IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified for hours in front of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform on his agency’s response following allegations that it had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny when determining tax-exempt status.
Late in the hearing a clearly agitated Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) lashed out threatening Koskinen with contempt: “Let me ask you this; at what point should this committee hold you and your agency in contempt for not complying? What’s the timeline?”
Koskinen fired back: “The timeline is whenever you think you could actually sustain that in a court.”
The commissioner went on to add:
“I think we have a strong case that we have been cooperative, continue to be cooperative, and anybody looking at the systems we have and the time it takes would find that we have provided you more cooperation than, in fact, might be expected. I think that, in fact, arguing and threatening contempt in that situation without understanding the circumstances is probably not going to be held up.”
You can watch the exchange below in this clip from C-SPAN:
You must be logged in to post a comment Login