Jason Chaffetz Calls for IRS Commissioner John Koskinen's Impeachment

House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz Wednesday called for IRS Commissioner John Koskinen's impeachment, saying he should face the proceedings because "he provided false testimony to Congress and misled Congress."

"He had documents in their possession at the IRS that were under subpoena, and they failed to protect those, preserve those and provide those," the Utah Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program. "When you get a subpoena, it's not optional. Imagine if the IRS sent you a summons, sent you a subpoena and you didn't provide it; you would go to jail."

Chaffetz testified at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, presenting his committee's findings and make the case to impeach Koskinen, who did not appear. The IRS said in a statement that Koskinen, who has just returned from a trip to China where he had met with world tax leaders, did not have enough notice about the meeting, reports Politico.

Chaffetz and others seeking Koskinen's impeachment say that he withheld documents related to the IRS tea party-targeting scandal, and that he did not tell the truth about erased tapes of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner, who is at the center of the scandal.

The Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing in June to determine what action, if any, should be taken against Koskinen.

Chaffetz said Wednesday that impeachment proceedings are a "tool given to us by the founding fathers" that allow for a safety valve if an official is not serving the country's best interests.

And he does not believe that the documents involved were destroyed accidentally.

"When they talked to the inspector general, they made no effort to go out and find these," he said. "They didn't even look in five of the different areas. I'm not buying it. They lied to Congress ... they don't provide them to Congress even though they told us they had them, then they went ahead and destroyed them. You can't do that and get away with it."

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