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Two top senators Thursday demanded that the Obama administration explain why the Internal Revenue Service is using technology to secretly track cellphones that is normally the domain of law-enforcement agencies. The move by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont followed IRS Commissioner John Koskinen's admission to the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday that the agency uses the technology.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents that include an official “DOJ Recap” report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity. The newly obtained records also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress. Records also detail how the Obama IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing...

The Internal Revenue Service rehired 213 employees who ducked taxes, falsified documents, were convicted of theft, or made unauthorized use of taxpayer data, an inspector general’s report says. The Office of Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which also first discovered the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups in 2013, examined the agency’s hiring from January 2015 through March 2016. For these 15 months, the IRS official in charge was Commissioner John Koskinen, an appointee of resident Barack Obama. House Republicans for months sought to impeach Koskinen for obstructing a congressional probe into the agency’s targeting of the applications for tax-exempt...

Does IRS chairman John Koskinen have superpowers?  Or does he know things so incriminating about everyone that he not only retains his job (in the face of demands for his firing), but flaunts his ability to offer succor to abusive bureaucrats? Ali Meyer reports in the Washington Free Beacon: The Internal Revenue Service rehired employees who were previously involved in agency misconduct such as falsifying documents or having unauthorized access to sensitive taxpayer information, according to an audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Considering that identify theft is a major concern, auditors wanted to inspect the agency to ensure the...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen did not make a good impression at hearings of the House oversight committee on the agency's targeting of conservative groups. He was arrogant, unresponsive, and made snide comments about GOP members of the committee. Although appointed by the president to a term that ends this November, Koskinen has said he will step aside if the Trump White House requests it. If that's the case, you would think Koskinen would be one of the first Obama holdovers to lose his job. But more than 60 days into the Trump administration, Koskinen is still pulling down a generous...

An obscure bureaucratic policy that allowed IRS officials to target conservative and Tea Party tax exemption applicants during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns is still in place, meaning the same abuses may be continuing, according to a nonprofit government watchdog. The federal tax agency’s policy requires IRS officials to stop processing tax-exempt applications that are “likely to attract media or congressional attention,” the Cause of Action Institute said in a report made public Wednesday. The policy also directs IRS officials to prepare “sensitive case reports” for their supervisors and to ignore “the merits of the application” if it involved...

An off-the-record White House meeting with roughly two dozen conservative leaders Wednesday included explicit calls for President Trump to fire IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, according to a source in the room. White House conservative liaison Paul Teller organized the meeting Wednesday between Trump staffers and leaders of conservative groups including the Heritage Foundation and Judicial Watch. ... The broad consensus among attendees was that Trump needs to clean out Obama-era bureaucrats if he is going to be successful in pushing through his agenda. ... Koskinen has been in conservatives’ sights for a while now over political targeting of conservative non-profit...

A Washington-based government watchdog is warning President Trump to “clean house at the IRS as quickly as possible” – or, better yet, eliminate the “corrupt” agency altogether. The Internal Revenue Service admitted to a federal court Wednesday that it has identified nearly 7,000 documents that contain information concerning how the agency targeted tax-exempt applications of conservative political organizations. IRS commissioner John Koskinen has insisted since the scandal broke in 2013 that the agency had cooperated completely in the investigation of its targeting of conservative groups. Now, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the IRS revealed it has...

Blah blah blah. It’s garbage. Nobody’s trying to kill the IRS House conservatives formally introduced a resolution yesterday aimed at removing the defiantly corrupt IRS Commissioner John Koskinen from office. The impeachment resolution could see a vote this week. Rep. John Fleming, R-La., a sponsor of the resolution, offered the measure under special procedures that put the House of Representatives on track to vote Thursday. on the effort.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen referred congressional charges of corrupt Clinton Foundation “pay-to-play” activities to his tax agency’s exempt operations office for investigation, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. The request to investigate the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation on charges of “public corruption” was made in a July 15 letter by 64 House Republicans to the IRS, FBI and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They charged the foundation is “lawless.” The initiative is being led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who serves as the vice chairwoman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees FTC....

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was a no show Tuesday for a House Judiciary hearing accusing him of misconduct. That didn't stop lawmakers from blasting Koskinen and calling for his impeachment. The hearing stems from a 2013 investigation into IRS official Lois Lerner. Lerner was accused of unfairly targeting conservative and tea party groups by delaying their requests for tax-exempt status. Koskinen, who was brought in by President Barack Obama after the scandal unfolded, promised to provide key evidence, including thousands of Lerner's emails to assist Congress in their investigation. Tapes obtaining those emails were destroyed. Although many of the emails...

