her investigation, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Actually, the IG does do criminal investigations. 

Mr. GOWDY. No, sir, they refer to an entity that actually has the 

power to indict, which does not include the IG. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. They actually, my understanding, mark our 

criminal investigations—— 

Mr. GOWDY. It might be the same people who gave you the understanding that you were confirmed that the tapes don’t exist, so 

my advice is to be very careful who you take your advice from. And 

I am going to say this in conclusion, Mr. Koskinen. I really could 

not believe the colloquy that you had with one of our colleagues 

about the morale at the IRS. It takes a lot to stun me, but that 

stunned me. Here’s a piece of advice I would give. If the folks like 

Lois Lerner and others would have spent more time working on the 

backlog, more time working on their caseload, and less time targeting groups and less time trying to overturn Supreme Court decisions they didn’t agree with, maybe morale would be better and 

maybe their backlogs would be lessened. 

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. GOWDY. I would be thrilled to. 

Mr. ISSA. Commissioner, I just want to maybe summarize what 

the gentleman was asking you with a question. Do you have full 

faith and trust that your IG is doing a thorough investigation at 

the same level as would be done if you were doing it as the commissioner? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do. I said earlier I have a lot of confidence in 

the inspector general. They have far more capacity in some of these 

areas; they have 15 people working on this. I am very comfortable 

and confident that they are doing a thorough job, and I have told 

them we will do whatever we can to—— 

Mr. ISSA. So at least as to your own investigation, you consider 

the IG’s investigation to be your investigation. 

37 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do not. We do not control the IG; he is very 

independent. He is doing an independent investigation of all of 

this. I am satisfied that when he gets done we will have an independent review and investigation of what went on. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. The gentleman from Virginia is—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Will the gentleman from Virginia yield for just 

one follow-up question? 

Mr. JORDAN. You will get time added if the gentleman—it is his 

call, but if you yield, I will give you some additional time. I have 

been very generous. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. Of course I would be glad to 

yield. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from Virginia. 

I want to follow up on the gentleman from South Carolina’s 

point, because what you are just saying is that your belief is that 

it is wrong for you to do an investigation at the same time as an 

IG is doing an investigation, is that correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As a general matter, if we were doing an investigation, it would interfere with his investigation. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what you are saying is that your predecessors 

who did exactly that in 2012 were wrong, because when the IG 

started it, they did their own—under sworn testimony, they did 

their own investigations. So what they did was not right. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Everybody has their own policies. I don’t know 

what they did or didn’t do. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But in your opinion that would not be right. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If the IG—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I just want to show the hypocritical point there 

that it is not consistent with what IRS has already done. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. My point only was it is consistent with how I 

have behaved in the past and how I will behave in the future. My 

view is that the IG is an important independent source of investigations. Whenever the IG is doing an investigation, I think it is 

important to cooperate with it and not interfere with it. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for 

yielding. 

Mr. JORDAN. Great question. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I ask unanimous consent that all his time be—— 

Mr. JORDAN. He has it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend from North Carolina and I 

thank the chairman. 

Welcome back, Mr. Koskinen. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Always a pleasure to be here. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I can tell. It must be a thrill and the highlight 

of your week. And I guess we are going to do this as long as we 

are in session. 

By the way, just sort of a sidebar, I wish my friend from South 

Carolina was still here, because his concern for morale at the IRS 

is really touching. And, gosh, if we were really that serious about 

it, maybe we wouldn’t have slashed eight hundred and something 

million dollars from your budget in the last four years and recommended another $350 million this year. But that is a different 

matter. 

38 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Actually, you actually recommended another billion on top of the $350 million. So at this point we are a billion 

350 under water. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. A billion 350. But the morale, we will keep on 

flogging people until the morale is improved. That seems to be the 

philosophy of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle. 

At any rate, I am glad we are talking about the IG, because I 

am amazed that J. Russell George, the TIGTA, would have thought 

it wise or prudent to completely omit from the May 14th final audit 

report any mention of a critical, and I think astonishing, analysis 

that was conducted by TIGTA’s own head of investigations the 

weeks leading up to the release of the May 14th report. 

Mr. Chairman, without objection, I would like to enter into the 

record the conclusion of TIGTA’s Deputy Inspector for Investigations, Tim Camus, which was sent in a May 3rd, 2013 email to 

TIGTA’s Acting Principal Deputy IG Michael Phillips, Acting Deputy Inspector General for Audit Michael McKinney, Chief Counsel 

Michael McCarthy, Assistant IG for Exempt Organizations Gregory 

Kurtz, and two TIGTA employees whose names have been fully redacted. It is just a one-pager. 

Mr. JORDAN. Without objection. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. 

This astounding email from TIGTA’s chief investigator concluded 

that after obtaining and reviewing 5,500 IRS emails from identified 

staff members of the Exempt Organizations Division in Cincinnati, 

that in addition to there being no email directing staff to target 

Tea Party or other political organizations and no conspiracy or effort to hide emails about such a directive, according to Mr. Camus, 

‘‘Review of these emails revealed that there was a lot of discussion 

between the employees on how to process the Tea Party and other 

political applications. There was a be-on-the-lookout list specifically 

naming those groups.’’ 

‘‘However, the emails indicated the organizations needed to be 

pulled because the IRS employees were not sure how to process 

them, not because they wanted to stall or hinder the application. 

There was no indication that pulling these selected applications 

was politically motivated. The email traffic indicated there were 

unclear processing directions and the group wanted to make sure 

they had guidance in processing the applications, so they pulled 

them. This is, he says, a very important nuance.’’ 

Would you agree with that finding, Mr. Koskinen? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It sounds right to me. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Have you any idea why the inspector general 

would not include such a critical finding after all of the strum and 

drum, and after the press compliantly giving the headline to my 

friends on the other side of the aisle every single time, Tea Party 

targeted, here is a critical piece of information, maybe even a 

smoking gun if we are looking for exoneration, from the head of investigations in TIGTA’s own office. Why would that not be included 

in the May 14th final audit report? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no idea. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Is it worthy of your time to ask that question, respecting the independence, of course, of the two offices? 

39 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would not ask the IG that question. He has 

done his report; he has done his investigation. When they do investigations, they have any number of them going on. When they do 

the reports, we agree most of the time, sometimes disagree with 

recommendations, sometimes disagree with the process, but we do 

that in the orderly course of responding to their report. Thereafter, 

we don’t go back and question them. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But, Mr. Koskinen, here you are for the third 

time before this committee, and probably not the last, and your 

reputation and that of your organization has been called into question with a charge that has unfortunately not been critically examined as often as I would like by the media, despite our efforts on 

this side of the aisle. Here is the head of investigations in your organization under TIGTA that says otherwise, that directly challenges the propounded thought that only Tea Party and conservative groups were challenged, and it was deliberate and it was targeted. He says otherwise and the TIGTA doesn’t put it in his final 

audit report. 

By the way, an inspector general who has been questioned by a 

number of us up here, and we have formally requested an investigation of his conduct before the Council of IGS, so he is under a 

cloud myself. And I have heard my friend, the chairman, Mr. Jordan, question other employees of the IRs because of their political 

giving, while Mr. George was a Republican staff member on this 

committee, he has given political contributions to Republican candidates, he is a Bush appointee, and he met solely with the Republican side of the aisle in getting ready for his audit. That raises serious questions. If it is sauce for the goose, it is sauce for the gander about his independence. But this is a critical piece of information, it seems to me, and I can’t imagine you could be copacetic 

with its elimination from an audit report that is a pretty critical 

audit report for your organization and, indeed, for your leadership. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, it is an interesting piece of information that 

obviously is useful for people to review. As I have said, I do have 

confidence in Mr. George that he is independent. He actually is the 

Treasury Department inspector for IRS, and we have supported 

him the past and he is doing an independent review of all of this, 

and I look forward to his response and findings about what happened with regard to the hard drive crash. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, how about his response to why he didn’t include this important missive from his head of investigations in the 

final audit report of May 14th? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is a question that I am probably not going 

to ask him. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. I would just ask the gentleman which way do we 

want it. Do we want to say this committee can’t get access to witnesses because there is an ongoing inspector general’s investigation 

and at the same time we are waiting for the inspector general to 

do his good work and at the same time criticize the work he did 

before where he identified the targeting of conservative groups? It 

seems to me you can’t have it both ways. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, Mr. Chairman, there are a number of us 

who have been raised and been quite consistent in raising quesVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:17 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89730.TXT APRIL
40 

tions about the objectivity and professionalism, frankly, of Mr. 

George. Mr. Cartwright and I have both filed a complaint, formal 

complaint, and I would be glad to share it with the chairman because—— 

Mr. JORDAN. With all due respect, then you should be advocating 

we get access to the witnesses and not wait until the inspector general has them first. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, actually, maybe a new inspector general is 

really the answer. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, relative to this idea that somehow it was just 

mismanagement, 80 percent of the applicants in the backlog were 

filed by conservative groups, less than 7 percent were filed by liberal groups. According to the Ways and Means Committee, the IRS 

approved every single group with the word progressive in its name. 

USA Today reported the IRS did not approve a single tax-exempt 

application filed by a Tea Party group from September 2010 to May 

2012. During the same time they approved dozens of liberal and 

progressive groups. The idea that was just how—if it was mismanagement, it was mismanagement in a targeted way, because 

none of the treatment to conservative groups was given in the same 

way to progressive groups. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, I have a memo from Gregory 

Kutz saying targeted is actually not accurate. I also have materials 

that were presented to IRS for training that have elephants and 

donkeys, they have Tea Party, they have Patriots, they have progressive—— 

Mr. JORDAN. 298 cases in the IRS backlog. Only three had the 

word progressive; four used the word progress and none used the 

word occupy. No progressive group was denied its (c)(4) status. 

Hundreds of Tea Party conservative groups were in fact denied. 

Some still waiting. Some still waiting, just for the record. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, I guess you and I could argue that all day, 

Mr. Chairman, and we need to get on with this hearing and allow 

Mr. Koskinen to get back to his job. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Koskinen, why June 13th? Why that date? Let 

me ask you this. Why not February 2nd, when you first learned 

there was a big gap in a bunch of emails that looked like they were 

missing? Why not February 4th, when, as Mr. Cain testified—and, 

Mr. Koskinen, you know Mr. Cain. Do you know Tom Cain? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do know Mr. Cain. 

