Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, said the IRS has some “‘splainin'” to do.
In an appearance on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, Issa said Lois Lerner and other IRS employees will be held accountable for the targeting of conservative groups, and he’s doing everything in his power to ensure Lerner’s “lost” emails see the light of day.
“I think back to the old black and white series with Lucille Ball when Ricky Ricardo would say, ‘Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do,'” Issa said. “The IRS has some ‘splainin’ to do.”
Issa called out the IRS for the missing emails. According to Rep. Issa, emails don’t just “disappear.”
“They’re located on servers that are either continuously backed up or backed up at least nightly,” Issa said. “We believe these emails could be found unless, in fact, the IRS and Lois Lerner have made sure they can’t be found. We expect that forensics will get them. Right now, we’ve subpoenaed the hard drive in question.”
“We’re tired of in fact being misled or lied to,” he continued. “In this case, the American people clearly were targeted for their belief and free speech by a president and an IRS who disagreed with the Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United. That’s at the core of all this. … If Lois Lerner’s the king pin, so be it. But if we can’t see the connections in her emails fully, we won’t know all the people who work with her to target unfairly Americans for what they believe, what they say, and who they want to associate with.”
Issa said Attorney General Eric Holder has no stomach to “go after friends of the president,” but if the emails fail to surface, Lois Lerner will be held accountable, and there will be repercussions under either this administration or the next.
“Lois Lerner broke regulations. Lois Lerner broke laws, and Lois Lerner under oath testified she didn’t,” Issa said. “I consider that perjury. I expect that she will be criminally referred, and if not under this attorney general who seems to have no stomach for going after friends of the President, under the next president, those charges will be brought.”