False Alarm: House GOP Caved on Impeaching IRS Commissioner After Mere Hours
The House GOP caved on demanding a vote to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. Late Wednesday night, Politico reported:
“House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte have reached a tentative compromise to postpone a vote to impeach the IRS commissioner, sources familiar with the talks told POLITICO.
“Under the terms of the emerging deal, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen would testify before the Judiciary panel next Wednesday, and any impeachment vote would likely be postponed until after the November election rather than take place on Thursday, the sources said.”
In the late afternoon Wednesday, Freedom Caucus Reps. Jim Jordan, R-OH (A, 94%), Mark Meadows, R-N.C. (A, 93%), and Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan. (A, 91%) spoke to reporters about their effort to impeach IRS commissioner John Koskinen for lying to Congress and destroying 24,000 emails relating to Lois Lerner’s targeting of conservative groups.
Jordan stated that the group was “strong on every count” against Koskinen, who was brought on as IRS Commissioner in the wake of the political targeting scandal in 2013. Koskinen was under three preservation orders and two subpoenas while the IRS destroyed 24,000 emails and 422 backup records with evidence that the IRS targeted conservative groups.
Jordan told reporters that the impeachment measure has been on the table for a year, but Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. (D, 66%), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has been reluctant to proceed with impeachment hearings. House GOP leadership has also been reluctant to go forward with impeachment before an election, despite the fact that the IRS continued to cover up the political targeting of conservative groups under Koskinen.
With the inaction from Goodlatte and House GOP leadership, Reps. John Fleming, R-La. (B, 86%) and Huelskamp introduced a privileged resolution to impeach Koskinen on Tuesday, meaning the House must hold a vote within 48 hours unless the resolution is withdrawn.
On late Wednesday afternoon, when the Freedom Caucus members met with reporters to discuss the resolution, they expected a vote to happen the next morning. Less than five hours later though, they reached an agreement with House leadership, negotiated by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. (B, 87%), to hold off on the privileged resolution until the lame-duck session —when it’s more politically expedient for moderate GOP members, and to have Koskinen testify under oath in front of the Judiciary Committee.
Jordan, Meadows, and Huelskamp agreed on Wednesday that in a case like Koskinen’s, where it is clear that the First Amendment rights of Americans were trampled on in an overreach of bureaucratic power and then covered up, it is proper and necessary that the House invokes impeachment. The Founding Fathers clearly thought that impeachment power should be used by Congress to keep abuse of power in check, which is why impeachment is mentioned in “The Federalist Papers” 58 times.
Instead of properly utilizing the power constitutionally granted to it, Congress has become the most ineffectual branch of government in the past few decades — well, maybe 14 decades. As George Will pointed out in National Review, it’s been 140 years since the House impeached a member of the executive branch. When Congress is ineffectual, the executive and judicial branches become more and more powerful, which is why, in 2016, we have a near-unaccountable president and activist judges.
As Rep. Huelskamp said of House Republicans yesterday, “How can you look someone in the eye and tell them you’re the backstop of the constitution, and you’re not willing to vote on this?” (For more from the author of “False Alarm: House GOP Caved on Impeaching IRS Commissioner After Mere Hours” please click HERE)
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