Mr. JORDAN. Is Mr. Cain a solid lawyer, professional good employee at the Internal Revenue Service? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Certainly is. 

Mr. JORDAN. All right. So why not February 4th, when Mr. Cain, 

who testified just last Thursday, said they knew her hard drive had 

crashed? Why not tell us, look, we may have a problem? Why not 

come and disclose that to someone on February 4th? Or how about 

this? How about mid-February, when Mr. Cain said last Thursday 

that we know, we knew then in mid-February that the data on her 

computer was unrecoverable? Why didn’t you tell us in mid-February? Or how about the hearing we have talked a lot about, Mr. 

DeSantis raised in the opening questions, why not at March 26th? 

Why not disclose on March 26th, when you were in front of this 

committee and everyone on both sides of the aisle asked you about 

41 

Lois Lerner’s emails and you assured us that you would produce 

all her emails, and yet you knew, according to Mr. Cain’s testimony, a good professional employee, lawyer at the IRS, you knew 

that in mid-February her emails were unrecoverable? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You should be careful to note that is what Mr. 

Cain knew, that is not what I knew. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, that is a problem too. That is something you 

should have known. Mr. Cain is a high-ranking official in charge 

of documents, and you didn’t know? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I did not know. I have testified—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you know Kate Duvall? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Pardon? 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you know a person named Kate Duvall? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Kate Duvall I do know. 

Mr. JORDAN. And what is Kate Duvall’s responsibilities, what is 

her title at the Internal Revenue Service? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. She is counselor to the commissioner. 

Mr. JORDAN. So she is counselor to you. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. She is your lawyer. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. She knew in mid-February, according to Mr. Cain’s 

testimony, and she didn’t tell you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. What she told me, and I have testified at some 

length at at least a couple hearings on this, and I am happy to 

stand by that testimony. If you want to go over it again, basically, 

what I have told you is in mid to late February I knew that we 

had taken the Lois Lerner emails that had been produced and instead of looking at them from search terms—— 

Mr. JORDAN. That is not the point. Tom Cain said they were unrecoverable. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I did not—— 

Mr. JORDAN. And he said he told Kate Duvall. Did she tell you 

that they were unrecoverable? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. She did not tell me they were unrecoverable. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, that is a problem. 

Why not tell us April 4th, when Ms. Duvall briefs this committee, both Republican and Democrat staff members, and the 

briefing was about how we would deal with how the IRS was going 

to deal with committee requests for producing Lois Lerner’s emails, 

they didn’t know they were lost at the time? Why didn’t you tell 

us April 4th? Ms. Duvall could have told the committee at that 

time. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have testified at some length in the past, and 

earlier today, that—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, here is the key question. Let me jump in here 

a second. Why not mid-April, when you knew? In fact, let’s put up 

the slide. This is a question we had earlier in one of our hearings. 

Why not, when you knew, what date did you learn you could not 

get all of her email? I learned that in April. Why not April? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I testified then, and I have testified on numerous occasions, my judgment was, A, we needed to find out what 

emails we did have; we needed to put them together in a full report, which we did, and—— 

42 

Mr. JORDAN. Why not any time in April? Someone at the IRS told 

someone at Treasury, who then told someone at the White House, 

according to press reports. So if it was good enough to pass on to 

Treasury and the White House, why not tell us sometime in April? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Because I thought that at that point we did not 

have the full information as to what was involved, how many 

emails there were—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You learned in April they were unrecoverable. Your 

chief lawyer in charge of document production knew in mid-February they were unrecoverable. Kate Duvall knew in mid-February 

they were unrecoverable. And you wait until June 13th. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN. Why June 13th? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. First of all, I would note all of those emails that 

determine whether they were—that she had a hard drive crash or 

not, what she had tried to do, our emails were provided to this 

committee, and the tax writers knew as early as the fall she had 

had a hard drive crash. The materials were produced. The materials about the email chain, about her trying to restore her hard 

drive were produced to the tax writers in April and to this committee in May. So there was no secret that we were hiding. We 

were processing through—— 

Mr. JORDAN. No, no, no. You were giving us emails, but you 

didn’t tell us there were emails you couldn’t give us. That is my 

question. Why didn’t you tell us the IRS had destroyed emails that 

belonged to Lois Lerner? Why didn’t you tell us that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It is not clear—first of all, emails from Ms. 

Lerner may or may not haven lost; they were not destroyed as a 

conscious effort by the IRS to destroy them. 

Mr. JORDAN. The tapes were recycled and—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. Backup—— 

Mr. JORDAN. When backup tapes are destroyed and they are recycled, so at some point they are destroyed. Why didn’t you tell us 

you could not produce those emails, that they were lost, in April? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. This hearing is noted to be an update on what 

we are doing. I have given you, on at least two different occasions—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay, then answer the question. Why June 13th? 

Why not June 12th? Why not June 10th? Why not May 10th? If 

you couldn’t do it in April, why did you have to wait two more 

months? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We are going to be here a long time if you want 

to repeat all of the questions I have answered in the 11 and a half 

hours of hearings before. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you know what I think? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. But let me just answer this question. But I have 

answered it before and I am happy to answer it again, but it is in 

the testimony I have given before that you have read closely. We 

were producing Lois Lerner emails. Our strategy and thoughts 

were and I thought the most efficient way to proceed was to complete the production so we would know how many Lois Lerner 

emails we had from her account, how many Lois Lerner emails we 

had been able to retrieve from other accounts so you would have 

a full idea what the universe was. I had hoped that we would be 

43 

able to find out how many other problems we had with custodians, 

and we would produce all of that as a report to the committees and 

a public report that would explain what our email process is, why 

it is so complicated, what we had determined about Lois Lerner’s 

emails and her crashes, and what the emails would have been able 

to recover, and it would be a full report. 

June 13th was a Friday. I should have known Friday the 13th 

was going to be an interesting day. We had been asked by the Finance Committee, which was considering trying to come to closure 

on their report, whether we would give them an update on our 

March letter in which we advised the tax writing committees that 

we had completed the production of all of the information we had 

about the determination process, which was the start of the investigation. That was the IG was focused on, as you have just discussed. We said we would do that. 

They then called and we were going forward, we didn’t know 

when. They then called and said they would like that report no 

later than that Friday because they were going to have a meeting 

the following week. So we pulled the document together at that 

point. We had not completed, as I noted earlier, the review of how 

many custodians were involved with hard drive crashes and what 

the impacts were. We had no idea if you lost a hard drive, one of 

the custodians, and in fact one of the custodian hard drive crashes 

was in February of this year, not very relevant. 

So to meet the Friday deadline we actually produced that document and shared it with everybody on Friday, June 13th, and it 

was to meet a request from the Finance Committee, which was 

having a meeting the next week and wanted to consider whether 

they had enough information to do a report. 

Mr. JORDAN. So your testimony is the Senate Finance Committee 

drove the timing of when you disclosed that you had lost Lois 

Lerner emails. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes, because we were actually going to produce 

that report—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I think it is something different, I just do. Obviously, you are going to disagree, but I think you were never going 

to tell us. You have to remember what happened here. Judicial 

Watch does a FOIA request and they learn on April 18th of this 

year that the IRS and the Department of Justice had been working 

on possible ways to bring false claims action against Tea Party 

groups, and there was an email from that FOIA request, Richard 

Pilger, a lawyer at the Justice Department, and Ms. Lerner had an 

exchange in 2013 after a Senate hearing. We saw that email. We 

said, you know what, we are going to talk to Mr. Pilger, the lawyer 

at the Justice Department, who was meeting with Ms. Lerner just 

days before the TIGTA report went public, in May of 2013. 

So on May 6 we interview Mr. Pilger and we learn, in Mr. 

Pilger’s opening statement in that deposition, we learn this: he 

said—I am reading straight from Mr. Pilger’s statement: ‘‘Turning 

to my contacts with Ms. Lerner, in the fall of 2010’’—shocked us. 

We didn’t know that they were meeting clear back in 2010, that 

the Justice Department was meeting with the IRS clear back in 

2010. ‘‘In the fall of 2010, at the direction of the chief of the Public 

Integrity Section at the Justice Department, Jack Smith, I conVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:17 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89730.TXT APRIL
44 

tacted the Internal Revenue Service. When I contacted them, they 

directed me to Lois Lerner, who met once at the Public Integrity 

Section offices for about an hour with some of her staff, my chief, 

Jack Smith, other personnel from my section, and the FBI.’’ 

So now we learn in 2010 the Justice Department, with the FBI, 

is meeting with Lois Lerner, and so we said, you know what, we 

better subpoena documents from the Justice Department. And we 

said to the Justice Department we want any communications with 

Lois Lerner that you have had. And we get this slide. We get this 

email. Let’s put this up, if we can. We get this communication from 

Lois Lerner and Richard Pilger. 

Now, Mr. Koskinen, did you give us this email, do you know? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t know. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, I can tell you you didn’t. We got it from the 

Justice Department. And after we got this from the Justice Department, we contacted you all on June 9th and we said, hey, how come 

we didn’t get this email from you? There is no 6103 issue with this 

email. We were concerned. This is an email from clear back in 

2010. So we contact you, Mr. Koskinen, in a letter and we said, you 

know, we are wondering why the IRS hasn’t sent us this email 

from four years ago. And then, suddenly, four days later you tell 

the Finance Committee, the Congress, more importantly, the American people, you know what, we lost Lois Lerner emails. We have 

lost a bunch of Lois from that time period. 

My theory is this, Mr. Koskinen: You guys weren’t ever going to 

tell us until we caught you. And we caught you because Judicial 

Watch did a FOIA request; they found out there was this collaboration going on between the Justice Department and the IRS. We 

took that email, we interviewed Mr. Pilger. Mr. Pilger told us he 

met with Lois Lerner in 2010. We then subpoenaed Justice. They 

complied with our subpoena, gave us the email. We contact you and 

say why didn’t you give it to us, and then you knew you were 

caught. 

You didn’t tell us this, but you knew, we didn’t give it to you 

’cause we don’t got it. Now we have to tell the whole world we lost 

them. And what better time to do it than Friday, June 13th, saying 

we are complying with some Senate concern, said it in a letter, put 

it on page 7 of the third addendum, and say, you know what, we 

may have a problem with Lois Lerner emails? That is what I think. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Good. If you find—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I think all kinds of people logically going through 

this would say, you know what, that is what prompted these guys. 

