After a contentious Wednesday hearing with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, South Carolina Republican congressman Trey Gowdy threatened to hold the top tax official in contempt of Congress unless he produces disgraced IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails by the end of this week.
Gowdy spoke with Fox News’ Greta van Susteren about Wednesday’s hearing, where a slew of GOP congressmen tore into Koskinen’s claim that responding to the Oversight committee’s subpoena for Lerner’s emails could take years.
“All we want are the emails to or from Lois Lerner — I’m not talking about private taxpayer information. That’s 6103, that’s confidential, that’s a separate conversation,” he said.
“Just emails like the one she sent celebrating a Democratic victory in a special election, calling on the FEC to save the day — overtly political, nothing to do with her job — we’ll just settle for those!” the congressman said. “And I even said just give me the ones from January 2010!”
In fact, if January 2010 emails from the head of the IRS’ Tea Party targeting are not received “by Friday,” Gowdy hinted that the committee would then target Koskinen himself.
“Well, we’re already going to do contempt of Congress for Lois Lerner,” he said, after Susteren asked what happens if the emails aren’t received. “That’s coming up in the very near future.”
“One of the reasons they don’t answer our subpoenas is they don’t fear any consequences,” Gowdy explained. “And that’s something I’ve never been able to explain to you, is why we don’t stand up for our institution more.”
“And that’s why we’re back to contempt,” Susteren noted.
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