Years will pass before congressional investigators can review all of the documents pertaining to the inappropriate targeting of Tea Party groups, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen told a House panel Wednesday.
“What they want is something that’s going to take years to produce,” Koskinen told Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in reference to Republican requests for IRS documents.
Republicans accused the IRS of slow-walking the document release. “We don’t want the excuses anymore,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said during the hearing. “You’re not working fast enough. It’s that simple.”
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told Koskinen the IRS, at a minimum, could easily give them the documents they want most, which are the emails of Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who oversaw the division of the agency that conducted the targeting.
“Six months ago, you could have pumped out all of Lois Lerner’s emails,” Issa said. “I find it less than helpful and I find your talking about redaction and time inappropriate when you could have given Ways and Means all of Lois Lerner’s emails in a matter of seconds.”
Koskinen replied that “that’s not the information I have.”
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Joel Gehrke is a commentary writer for The Washington Examiner.