Four days after they get a letter from this committee saying why 

didn’t you send us these emails, you just say, well, we better come 

clean. Plus, you have already told us you knew clear back in April 

that you lost them. So you wait two months and then you say, 

wow, we better do it June 13th, just four days after they figured 

out Justice and the IRS were working together in 2010, and they 

got an email that indicates that and we can’t produce it. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. When you find any direct evidence to support 

that assertion, I would be happy to see it. If you think that this 

organization, in four days, could produce that report, you don’t understand how large organizations function. You could ask anybody 

45 

who worked on that report; there is a whole series of people. That 

report was under production for a long time since—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I am not saying it wasn’t. I am saying including the 

statement we lost Lois Lerner emails was put in that report. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It was in that report and it was in that report—— 

Mr. JORDAN. And one thing I have learned in these investigations, it is always important to look at the time line. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Look at the time line—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Look at the time line. You knew in April; you didn’t 

tell us until June 13th. What events happened between April, 

when you knew, and June 13th? One key event was the FOIA request from Judicial Watch, finding this collaboration between the 

IRS and the Justice Department, us getting that email because we 

subpoenaed the Justice Department; they give it to us, it is in the 

relevant time frame, 2010 to 2012, when you lost Lois Lerner 

emails, and suddenly you say, you know what, they got us. We 

have to come clean. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. JORDAN. And then you do the letter on June 13th. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Can I respond? That is a very serious charge. 

Mr. JORDAN. Sure. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. There were a whole set of serious staff people in 

the Senate Finance Committee who will dispute your assertion. 

And if you find any direct evidence of this to anybody who worked 

on that report, in terms of the timing of it, the fact that we were 

otherwise not going to deliver it, I will be not only surprised, I will 

be astounded, because there is no such evidence. And it seems to 

me, and I have been very patient about all of this, but before you 

make that kind of charge and claim, you ought to have better evidence than a single email dated June 9th. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. JORDAN. We have a few other emails from that exchange. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is fine. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the chairman yield for one moment? 

Mr. JORDAN. I would be happy to yield. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I know a lot has been said about what Thomas 

Cain said. Well, last week Thomas Cain told our staffs that the IRS 

always intended to alert us about Ms. Lerner’s lost emails. So I 

know you have all these theories. Unfortunately, our committee 

has been going when we put out these headlines and then we go 

chasing facts that never exist. 

Mr. JORDAN. All I am saying—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But I am just saying include everything when 

you are asking your questions. 

Mr. JORDAN. Great point. All I am saying is this. They get a letter from us on June 9th, where they know we now have this email 

from the Justice Department that they can’t produce, and four days 

later they tell the world we have lost Lois Lerner emails, when 

they knew that, according to Mr. Koskinen’s testimony in questioning from me, that he knew in April they couldn’t get Ms. 

Lerner’s emails. So they waited two months. And then when they 

decided to tell us, it was four days after, on a Friday, four days 

46 

after we knew there were emails we were getting from Justice that 

we weren’t getting from the Internal Revenue Service. 

Now, all I am saying is that timing is pretty suspect, particularly 

in light of the fact all the other things we have heard from the IRS. 

One computer crash. No, it was seven. No, it was eight. Now may 

be up to 20. We can confirm that there are no backup tapes that 

are available. Oh, we can’t confirm that, now there may be one 

available. In light of everything we have heard from the IRS, when 

you start looking at the time line, it looks pretty suspect. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. JORDAN. And all I am saying is I am not sure they were 

going to tell us. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You didn’t say I am not—I am sorry—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the chairman yield? 

Mr. JORDAN. I would be happy to yield. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, this has been very interesting because one member on your side, the gentleman, I don’t know his 

name, said that the man was under investigation. I was in that entire hearing and he never said that. By the way, the Justice Department never said that. Then you, Mr. Chairman, of course, have 

made some strong accusations, and when you make these kind of 

accusations, I would appreciate it if you would just give the witness 

an opportunity to answer, because these are the kind of allegations 

that tarnish one’s reputation, and you have come up with this theory, and I am not saying your theory is—your theory is what it is, 

but he ought to be able to answer, please. That is all I am asking. 

Mr. JORDAN. Appreciate the ranking member. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I said, I haven’t seen Mr. Cain’s testimony, 

but it doesn’t surprise me that he would say that we had been producing this report for some time and clearly planned on making it 

public. You can talk to people. We would be happy to give you 

those contacts, the people we talked to at Finance who were in fact 

did have a meeting the following week, had asked us for an update 

that we did provide. They asked for it no later than that Friday. 

I am confident and I am very confident that no one working on 

this report had any idea about it other than that we were going 

to produce it and provide all of the information to the public. I 

think any other assumption is not based on facts. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, are you willing to make those witnesses available or are you going to make us subpoena them so they can come 

here under oath and testify that, yes, in fact, from mid-April, when 

the commissioner knew that Lois Lerner emails were lost, we were 

planning on telling the Congress as soon as we got all the information? They will come and testify to that or will they come and testify, you know what, after the June 9th letter we decided we better 

put in the information that we lost Lois Lerner emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t think you will find anyone will make that 

latter testimony. 

Mr. JORDAN. But my question to you is are you willing to have 

those people come testify. Tell us who they are, who the people who 

worked on this report. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We will be happy to talk with you. You have already talked to some of them and you have others on your schedule. 

47 

Mr. JORDAN. All right. 

The gentleman from Nevada is recognized, Mr. Horsford. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, I do share concerns by some of my colleagues on the 

other side about why the IRS delayed in providing Congress with 

notification regarding the unrecoverable emails, because it raises 

questions. I don’t share in the chairman’s or other members’ conspiracy and rush to judgment about any motives as to why there 

was a delay, and I feel, again, as I have said in previous meetings, 

that we fail to get all the facts in order to then make a proper decision. I am not a defender of the IRS or any other Federal agency. 

I have said from the beginning that I believe that there was wrongdoing, but the chairman and others want to conclude or make conclusions about that wrongdoing without justification or evidence to 

support their assertion. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, you just read into the record some comments by Mr. Pilger that I had asked to be entered into the record 

the full transcripts, so I am going to ask again for unanimous consent that the transcribed interview opening statements of DOJ officials Richard Pilger and Jack Smith be allowed to be entered into 

the record, particularly since you just handpicked certain statements, and I am requesting the full transcript be entered. Will the 

chairman please provide that courtesy for this to be entered into 

the record under unanimous consent? 

Mr. JORDAN. If the gentleman would yield for just a second. I 

read from the opening statement that Mr.—— 

Mr. HORSFORD. That is what this is, the transcribed—— 

Mr. JORDAN. If you are just asking for the opening statement, not 

the full questions from Democrat staff, Republican staff, but just 

the opening statement from Mr. Pilger and Mr. Smith, we would 

be happy to do that. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. All right. 

Mr. HORSFORD. I also want to follow up to some of the claims 

that have been made by my Republican colleagues and give you an 

opportunity to respond. It has now been stated twice today that 

Mr. Cain testified during his July 17th interview that in mid-February 2014 the IRS realized that Lois Lerner’s emails would not be 

recoverable. I want to clarify here, because I don’t want Mr. Cain’s 

statements to be taken out of context. It is true that Mr. Cain told 

us that he had discovered that Ms. Lerner’s hard drive had crashed 

and that the contents of the hard drive were unrecoverable. 

However, that does not mean that Mr. Cain said that he thought, 

in February of 2014, that the IRS would never be able to produce 

those emails to Congress. In fact, Mr. Cain was asked, ‘‘And as of 

March 2014, you were not aware that the IRS would be unable to 

recover all of Ms. Lerner’s documents,’’ and he answered, ‘‘That is 

correct.’’ He further explained, as you have, that the IRS was engaged in an extensive process to find Ms. Lerner’s emails from 

other sources at the IRS; and, in fact, those efforts were successful 

and yielded the production of an additional 24,000 Lois Lerner 

emails. Is that correct, Mr. Koskinen? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

48 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Cain also explained that the IRS’s goal with 

respect to the document productions to Congress was to fully comply with those requests as expeditiously as possible. He stated with 

respect to fulfilling that goal, ‘‘I have tried my best, and everyone 

that I work with have tried their best.’’ Commissioner Koskinen, do 

you share that belief that every effort was made to provide this 

committee and others with those emails that were you able to recover? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do. 

Mr. HORSFORD. And beyond the issue of failing to notify us in a 

timely manner, then the question becomes what can be made of 

why that time line was delayed. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. And as I have said, first of all, all of the 

emails in question had been provided in the normal course to this 

committee and the other investigators, so there was no attempt to 

not produce information that showed that in fact there had been 

a problem with Lois Lerner’s hard drive. In fact, none of us at the 

IRS or investigators noted that in the fall productions there were 

emails from Lois Lerner saying she had problems with her hard 

drive and had lost emails. 

But everybody then was looking at subject matter. But it is not 

as if any of these emails were withheld or not produced in a regular manner. So that as we were working in April and May pulling 

all the information together, trying to determine how many emails 

we actually had, we were producing emails as a regular matter, 

and the emails that were the basis of our June 13 report had all 

been provided previously to all of the investigators. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

Mr. DESANTIS. [Presiding] The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the chairman of the committee, Mr. 

Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

Commissioner, I really wish we had your IT guys here instead, 

because it is inherently a little hard when we are asking you so 

many questions that are not related directly to your past experience. But I appreciate your continuing to volunteer to come up. 

Hopefully, as we interview some of your IT professionals and others involved, it will make it easier to direct questions. 

But a lot has been done to talk about this, a drive this large that 

apparently went so bad that not a single piece of information could 

be saved, and you have asked us to believe that your very special 

experts couldn’t save one piece of data from this drive, or one just 

like it, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is what I was advised, yes. And that is what 

the email strain that we produced and I testified about at previous 

hearings says. 

Mr. ISSA. The American people don’t believe that. You realize 

that the idea that we can recover the last 17 or 18 seconds from 

Challenger exploding above our atmosphere, falling to the sea and 

being left under the sea for a year that we could recover the voice 

from that makes people wonder why a product that simply came 

in and out of the office with Lois Lerner every day, suddenly, not 

one piece of data could be recovered. It doesn’t surprise you the 

American people just have a hard time believing that, does it? 