RS Commissioner John Koskinen has declined to testify in his own defense at a congressional hearing Tuesday, but insisted in a statement that his bungling of a subpoena doesn’t rise to the level of “treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors” needed for him to be impeached. The Judiciary Committee hearing is being viewed by some House Republicans as the precursor to impeachment, with the House’s top investigator saying Mr. Koskinen defied a congressional subpoena that demanded all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails be preserved as part of the investigation into tea party targeting. But Mr. Koskinen,...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will not appear at a “misconduct” hearing Tuesday where Republicans will lay out a case to impeach him for allegedly failing to comply with a congressional subpoena, the IRS told POLITICO. Lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee summoned the tax chief to answer accusations from the House Oversight panel that he failed to preserve documents Congress requested for its probe of the IRS tea party scandal. They also say he never told the full truth about erased back-up tapes containing copies of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner. Some Republicans even suspect the IRS...

The chairman of the top House investigative panel introduced a measure Wednesday to censure IRS Commissioner John Koskinen -- and remove him from office without a pension -- in the latest bid by Republicans to pressure him into being more cooperative in their probe of the 2013 IRS targeting scandal. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is seeking Koskinen’s resignation or removal for what he calls an alleged “pattern of conduct inconsistent with the trust and confidence placed in him as an officer of the United States.” If censured, Koskinen, who became commissioner in...

The IRS is struggling to ensure that illegal immigrants are able to illegally use Social Security numbers for legitimate purposes, the agency's head told senators on Tuesday, without allowing the numbers to be used for "bad" reasons. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen made the statement in response to a question from Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., during a session of the Senate Finance Committee about why the IRS appears to be collaborating with taxpayers who file tax returns using fraudulent information. Coats said that his staff had discovered the practice after looking into agency procedures. "What we learned is that ... the...

Forget about the stonewalling IRS Commissioner John Koskinen engaged in regarding the Lois Lerner emails; the lackluster attempt to find such emails; and the erasure of back-up tapes that contained 24,000 emails from Lerner which were under subpoena. Today, we honor John Koskinen for being quite the oinker when it comes to government spending (how am I not surprised?). That’s why Citizens Against Government Waste named him the Porker of the Month: The ceaseless refrain from Commissioner Koskinen when criticized is to blame congressional budget cuts for IRS failures. This response rings hollow in the face of the IRS spending $4.3 million on...

John Koskinen, the strange, David Icke-like lizard person currently in charge of the Internal Revenue Service, has told Congress to forget about abolishing the agency: The IRS commissioner on Tuesday brushed aside GOP proposals to abolish his agency, insisting the U.S. would have to have a tax collector one way or another. “You can call them something other than the IRS if that made you feel better,” the agency’s chief, John Koskinen, said after a speech at the National Press Club.Republicans have heaped even more criticism upon the agency than usual over the last 22 months because of its...

mmigration: Aliens granted executive amnesty by President Obama will be eligible for tax credits for the years they worked here illegally. But wasn't amnesty supposed to benefit the economy and not drain the U.S. Treasury? Subverting the Constitution to grant millions of illegal aliens work permits and freedom from deportation apparently isn't enough for the Obama administration. It now intends, through the Internal Revenue Service, to subvert the tax code to let these illegals collect billions in retroactive Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) payments. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, an unindicted co-conspirator in the cover-up of the IRS Tea Party targeting...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, infamous for his defiant congressional testimony about the inappropriate targeting of conservative tea party groups, is warning that budget cuts to the agency will cause delayed refunds, more identity theft, long wait times for help and a possible shut down of the agency ... Koskinen doesn't mention the extra hell Obamacare rules are putting tax filers through this year... Maybe Koskinen should ask IRS employees who owe back taxes to pay up in order to help fill the gap. Or how about avoiding handing out bonuses worth millions to employees who owe back taxes to the...

Tax Reform: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, might have hit on the most important fiscal issue facing the U.S.: the need for major tax reform. But he takes it a step further. Speaking Monday, the senator from Texas threw another thunderbolt: Republicans should use their control of Congress to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. "We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer," he told a crowd at a Heritage Foundation event. "And I'll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS."...