IRS Chief John Koskinen's combative performance before the House Oversight Committee in its probe of the agency's tea party targeting scandal is "a load of bull,'' Rep. Doug Collins said Thursday on
Newsmax TV.
Collins, a Georgia Republican and member of the House Oversight and House Government Reform Committees, said Koskinen's new revelation that supposedly lost emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner may be on backup files is just the latest flip-flop by the agency.
"What is bad is when he comes in in the spring and his first testimony before us makes no mention of the fact that Lerner's hard drive is scratched, shredded, whatever,'' Collins told "The Steve Malzberg Show.''
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Koskinen's later explanation for the omission was that he had not been asked about it.
"Which is a load of bull. We call that chicken crap up in our part of the world. But we did ask him, and we went through this process,'' Collins said.
"People ask me all the time, why are y'all beating on this? I tell them because every time we have a hearing … every time a subpoena is issued, something new comes out, and this is just ridiculous …
"The only thing he's consistent at is saying, 'I don't know who was in the room, I don't remember who was telling me this, I don't remember who told me that, I don't remember if I had a meeting about that.'''
Lerner was the chief of the division accused of targeting conservative groups over their tax-exempt status.
The hard drive of her computer failed, taking with it two years of her correspondence. GOP-led congressional investigators, working for two separate House committees, were told that backup tapes had been recycled.
Collins said Koskinen could be held in contempt if "we can actually show that he had knowledge of stuff that he is testifying on, and that's perjury.
"That's a whole different animal at that point, but right now, like I said, he is the face of an administration that is frankly just defiant to the American public because they believe what they do is right.''
Collins also said lawmakers are now looking into a radical makeover of the IRS.
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