49 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, I don’t know whether the American people 

broadly believe that, but I do understand that when our Criminal 

Investigation Division, which our experts at extracting information 

say they could not recover any emails, that seems probative on the 

one hand, but on the other hand I could understand people saying, 

well, if you kept trying—— 

Mr. ISSA. But do you think it is reasonable for us to check with 

your Criminal Investigation people, interview people involved to 

see if that passes the reality check, in spite of what the American 

people may think or the doubts they may have? Do you think it is 

fair for us to check into that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. In fact, those interviews are being scheduled. Some of them, I gather from the press release I saw from 

Ways and Means, that some of those IT people have already been 

interviewed. 

Mr. ISSA. So it is fair for us to do an interview and to investigate 

on our own in order to bring the credibility that we bring as if, you 

will, a doubting Thomas, to the process. You would agree with 

that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. I have never had any concern or objection 

to the oversight. As I said, I spent four years in the Senate that 

Senator Ribicoff was on, the Government Operations Oversight, 

chaired that committee. I am a big believer in congressional oversight. 

Mr. ISSA. And I appreciate that you are. One of the things that 

we discovered that was not made available to us early on was the 

existence of what is called OCS, this chat capability that exists 

within the IRS’s network, is that right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. I spent some time testifying a 

couple weeks ago about that. 

Mr. ISSA. Right. And you wrote me back a letter when I asked 

about it, and in the letter it said, basically, that no records were 

kept because it was the equivalent of visits or phone calls. Do you 

remember that in the letter? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Now, would it surprise you to know that we disagree 

with you? That in fact it is the opinion of this committee that the 

Federal Records Act, unless you can train and guarantee that no 

policy decisions, none of the kinds of activities we are discovering 

in email could be done on OCS, that in fact you should turn on that 

switch and you should collect and you should retain OCS chat unless you can assure us that it is not doing the equivalent. And I 

will be brief, but I will explain something to you. 

Years ago, when I was a subcommittee chairman and President 

Bush was in office, we investigated the Mineral Management Service, and what we discovered there was that they had systematically 

signed leases that were simply wrong and cost the American people 

billions of dollars; and we could find not a shred of evidence in 

emails to show the absurdity of how this came to pass. So after we 

deposed people repeatedly, we finally discovered that they all admitted that only the cover sheet was brought to them, that they 

signed or initialed, and they never read the leases; so that one mistake was passed through multiple signatures. 

50 

But, more importantly, as we went through the process, what we 

discovered was, at Mineral Management Service, a now-defunct 

and disgraced organization to a certain extent after the BP disaster, they had a policy of what they called talking over the transom. Lawyers made no memos for the record. Lawyers went out of 

their way to have no paper trail of things they did in their consultation. 

I will tell you today that has to end; that the American people 

expect that the Federal Records Act, the Presidential Records Act 

is not something to be avoided, and you should not be trying or allowing the bypassing of future oversight that you said rightfully so, 

with your experience, you believe in. 

Maintaining data so that it can be analyzed by your inspector 

general, who is conducting your primary investigation, you have 

full confidence in, activities going on in Ways and Means, which 

are slightly different than ours, our activities, or anything in the 

Senate are hampered by policies of any part of Government that 

allow the use of something that clearly bypasses future oversight. 

So I hope today that in addition to your willingness to cooperate 

and help us in getting to the answers I mentioned on this, that you 

will recognize that your letter is not acceptable; that email is a substitute not just for the old-fashioned letter, but it is a substitute 

for a visit, it is a substitute for a phone call; and that, in fact, the 

reason that those are important is that the phone call and the visit, 

in the old days you would have done a memo for the record if in 

fact you wanted to do your job. That isn’t being done. Emails and 

these chats are extremely important. 

And I would like to have a second round at some time, but I 

would yield back at this time. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of information. 

Yesterday Chairman Issa informed committee members that he 

will be holding yet another hearing on this topic next Wednesday. 

We have the notice. Could the chairman please inform us who will 

be testifying at that hearing on Wednesday? 

Mr. ISSA. Pursuant to the rules, we will inform at the appropriate time. But at this time they haven’t sent anything out and 

I appreciate your inquiry. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. So you don’t know or you won’t tell us? 

Mr. DESANTIS. I think we will—— 

Mr. ISSA. Regular order, please. 

Mr. DESANTIS. We will do regular order and the chair, at this 

point, will now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. 

Bentivolio, for five minutes. 

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

Commissioner, if any of my constituents were not as forthcoming 

as the IRS, there would be a presumption of guilt, they would be 

fined and/or have their wages garnished and/or liens laid on their 

home and/or savings accounts seized. 

When I go back to the district, I had the opportunity to talk to 

many IRS former employees at the IRS, now retired, and I asked 

them what they thought of what was going on at the IRS, and I 

heard despicable behavior every step of the way. The IRS no longer 

credible. 

I think at this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield back. 

51 

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Yield to the gentleman from California. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. I appreciate that. In regular order, this is 

helpful not to need a second round. 

Commissioner, there has been approximately a year of production of emails. In your earlier hearing I remember that it might 

take two years, sort of an estimate. But let me ask you a question. 

Have you reviewed the time line when this committee issued lawful 

demands for Lois Lerner’s emails? Have you reviewed the time line 

of who did what and when? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. 

Mr. ISSA. Would you be prepared to deliver to us a time line, 

meaning calendars, activities of individuals who were charged with 

going out and finding those emails, what they did, and when they 

did it? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I say, we have approximately 250 people doing 

that work. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, no. Actually, you have had people redacting and 

you have had people legal reviewing. I am only talking about who 

went and got the information, the emails, who accumulated them, 

the gathering. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. That is not just one or two people, that is 

a set of people. But we would be happy to provide you the information in any form that would be usable. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, here is the inquiry I will ask you today. And, 

again, we appreciate your coming, but you are not the IT guy, you 

are not any of the 200 people, per se. It is clear, now, from this 

side of the dais, that we issued requests and subpoenas. Two things 

were to occur: one, at the moment we issued our first letter, it required that you preserve information. There is a question about 

whether that was preserved, because in order to preserve it you 

would have to go look for it. So the tapes that now your own people 

have admitted they are not sure whether they exist or not, they 

have undercut your claim that you are very comfortable that they 

were gone at the end of six months, that means that nobody went 

out to say where are the tapes, what are the tapes, are there any. 

Additionally, in order to not know that Lois Lerner had this gap, 

either you weren’t looking extensively all at once or, and this is one 

of my concerns, people just didn’t want to admit that they weren’t 

going out and looking for emails by essentially what we expected, 

was to do a key word search on a server and deliver the data. 

Remember that for months, even before you came onboard, we 

were being told, well, here are some key words and we want to 

search on these key words; and the IRS was adding key words that 

allowed them to deliver the false narrative that progressives were 

being targeted. They were adding self-serving words and they were 

searching them. 

This committee had a reasonable expectation that you were 

searching the entire database, you were searching not six months 

worth of emails, not 6,000 emails or less that had been preserved, 

but you were searching the historic emails. Not until recently, the 

last six weeks, did we understand that if that was how you were 

getting all of your information, you were knowingly looking at a 

small fraction of the historic two-or three-year email selections. 

52 

We now understand no more than 6,000 emails, only six months 

of record, so it is now appropriate for us to understand your employees’ search techniques, what they did, because at some point 

they must have started searching, okay, who has PSTs? Send us 

your PSTs. Or did they, and this is why we have to ask directly, 

did they send out one of these do you have any information relevant and please send it to us. Because the key word search would 

imply that in fact they were accumulating all these PSTs, these 

downloaded local files and then searching them. 

If in fact that process didn’t begin in earnest in the first week 

or month, if in fact your predecessor was delivering selected data 

from what was basically the last six months of things still preserved, we need to know that, because it does appear as though, 

in this long investigation, there has been either an absence of a 

willingness to disclose problems or an absence of real fact-finding, 

getting these emails quickly, or deliberate obstruction. 

We don’t know which and we would like to know, as I said in 

the beginning of this, who went looking for what when. Not interested in who read them, not interested in who edited them, who 

redacted them or who released them. And that information would 

be equally valuable whether it was pursuant to the House or Senate’s request or to Ways and Means or this committee’s request. 

But giving us that gives us a time line of who was involved in 

going and looking so we know who knew that in fact something like 

Lois Lerner’s email on her personal hard drive was of any relevance, because this committee didn’t know that there was a lack 

of a central database for the first almost year of this investigation. 

I thank the chairman and yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Wyoming for five 

minutes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have no doubt, Mr. Koskinen, that morale at the IRS is low. 

I want to tell you about morale in Wyoming. The people of Wyoming, who I work for, all feel targeted. They think the IRS is out 

to get them. They are lower than a snake’s belly about the IRS because they know that Lois Lerner was brought into the IRS from 

the Federal Elections Commission, where she had a history of political targeting, political bias. They know that she was tapped to enforce the largest tax increase in history, Obamacare, after, after 

she targeted conservative groups while overseeing 501(c)(4)s, taxexempt organizations. They saw her come to this committee and 

say I have broken no laws and then take the 5th. They know that 

we subsequently found out that she did break a law, that she provided confidential taxpayer information to another Federal agency, 

which is against the law. 

And they know that so far she has gotten away with that, that 

the Justice Department isn’t doing anything about it and that she 

got away scot-free. They know that when they get letters from the 

IRS, that they are being targeted. I have a constituent who got a 

letter and an investigation from the IRS that has cost her $50,000 

just to close her estate, because they keep asking her what make 

and model is your bed. Your bed? They think her bed is some exVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:17 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89730.TXT APRIL
53 

pensive antique. Incidentally, she is a very active member of the 

Republican party. She feels targeted. 

Morale is low in Wyoming because our government has turned 

against us. So this is a legitimate investigation. I hope it continues 

at length. I hope it goes on until we get to the truth, because the 

people we work for feel like the Government is getting away with 

their tax dollars that they don’t know; they feel like the Government is denying them tax-exempt status that they deserve; they 

feel like they can’t trust the IRS. That is why this investigation. 

