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Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) asked Koskinen about the process, and for the commissioner to explain the logic behind giving tax refunds to illegal aliens who have committed a theft of a tax-payer’s identification number. Koskinen’s response, according to the Washington Examiner, was that it was in everybody’s interest to have the illegal aliens pay taxes with stolen id’s.

--SNIP-- The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings, said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner that Republicans have already botched any plans they might have for contempt actions against Lerner, who headed an IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. Cummings, citing opinions from two legal experts and “Supreme Court case law,” said Republicans cannot pursue contempt charges against Lerner because of how the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, abruptly adjourned a hearing with the former official last week. The letter said Issa “failed to take the basic — but Constitutionally required — steps necessary to hold...

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee—which is probing the Internal Revenue Service’s discriminatory treatment of Tea Party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status—says the IRS has thus far handed over to the committee only about 10 percent of the documents the IRS itself has said are responsive to the committee’s demands for documents. The committee subpoenaed the Treasury Department for relevant documents from the department and the IRS more than seven weeks ago at the beginning of August. “To date, the IRS has produced to the committee only about 10 percent of all responsive materials that it has...

It’s “inconceivable” that President Obama was unaware that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, House Speaker John Boehner said today. “It would be inconceivable in my operation that my staff would know it and I wouldn’t,” the Ohio Republican told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America.” “It just doesn’t pass the straight-face test. How could – how can your chief of staff – your general counsel know, and you not know?” Obama has said that he first found out about the outcome of an inspector general audit when the report was released publicly, but his aides say they...

Cleta Mitchell, one of Washington’s most respected elections attorneys, told Newsmax she has tangible proof that high-ranking IRS officials in Washington were fully aware of the agency's campaign to target conservative groups for heightened scrutiny, despite their denials. And she thinks the president knew about the practice too. If proven, she said, it could be an impeachable offense. Mitchell, in an interview with Newsmax TV on Tuesday, said she was told by a Cincinnati IRS agent that applications by two of her conservative clients were being processed by—and would ultimately be approved or denied—in Washington. She said she also is...

The Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with "tea party" or "patriot" in their names—as the agency admitted Friday—to also include ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to "make America a better place to live," according to new details of a government probe. The investigation also revealed that a high-ranking IRS official knew as early as mid-2011 that conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted—nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a congressional committee the agency wasn't targeting conservative groups.

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog President Obama refuses to fire IRS employees who illegally targeted conservative groups In May 2013, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had illegally targeted conservative groups for additional reviews. Organizations with the words “tea party” or “patriot” were singled out for harassment, such as requiring them to provide a list of donors, details about their internet postings on social networking websites, and information about their family members.When this was first reported by the media in May 2013, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that had conducted these illegal activities, claimed that only low level...

A timeline of Internal Revenue Service activities that was developed by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and provided to congressional staff indicates that early last year—as the nation was headed toward a presidential election—the IRS issued a “be on the lookout order” (BOLO) for officials in its “Determinations Unit” to ferret out for heightened scrutiny organizations applying for tax exempt status that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” The inspector general’s timeline indicates that as early as March 2010 the IRS’ “Determinations Unit” had begun targeting for special scrutiny organizations that used...