Issa offers Koskinen opportunity to amend testimony

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) offered IRS Commissioner John Koskinen an opportunity on Thursday to amend his recent testimony that to his knowledge former IRS official Lois Lerner complied with the Federal Records Act.

In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on June 23 about the IRS’s alleged targeting of conservative non-profit groups, Koskinen said Lerner complied with the Federal Records Act by retaining hard copies of official emails that were lost in a reported hard drive crash.

“Recent public statements from William W. Taylor III, the attorney representing former IRS official Lois Lerner, have raised new questions about Ms. Lerner’s Federal Records Act compliance practices and the circumstances surrounding the loss of e-mails and destruction of her hard drive,” Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said. “Accordingly, I ask that (Koskinen) assist the committee in reconciling apparent discrepancies between (his) claims that Ms. Lerner fully maintained records and statements by her attorney that she did not and that it was not her responsibility.”

Koskinen drew rebuke from members of the House Ways and Means Committee last month after he disclosed that more than two years of emails sent or received by Lerner and other officials were missing.

House Ways and Means Committee Member Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) called Koskinen’s explanation “incomplete and unacceptable.”