That is why you are here and asked the same questions over and 

over. I am sure it is frustrating. We are frustrated too, but it is because our constituents are mortified and scared, and are going to 

take matters into their own hands, because they don’t feel we have 

the ability to do it ourselves. 

So, with no apologies for the morale at the IRS and no apologies 

for how many times we are asking you the same questions over 

and over, Mr. Chairman, While I thank you for your attendance, 

I do yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I will. 

Mr. ISSA. Some people just don’t have enough questions for you, 

commissioner. 

I mentioned the time line and my interest in that. Let me just 

ask you one other question, which is when you look at this investigation and you look at the fact that a Federal judge is now ordering you to show certain things, you look at your IG’s investigation, 

you look at our investigation, are you aware and do you recognize 

the three separate channels are perceived and in reality are very 

different as to what your responsibilities are and how you approach 

them? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. My response to all of them is the same; if people 

have, from any branch of Government, questions, we have an obligation to respond to them in response to—— 

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that, but the IG does in fact work under 

you; he has limited authority. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Absolutely not. 

Mr. ISSA. I understand his independence, but in fact—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. He is the Treasury Department IG. We have no 

control, influence over him. He doesn’t work in the IRS. 

Mr. ISSA. But in fact he has testified that when he wants information, he has to ask for it and he may not always get it, that in 

fact there is a process and sometimes it is very frustrating for him 

to get information. Even though you say he is independent, he 

doesn’t have the authority to demand things and automatically get 

them, isn’t that true? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have never had, in my time here or other 

places, an experience with an IG not able to get the information he 

needs, and I am committed, as Mr. George knows, that whatever 

information he wants in any investigation, he is welcome to have. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, we will certainly hold you to that. Thank you. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am happy to be. 

Mr. ISSA. Yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank the chairman. 

54 

For the other members who do want to do a second round, we 

will do that, so I will kick it off and recognize myself. 

I just want to reiterate people mentioned the morale, and, granted, a lot of the things that happened were before you were there, 

but I do think it is worth mentioning that there are a lot of taxpayers who have had their morale hit. When they see some of the 

conference spending that has gone on, $50,000 for a Star Trek parity video and other lavish expenses on their dime, and, again, that 

was before you were there, but that really irks a lot of folks and 

certainly our constituents. And I think the same goes for the targeting. When people feel like they were being targeted or in fact 

were targeted simply from exercising their constitutional rights, I 

think that hurts their morale too. So I just think it is important 

that we mention that. 

Now, a lot has been going on about when you knew there was 

a problem, why you delayed telling Congress, and I think it is the 

case that the standard that would be applied to an official such as 

yourself is not simply what you actually knew, but what you should 

have known. In other words, you can’t bury your head in the sand 

and not be apprised of what people in your organization know. So 

I think that is going to be a question. Clearly there were people 

at the senior leadership level at the IRS early February, mid-February, who knew that the problems were more substantial than 

what you indicated to us that you personally knew, so the question 

is going to be why did you not know more. 

And I think that goes into what I and some other folks have 

raised. And I know my friend Mr. Cartwright disputed the notion 

that this is being investigated by the Justice Department. And just 

so we are clear, because I don’t want to be lobbing charges that 

aren’t true, here is the transcript from last week’s hearing with 

James Cole, DOJ Deputy AG. 

Chairman Jordan: The fact that the commissioner, meaning you, 

at the Internal Revenue Service delayed telling Congress, the 

American people, the FBI, and the Justice Department is a matter 

that you are going to investigate? 

Mr. Cole replied, We are going to look into what the circumstances were around that, yes. 

So we are concerned about it and the DOJ seems also to be concerned about it, and I think that that is important to know. 

Let me ask you this. You mentioned that you have seen the 

Ways and Means press release about their conducting interviews 

with different IRS technical witnesses about what in fact happened 

to the hard drive, so they told Ways and Means that the hard drive 

was scratched and that data was likely recoverable from it; and, of 

course, the IRS, just last week in Federal court, has filed a declaration saying, consistent with what I think you have testified to, that 

the hard drive was destroyed and in fact no data was recoverable 

for it. 

So my question is what is an American to think when they see 

some witnesses telling a congressional committee scratched, may 

be recoverable, but yet the IRS is representing in Federal court 

that it was destroyed and completely unrecoverable? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I wasn’t there and I haven’t talked to those people, and I don’t know what that interview yesterday—— 

55 

Mr. DESANTIS. But they were the technical people, would be the 

ones that we would most want to talk to about that, correct? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. All I know is the emails that actually I have testified at a couple previous hearings about show that there were efforts made by Ms. Lerner and the IT department to restore the 

hard drive. It went to the Criminal Investigation Division, and they 

are experts and they said they were not able to retrieve information from that hard drive. That is all I know and that is what the 

emails contemporaneously at the time showed and said, was that 

they had tried, the experts in the IRS had tried; they were unable 

to recover any information. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. And I read the pleadings and I take that 

point, but we are getting conflicting information, it seems, in the 

Congress at this point, so I think it is going to be important that 

that be resolved, because clearly you can’t be telling the court one 

thing and then having people in the organization who are on the 

ground and maybe had intimate knowledge telling the Congress 

the other thing. 

I am almost out of time, but just very quickly, switching gears 

a little bit. The D.C. Circuit issued an opinion about the IRS’s regulation as respects to Obamacare subsidies, taxes, and mandates in 

the States that have exchanges not run by a State, but run by the 

Federal Government. Given that right now there is a circuit split, 

where you have the 4th Circuit saying that basically it was either 

a close call or a scrivener’s error, you have the D.C. Circuit saying 

actually the IRS didn’t have the authority to issue that ruling, are 

you going to rescind that rule until this can be resolved by the Supreme Court, or what is the IRS’s position in light of the Halbig 

case? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The rule about the granting of advanced premium tax credit all is run by HHS. Our regulation said that, in 

fact, it was appropriate and acceptable to go through the Federal 

marketplace. We have no plans, until the issue is revolved in court, 

to rescind or change that rule or change our preparation for the 

next filing season. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And is it your position, as the IRS, that you have 

construed that to be that there may have been a drafting error on 

the statute, but the intent of Congress was that the subsidy should 

go, and is that why the IRS has taken the position that they have 

taken? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am fully supportive of the Justice Department 

opinion, which was upheld in the 4th Circuit, not upheld in the 

D.C. Circuit. I don’t have a different view of the legality; I think 

the Justice Department puts it very well that they think the statute is enforceable and the regulations are appropriate. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay, I am out of time, and I will now yield to 

the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Cummings. 

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

On July 9th you appeared before the Subcommittee on Government Operations for a hearing entitled Solutions to Close the $106 

Billion Improper Payments Gap. Even though it was clearly not the 

stated purpose of the hearing, Republican members of the committee asked you a number of questions regarding the committee’s 

56 

investigation into the IRS treatment of applications for tax-exempt 

status. 

At the hearing, Chairman Issa also released emails from Lois 

Lerner regarding the IRS instant messaging system, called OCS, 

that he claims proved that Ms. Lerner ‘‘intentionally sought to hide 

information from Congress.’’ Despite your testimony that you were 

unfamiliar with the system and would be happy to look into its use, 

Republican members repeatedly questioned you about the specifics 

of OCS. 

Commissioner, now that you have learned of the system, can you 

describe what OCS is? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. I actually provided a letter to the committee 

that Chairman Issa referenced earlier. What I have been advised 

is OCS is a system that exists in Microsoft systems and it basically 

allows people around the Country, its primary use is to have a teleconference and you can put the same information up on the screen 

and everybody looks at it at the same time, and it is a way to have 

a telecommunications gathering in a meeting. 

It allows you also to, in effect, have an instant messaging capacity for those who use it—not everybody uses it; I don’t use it because I didn’t know it existed—that much like your cell phone, 

somebody, if they see you are online, can send you a text message 

and it is like calling you on the phone. So like all text messages, 

it is a sometimes faster and more efficient way to communicate 

than picking up the phone and calling someone. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Despite the fact that the email exchange occurred on April 9th, 2013, nearly two years after Ms. Lerner’s computer crashed, and more than one year after the inspector general’s 

audit began, Chairman Issa declared that the email exchange was 

a ‘‘smoking gun.’’ On July 11th, the IRS sent a letter to the committee explaining that OCS messages ‘‘are substitutes for telephone 

calls and in-person meetings’’ and ‘‘the IRS does not currently preserve communications sent and received through OCS.’’ Is that accurate? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is accurate. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The IRS further explained that the Federal 

Records Act ‘‘does not require recording or retention of telephone 

calls or meetings as a substitute for telephone calls and in-person 

meetings that would not normally be recorded. Communications 

sent through OCS are not considered records subject to Federal 

records or other retention requirements.’’ 

I ask unanimous consent that the letter be entered into the 

record, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Commissioner Koskinen, does the Federal 

Records Act require retention of the OCS messages? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It is my understanding it does not. In fact, it is 

my understanding that now our review, our record-keeping process 

and in 2011 we got a score of 93 and in 2012 got a score of 99. But 

we are meeting with NARA. We have reached out to them to try 

to work with them to ensure, A, that we are complying with the 

Act now and if there are ways we can improve our official recordskeeping, we are very anxious to do that. As I say, ultimately we 

57 

hope some day to be able to afford to have, in effect, an email system that is a system of record. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Are you aware of any evidence that Lois Lerner 

used the OCS system to intentionally hide information from Congress or the inspector general? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am not. As note, we produced 43,000 emails 

from her account, so she obviously used email significantly. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. To the best of your knowledge, has any IRS employee used the OCS system to intentionally hide communications 

from Congress or the inspector general? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no knowledge of any such activity. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Once again, your testimony is corroborated by 

the results of the committee’s investigation. After receiving hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and interviewing dozens 

of IRS employees, the committee has not identified any evidence 

supporting the chairman’s allegation that Ms. Lerner or any other 

IRS employee used the OCS system to intentionally hide information from Congress. 

I want to thank you, Mr. Koskinen, for your testimony. I have 

14 seconds left. Is there anything else you wanted to tell us? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. I would just add to the congresswoman from 

Wyoming, talking about she works for taxpayers, my view is we all 

work for taxpayers. I, as the head of the agency, am basically employed by the American people. We have important responsibilities 

to be careful stewards of the money we spend; it is ultimately 

money that comes from the American people. 

And we have an obligation to ensure that everyone is treated 

fairly and the same, and to the extent that there are people who 

have lost trust and confidence in the IRS to do that, one of our 

major challenges is to restore that trust. Whenever we are going 

to continue and audit people, as I have said in the past. Some of 

them will be Democrats, some will be Republicans, some may not 

belong to a party, some may have voted for one person or another, 

some may be active in politics; and what they need to be confident 

of is when they hear from the IRS, it is not because of any of that, 

it is all irrelevant. 

When they hear from us, it is because of some question in their 

tax return. And if somebody else had that same question, they 

would be heard from us as well. But we have an obligation and a 

commitment to treat everybody fairly and evenly across the board. 

I have met with over 11,000 IRS employees across the Country, 

and I have never seen a more dedicated workforce dedicated to the 

mission to the IRS, to providing taxpayer service to enforcing the 

Internal Revenue Code, and I am delighted to be part of that workforce. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Before I recognize the chairman of the subcommittee, I just will, with respect to Lois Lerner’s emails in terms 

of OCS, when she initially wrote the email to Maria Hooks saying 

she had a question about OCS, she said she was cautioning folks 

about email and that we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there have been an electronic 

search for responsive emails, so we need to be cautious about what 

58 

we say in emails. Someone asked if OCS conversations were also 

searchable. I didn’t know, but told them I would get back to them. 

So I just think it is important the context, when she was asking 

about OCS, was to try to evade congressional oversight. 

With that, I will recognize the chairman of the subcommittee, 

Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the chairman. 

Let me go to the Helbig decision, Mr. Koskinen. Does the IRS 

have an obligation to now tell taxpayers the tax credit may in fact 

not be available? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I think we have an obligation to keep taxpayers 

informed about all aspects of the Affordable Care Act, all aspects 

of the Internal Revenue Code. We have a program of public information to advise taxpayers now, if they are getting premium tax 

credits, before these decisions. If their information changes, they 

should go back and make sure the credit is correct. To the extent 

that we go forward—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Are you going to educate taxpayers on the potential 

ramifications of the Halbig decision? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We actually will put out information regarding it. 

As I say, right now, at this point, two courts have come to different 

conclusions, so we don’t intend to make any different changes. 

Therefore, I think our advice, although it is not totally in my control because it is a policy issue of how to deal with it and we are 

just tax administration, but my general assumption is people will 

and should continue to operate as they have thus far until we get 

to a final court decision. And the courts have not indicated that 

anyone should do anything differently. 

Mr. JORDAN. Let me go to the Ways and Means statement yesterday, their press statement. One of the things they say in the lead 

paragraph, it says, in-house professionals at the IRS recommended 

the agency seek outside assistance in recovering the data. Are you 

going to do that, or have you done that already, outside professionals to recover data lost or that may be recoverable on the 

scratched hard drive or the tape that now in fact may be available? 

Is that something the IRS is going to do? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As you know, my understanding is that that hard 

drive is the normal process. Once the Criminal Investigation Division determined they could not restore any information from it, 

that hard drive was recycled and no longer exists. 

Mr. JORDAN. When that took place, when you were trying to get 

to the data, did you in fact go get outside assistance in trying to 

recover the data? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I was not around at that time, but I am not 

aware of any attempt to go outside the IRS. 

Mr. JORDAN. So even though in-house professional says, you 

know what, this might be a little above our pay scale, we should 

go get the outside tech experts, the super wiz kids who can do this 

stuff, we should bring them in, to your knowledge, that was not 

done? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. To my knowledge, I don’t know even about that 

statement. I haven’t seen his transcript as to whether—I was not 

aware that that recommendation has been made, but I have no information indicating that that was done, i.e., that outside experts 

59 

were sought. All I have seen is the emails that I actually have testified about in which Criminal Investigation Division reported they 

could not restore the hard drive. But I have no information that 

the IRS at that time did anything else. 

Mr. JORDAN. They did not. I just want to be clear. It is your understanding that there was not outside professionals who were 

brought in to try to recover the data. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is right. I have no indication that was done, 

and it is my assumption by the emails that I saw when I testified 

that when the Criminal Investigation Division—— 

Mr. JORDAN. So no outside experts were brought in, even though 

in-house experts recommended they be brought in. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I had no information about the in-house recommendation. 

Mr. JORDAN. I am going by what the Ways and Means Committee is reporting, that they said in-house professionals said in 

fact we should go get some outside experts. This is beyond our 

scope; we need someone else to come get this because this is such 

important information. And you are saying you don’t think that 

was done. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I don’t think it was done. But I haven’t seen the 

full context of what that gentleman said, either. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. You don’t think it was done and you don’t 

know if it was asked for. They are reporting that it was asked for 

and it wasn’t done. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It wasn’t done. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN. Which is a problem. Which is a big problem, when 

your tech experts say we need outside tech experts to come in and 

get the data, no, no, no, we don’t want to do that, it is unrecoverable. As reported by what you have said in testimony and what has 

been filed with the court that it is unrecoverable. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You have to remember this was three years ago, 

and there were no investigations ongoing at that time. In fact, the 

IRS had already taken extraordinary attempts even to go to the 

CID people—— 

Mr. JORDAN. But that is the point. If it is three years ago, that 

is why they said we need the outside experts. That is why they 

wanted the help. And you are saying it didn’t happen. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN. Which is a concern. 

Let me just do one other question, if I could. 

So, according to your testimony, a month ago the Ways and 

Means Committee said the IRS, in February, identified documents 

that indicated Ms. Lerner had experienced computer failure in 

2011, consistent with Mr. Cain. You knew in February there was 

a problem, February 2nd, February 4th you knew there was a big 

problem, according to Mr. Cain’s testimony. In mid-February you 

knew it was unrecoverable. Your testimony says in mid-March 

2014, this review, we learned the data stored on her computer hard 

drive was determined to be unrecoverable. So Mr. Cain says he 

knew in February; you knew in mid-March. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is right. I actually knew—— 

Mr. JORDAN. But you were kept abreast—— 

60 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I actually knew in mid-April, and that is a 

misstatement on my part. If you read my testimony before this 

committee in the now three hearings I have had—— 

Mr. JORDAN. This is your written testimony in Ways and Means. 

This is not accurate? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. My written testimony? 

Mr. JORDAN. This is your opening statement, what you said to 

the Ways and Means Committee. The IRS, in February, identified 

documents that indicated Ms. Lerner experienced a computer failure in 2011. Mid-March review, 2014, the data stored on her computer hard drive was determined to be unrecoverable. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, I am sorry, that is correct. That was what the 

IRS knew—— 

Mr. JORDAN. So here is my question. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Cain says on February 4th he knew. You indicate in your testimony mid-February we knew there were big problems, and you indicated in mid-March we knew it was unrecoverable. You knew, even though your key staff people, Mr. Cain and 

Ms. Duvall, knew in mid-February. You testified February 5th to 

the House Ways and Means Committee, February 26th to the 

House Appropriations Committee on Financial Services, March 

26th to this full committee, and April 8th to the Senate Finance 

Committee. 

In those hearings you were asked about Ms. Lerner and email 

and different things. You had four different opportunities in front 

of Congress. So I am wondering, in the back of your mind, were 

you wondering, when you answered these questions, that we are 

going to produce all of Lois Lerner emails, when we are going to 

comply, in the back of your mind, were you thinking maybe I 

should let these guys in on the little kind of important fact that, 

you know what, we have already determined that her hard drive 

is unrecoverable? 

Was that ever in the back of your mind when you were answering questions from members of Congress in four different committees over the time period when you have already learned significant facts. Even though in your mind, according to your testimony, 

you didn’t fully know that we had lost them all for good, even 

though you sort of knew that it was pretty darn likely you had lost 

them all for good, in the back of your mind, did you think, you 

know what, maybe I should fully disclose what the real status is 

of Ms. Lerner’s emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No. As I have testified several times in the 

past—— 

Mr. JORDAN. That didn’t enter your mind at all? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I didn’t know that there were emails lost. I personally didn’t know, and that is what I was testifying about, until 

the middle of April. When I testified, and I have said this before 

in several hearings, when I testified on March 26th, I did not know 

that her emails were not recoverable. 

Mr. JORDAN. But this is your testimony right here. I am reading. 

This is John Koskinen testimony. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

61 

Mr. JORDAN. In the mid-March 2014 time frame, we learned the 

data stored on her computer hard drive was determined to be unrecoverable. So that is certainly before the March 26th hearing and 

the April 8th hearing in front of the Senate Finance Committee. So 

you had two opportunities where you already know it is unrecoverable. That means you are not going to get what is there. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, I am sorry. I take, and I go to the point earlier, I take responsibility for the agency. When I said, in that, trying to report to people what we knew, that is what the IRS knew. 

When you ask me specifically what did I know, I knew and didn’t 

know until April. If you told me now that Tom Cain said he knew 

in February, I would henceforth say we, as the IRS, knew in February. I myself, personally, did not know. 

When I testify, I tell you what I know. 

Mr. JORDAN. This goes right to the chairman’s point. When our 

chief counsel knows in February, mid-February, that it is unrecoverable, you can’t come in front of Congress and say I didn’t 

know, that is why I didn’t answer. Your chief counsel knows. You 

should have known. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I should have known. 

Mr. JORDAN. And you should have disclosed that, and you didn’t. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I didn’t know and I, therefore, couldn’t disclose. 

And you are exactly right. I have not hidden behind the fact that 

somehow this is somebody else’s responsibility. I am perfectly prepared to take full responsibility for exactly what we did with the 

production of the information to the Congress. 

Mr. JORDAN. But you didn’t tell us that in your testimony. You 

didn’t tell us, on March 26th, when you answered, you didn’t tell 

us that. It would have been nice if we had known at that point. 

Kate Duvall and Tom Cain already knew it was unrecoverable, but 

somehow they didn’t tell you because you would have to disclose 

that when asked about it in Congress, was that why they didn’t tell 

you? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have no idea. This was an iterative process. At 

that point we were spending most of our time trying to produce all 

of the information for the determination process, which we were 

able to do by the middle of March. 

Mr. JORDAN. This is what no one can figure out. Something this 

important, Lois Lerner, the lady who sat in your chair and took the 

Fifth, the central figure in this investigation, you lose her emails; 

your chief counsel knows in February, the lawyer in charge of document production knows in February, and they don’t tell you, and 

you can come in front of Congress four times and not disclose that. 

And then when you do learn in April, you can wait until June 13th. 

That is what the American people are like, no wonder there is 

some morale concern and no wonder there is a distrust. That is unbelievable. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, can I just add one point? 

Mr. JORDAN. We didn’t know, your chief counsel knew. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You are going to talk to the chief counsel, and 

she will tell you what she knew or didn’t know. 

Mr. JORDAN. We already talked to Tom Cain, and he told us she 

knew. 

62 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. He knew that, if you go back through 

there, that the hard drive had a significant problem. We did not 

know what emails we had. We, in fact, discovered and found 24,000 

additional emails from Lois Lerner to other people—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I appreciate the chairman’s indulgence. 

All I am saying is this, when Tom Cain, the lawyer in charge of 

document production, the professional who you said does good work 

at the IRS, when he says unrecoverable, and they knew that in 

mid-February, and you come to Congress three times after they 

knew that, both he and your chief counselor, and you don’t disclose 

that, you should have known that and you should have told us. 

And then when you do find out, you wait two more months. Come 

on. Come on, we are supposed to buy that? 

I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I thank the chairman. 

I would point out, before I recognize my friend from Pennsylvania, here we are in, say, February, March, saying you didn’t 

know how many Lerner emails were out there; and, granted, you 

were not commissioner during this whole time, but we have been 

asking for these things for over a year now. A subpoena was sent 

in August, reissued under your watch, so the IRS dragged its feet 

on that. 

And I realize a lot of that is not necessarily on your watch, but 

don’t tell me nine, ten months after we request this stuff and five 

or six months after a subpoena is issued, that somehow you just 

don’t know how many emails you have. That should have been 

something that should have been ascertainable. 

Thank you for the indulgence, and I will recognize Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chair pro tem. 

Speaking of things that would be nice to know and things not 

disclosed, Mr. Koskinen, I asked the chairman of this full committee who the witnesses are supposed to be next Wednesday from 

the IRS. He declined to tell me. He declined to tell me whether he 

even knew who the witnesses next week will be. But I didn’t ask 

you, Mr. Koskinen. This is your department. Do you know? Have 

you been informed by anybody on this committee who the witnesses sought for next week’s hearing will be? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Until I came to this committee meeting, I had no 

idea that the committee was going to hold yet another hearing next 

week. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And would you agree with me that those are 

among the things that would be nice to know? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It is always nice to know in advance when we are 

supposed to show up for a hearing. I don’t know whether I am expected to show up again next Wednesday. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Well, neither do I. 

Well, let’s delve into the IRS forensic lab together, shall we? 

There were comments today about scratches on hard drives, and 

that is not my area of expertise, and I dare say it is not yours either. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. But we did have John Minsek, an analyst from 

the IRS Criminal Investigations Unit, meet with Ways and Means 

63 

staff on Monday. He told them he did not find anything suspicious 

about how a scratch got on Ms. Lerner’s hard drive. The analyst, 

Mr. Minsek, said that he tried to recover Ms. Lerner’s documents 

on two occasions, first with a normal tool set and then, using more 

advanced tools, he still couldn’t recover any data. 

Mr. Commissioner, contemporaneous emails confirm that the IRS 

Criminal Investigations Unit could not recover her documents. Am 

I correct in that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And the CI analyst, Mr. Minsek, then told 

Ways and Means Committee staff that he gave his colleague in the 

IRS IT shop the name of a third-party vendor that he used on rare 

occasions to recover information, but IRS IT staff had already consulted with outside experts at HP. 

Mr. Koskinen, do you know if IRS officials consulted with IT experts a second time in 2011 to recover Ms. Lerner’s emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I do not know. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. 

All right, finally, I want to touch on something that the 

gentlelady from Wyoming mentioned. She just said that her constituents are going to take matters into their own hands. And I say 

this because about an hour ago somebody walked into the Cannon 

House Office Building with a handgun, according to Chad Pergram, 

our friend from Fox News locally. 

Knowing that there are over 4,000 staffers and interns at risk 

here on the House side of the Capitol, and recalling the horrible 

Gabby Giffords tragedy and the loss of staffer Gabriel Zimmerman, 

I would ask that members refrain from making statements that 

could even possibly be misconstrued by the public as an invitation 

to do anything like that. It is obvious that Representative Lummis 

meant no such thing, but I think it behooves all of us to be very 

careful about the way we phrase things, because there are people 

out there ready and able to misconstrue things. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Collins. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I appreciate it. 

Mr. Koskinen, here we go again. I told the story last time, and 

it was the story of my young son, who, to some media reports, became famous, I guess, or infamous, however you want to describe 

it, on the stories that he used to tell, and I recounted this time line, 

and I wish I could sit here today and see you again and say that 

what was not plausible then has now gotten a little bit plausible. 

It actually just seems to not have gotten any more plausible. People ask why are we continuing to do this? Because it just looks like 

there is something new comes out all the time. One request will 

say this, then another request. 

It was asked earlier—I had to leave and come back, and it was 

said how much paperwork that you have put to the committee and 

how many hours are being worked on. To restore trust in a relationship, whether it is between two people or whether it is between 

Government and the people that they serve, it should really be of 

no limit to restore that trust, especially with the IRS. 

64 

So, frankly, to tell me that you gave a million documents and 

that your hours you are spending, because of the issues that have 

been raised and the lack of trust on both sides, I have Democrats 

and Republicans in my district who are appalled at this; and they 

want it solved, they want the real answers and they want to continue, and they don’t want to continue reading every week in the 

paper that something new has come up. I think that is an issue 

of trust that has to be maintained here; and, frankly, the plausibility story is just, again, getting to the level of unbelievable in a 

lot of ways. 

But I do have some questions, because we have talked a lot 

about the Lois Lerner emails, but in addition to those the committee has also asked for other emails, and I want to talk to you 

about those for just a second and see the status of those, is that 

okay? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Sure. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. 

Holly Paz, emails responsive to the committee’s request from August 2nd, 2013 to February 14th, 2014. Have you gathered all of 

those emails? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have provided all of the emails with regard 

to the determination process. And, again, pursuant to what I 

thought were the agreed upon search terms, but apparently not totally agreed with the investigative committees, that we would select 83 custodians who were the ones most likely to be involved and 

that we would search—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Are those the same 83 that a quarter of their hard 

drives crashed? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It is not clear a quarter. At this point, nobody 

knows what that answer is. 

Mr. COLLINS. Oh, so we could have more that have crashed. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We could have more, we could have less. I don’t 

know until we find out. 

Mr. COLLINS. I mean, does that just not boggle mind that of a 

small number, one about a quarter, and we can argue about a 

quarter, not a quarter, I am not a mathematician, neither are you, 

but that there may be others in that subset that deals with the 

areas we are asking for? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. And that is a perfect example as to why it 

would be very helpful, had we been able to complete the investigation of what happened to the custodians, we could tell you. The 

reason I actually decided we would continue to find out how many 

Lois Lerner emails we had was because if we hadn’t been able to 

do that, people would be talking about—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Let’s not change the question. I asked about Holly 

Paz. We can get away form Lerner. I asked about Holly. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, no, but my point is that to the extent we can 

provide the full story, your point, then it is a lot easier to know 

and you can disagree about it. But it is a lot better to know what 

the total picture is. So when you get the custodians, because the 

IG is now doing that, we don’t know what the answer is, so it may 

be 10, it may be 20, it may be 5, it may be 25. I don’t know, and 

at this point we aren’t able to investigate that, and we are hoping 

65 

the IG, when he completes his investigation, would include, will 

conclude with the custodians as well. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, that is another source of contention. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is the problem. Anyway, it is part of the 

problem we are doing this in dribs and drabs—— 

Mr. COLLINS. I understand. 

Mr. KOSKINEN.—and every day having a press release about 

some aspect of some interview. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you for saying drips and drabs, because that 

is what this investigation seems like it has been every since we 

started it, and especially even from your comments and others, 

that every day we get drips and drabs and drips and drabs, and 

the people are tired of it, this Congress is tired of it. And this is 

the problem we have because I am going to assume from your question—I am an attorney as well—that that is a no. After all you 

said, you have not gathered all her emails, or you don’t know if you 

have gathered all her emails. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. No, no, exactly right. I didn’t mean to be evasive. 

We provided all of the emails that were determined to be relevant 

to the determination process. We have not yet provided all of her 

emails because our first priority, agreed with this committee in 

March, was we would find all of Lois Lerner’s emails. 

Mr. COLLINS. So, no. So the question on William Wilkins, same 

question, yes or no? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Same answer. You got all of his emails that are 

responsive to the investigation that started all of this. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay, but no to all. Jonathan Davis, same question. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Again, you got all of his—— 

Mr. COLLINS. No. I mean, because all is all. I mean, we had this 

conversation three months ago. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That is right. And as I said in March, we are 

happy to keep working with you to figure out what your next priority is. Obviously, thanks to the system, we can’t produce it all at 

once. We have actually produced a lot of stuff, and it takes us a 

long time. Part of the background on the June 13th public report 

was to try to explain why, with our system, it takes so long to 

produce this stuff. We should not have to spend $18 million. We 

should have a better system. There is no doubt about that. 

Mr. COLLINS. I don’t disagree. The question I have, though, is we 

need them all, in the sense of the clarification issue here, and we 

have just got that. 

I do have one quick—I want to go back to something that was 

asked a lot earlier and it was, I believe, from my friend from South 

Carolina. He said we confirmed, and you said I don’t now who told 

me. And I have sat through this will be my third, I guess, with you 

listening, and there has been a lot of meetings in which you were 

told information, but you don’t remember who was in the meeting 

or you don’t know who told you that, and it hit me as I was sitting 

here. Maybe there were multiple people in the room and you are 

not sure who said it first or who told you first, so I am going to 

ask it differently. I don’t want to know who told you first or last. 

I am not being specific in that nature. I want to know who was in 

the room when you were told that we have confirmed all that. And 

66 

surely you are a very bright individual. You would know at least 

who was in the room. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I have 12 meetings a day, on average. 

Mr. COLLINS. I do as well. I know most of the ones in the meeting, especially when it is senior staff on something of this nature. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And those meetings average probably 8 to 10 people, so I cannot tell you about any meeting who was actually in the 

room. But I can tell you who was likely in the room, and that is 

the people who have been working on the production with your 

staff. Obviously, my counselor was in the room, probably my chief 

of staff was in the room. But I can’t tell you, and I don’t recall because it wasn’t significant at the time, who else was in the room. 

We were reviewing the document. 

Mr. COLLINS. It wasn’t significant at the time that you may have 

lost emails? That was not a significant meeting? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. The issue here was whether we could confirm, 

your question was whether we could confirm. 

Mr. COLLINS. Confirm. But you are dealing with a bigger issue. 

I said is that not significant? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. This entire issue was significant, but I am actually running an agency that has to deal with filing seasons; we 

have overseas voluntary disclosure programs; we have voluntary 

tax return programs we have been putting out; we have been simplifying for small charitable organizations—— 

Mr. COLLINS. And, look, I understand that and that is a great diversion to what we are asking right here. I get that the IRS has 

other issues, but I also get that the American people, even over 

years of making fun and doing everything else that unfortunately 

the IRS has had in the past. It is not now just the fact that they 

don’t like the IRS because they have to send their money in. 

They are now at an issue both party line irregardless, they are 

not sure about the IRS because they don’t trust the IRS anymore. 

And when that is an issue, everything should be focused on that. 

And this is the question that makes it just completely implausible 

and we keep getting dribs and drabs. I appreciate what you said 

on dribs and drabs, because that is the problem we have right now. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. COLLINS. I will yield back. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Can I just make one point clear, and that is nobody has a greater interest of getting you all the information you 

need and getting closure on this than I do and the people at the 

IRS. If we could conclude one of these six investigations, find out 

what the determination of facts are and the recommendations are, 

we are delighted to take those recommendations. We have accepted 

all of the inspector general’s recommendations. The last thing in 

the world that benefits us is to have this go on any longer than 

necessary. So whatever we can do, as fast as we can produce documents. The relevance of the 960,000 pages isn’t, gee, isn’t that a 

big amount. It takes a lot of time to get all that done in our system. 

Mr. COLLINS. The one thing we will agree upon is getting to the 

end of this is the end result so that we can move and the people 

can restore the trust in a Government agency in which they need 

to have trust that they don’t have now. 

With that, I yield back. 

67 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

I am going to recognize the gentleman from California for five 

minutes. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. This is round four? 

Mr. ISSA. No, no. When people yielded me time under our arcane 

rules, that doesn’t count. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Okay. 

Mr. ISSA. But I will be brief. 

Commissioner, we have a history, and I want to make sure I get 

the history straight today, because it does matter for this committee. You constantly talk about this agreement and discovery 

and so on. Were you aware that we considered that the IRS was 

stonewalling us and giving us information we didn’t want and giving it to us in an order we didn’t like it in the months of May, 

June, and July of 2013? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I was not aware of that. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, we have a number of letters basically showing 

our dissatisfaction, including what we now know to be erroneous 

information, misleading information that would imply that progressive were being targeted, the false narrative that continues to be 

used at times. 

On May 22nd, 2013, Lois Lerner took the Fifth. Shortly after 

that she became a person of extreme interest for this committee because in fact she had made statements outside of her assertion of 

the Fifth that she broke no rules, she broke no regulations. She additionally authenticated earlier testimony in statements again. 

After she took the Fifth, she then went back on the record. So 

under oath she made a number of statements. 

As we began investigating, we became very aware that Lois 

Lerner was an active participant in Washington of targeting conservatives. In addition, in evaluating her history, we became very 

aware that she did not like conservatives and she had that sort of 

predisposition. Plus, her public speeches made it very clear that on 

behalf of the President ‘‘they want us to fix this’’ and certainly the 

President had been the outgoing spokesperson again Citizens 

United, that we had every reason to focus our investigation on her 

as the hub in a hub and spoke system of deliberately targeting conservatives for their values. 

Therefore, I issued, if the ranking member were here, he would 

call it unilateral, but pursuant to the committee rules I issued a 

subpoena and made it very clear that our first priority was to have 

all of Lois Lerner’s emails, and that that was the priority. Were 

you aware of that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I am aware of that subpoena, yes. 

Mr. ISSA. And you were aware that that was our goal? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You have eight items on that subpoena, and that 

is at the top of the list. 

Mr. ISSA. Very good. Therefore, when we interviewed Thomas 

Cain and we asked him, so is it fair to say this subpoena had no— 

and this was the subpoena of August 2nd—this subpoena had no 

impact on the process that you were following or the documents 

that you were reviewing. That was our question. His answer: It 

didn’t impact our production process, that is correct. Question: Did 

68 

it have any impact on which documents were chosen to review? Answer: No. 

Additionally throughout that transcribed interview, what we discovered was that you all met, had a discussion, if you will, and decided that you were not going to prioritize any aspect of delivery 

of Lois Lerner’s documents, even though she had taken the Fifth 

before this committee, even though she clearly had public statements and she had been a person who had already unlawfully 

leaked, by planting a question, the outcome of an IRS TIGTA investigation. All of that is undeniable. 

Why in the world should the American people believe that you 

are cooperating with us when I issue a subpoena, our committee 

makes it clear in multiple letters that these are our priorities, and 

now we have sworn testimony or testimony under penalty of perjury that you didn’t make any changes, you basically continued 

business as usual, which was delivering us based on you call it mutually agreed, but they were your criteria, primarily, as to search 

terms, and never disclosed to us that those search terms were 

searching but a small portion of what should have been the entire 

database? Do you have an answer for that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I wasn’t there. My understanding is there are five 

other investigations that are now going on and were going on then, 

that there were a wide range of requests for documents from the 

Senate Finance Committee, Ways and Means, Permanent Subcommittee. 

Mr. ISSA. Did any of them issue binding subpoenas? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And I don’t think anyone else had a binding subpoena. My understanding, and I wasn’t there, was that—— 

Mr. ISSA. But after February 2014 we issued another subpoena. 

Did anything change then? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. At that point, we were, as I have testified before, 

we began to pull the rest of Lois Lerner’s emails. We started with 

the analysis of the emails already produced, and that is where it 

was discovered that there were fewer emails in the 2011 period. 

One of the priorities at that time, though, competing priorities 

was to complete the production of the determination documents 

that everybody was interested in. There was kind of a, I gather, a 

process by which, with all of the conflicting questions to try to respond to documents that met as many of the requests as possible, 

and most of the requests certainly for Finance and, at that time, 

Ways and Means were for documents around the determination 

process. 

That was completed, and then since that time the full court press 

has been to produce all of Lois Lerner’s emails, whether in her account or any other account. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Earlier on I asked you for a discovery process of who was looking for when throughout a time line, and your 

assistant took it in very copious notes there. I want to just add one 

clarification to that process. Obviously, we are interested in what 

you did during subpoenas, but we are getting that. You have delivered some, I guess we are looking at an exorbitant number of documents that you constantly and many people constantly cite. 

What we don’t understand that I think the committee has an absolute obligation to understand, is in this process of what you 

69 

looked and where you looked, understanding the sources that this 

has come from, because we are a committee of oversight reform, we 

are a committee that has an obligation to see that you spend the 

American people’s money properly. 

It appears, from this side of the dais, as though the process is 

very fragmented, that in fact you are looking sort of under cookie 

jars, to use an expression of my youth; that you are providing large 

amounts of data from certain periods that based on a six-month 

backup and a very small server capacity wouldn’t exist. So that 

means that they probably came from other places. And we need to 

understand all the places they came from, where you went. 

You have sent us, in many cases, hugely redundant emails. In 

other words, the same emails can come from multiple places. Understanding that so that we can figure out how to prevent it in the 

future is important, because this is not the last time that a Federal 

judge, an IG, or a congressional committee is going to want to 

know details. I think we can all agree to that, just as corporate 

America receives countless subpoenas for document production, so 

much so that they develop software explicitly to do these kinds of 

searches and retention policies for that reason. 

Can we have your agreement that we will receive some accounting of how that happens? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. And we would be glad to talk further with 

your staff to make sure we give you exactly what you need. But 

you are exactly right, we looked in the logical places, and I understand we looked under every cookie jar. We actually were dedicated 

to making sure that we found every existent Lois Lerner email on 

her account or anybody else’s so that we would be able to say these 

are all the Lois Lerner emails we have, and that has led to 67,000. 

Mr. ISSA. And I will make a rather unusual request in this case. 

We are more than happy to have a small group briefing meeting, 

bipartisan meeting, with the individuals who have been involved in 

this so that separate from the investigation, which is important 

and ongoing, the question of efficiency, the cost-effect of fragmented 

data, the cost-effect of having, and I have held it up several times, 

individual drives like this that people have, notebooks that have 

been taken offline, all the other things that I suspect are one of the 

reasons this has become so expensive and difficult. 

That meeting is not exactly on course with this investigation, but 

it is separately a question from a standpoint of the management 

of the $82 billion worth of funds that Government spends to see if 

in fact policy changes with OMB and others should be instituted 

and funding allocated so that this kind of fragmentation doesn’t 

happen in the future. 

So as one person who has worked in private America to another, 

that is something that your briefing can be informal, off the record, 

doesn’t have to be definitive, but our committee, I think, really has 

to have an understanding so we can be part of policy formation, because what I know about how corporate America does it and what 

I am beginning to glean you have to do are very different. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. They are very different. As I have said, I asked 

that question some time ago, that we should not have to spend $18 

million and this amount of time responding to document and email 

requests. But I think if we could kind of get two birds with one 

70 

stone, we could, as you say, have that briefing that would answer 

your questions about how did this discovery process go and then 

what are the problems with that going forward, because it is my 

understanding that there has been a tremendous amount of effort 

made to make sure that we found every document responsive to the 

committee. It is a lengthy process. 

Again, the June 13th report starts out trying to explain to all of 

the investigators what the process is and why it is so anachronistic 

and so difficult. And I agree with you totally, going forward it 

would certainly help all of us if we had a more efficient system for 

preserving and finding documents and emails. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, commissioner. 

I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back and that concludes our 

hearing today. 

Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, and the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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