A federal judge is threatening to hold IRS commissioner John Koskinen in contempt for his agency’s failure to turn over emails sent by disgraced former IRS official Lois Lerner.
“I will haul into court the IRS Commissioner to hold him personally into contempt,” U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan said Wednesday in a hearing related to the nonprofit group Judicial Watch’s lawsuit against the IRS for Lerner’s emails.
Sullivan issued an order July 1 requiring the IRS and its legal representatives at the Department of Justice to brief his court with “status reports” on the search for Lerner’s emails. Though the IRS recently found more emails, the agency did not give Sullivan a status report.
Sullivan called the IRS’ inability to follow his order “indefensible, ridiculous, and absurd.”
Sullivan also threatened to hold Department of Justice attorneys in contempt.
The IRS claims that Lerner’s computer crashed, erasing her emails, during the period in which she was improperly targeting conservative groups. (RELATED: Justice Department Blocked Search for Lerner’s Emails).
Lerner was already held in contempt by Congress, but still has not forked over her emails.
Republicans in Congress are currently calling for IRS commissioner John Koskinen’s firing — a sentiment echoed by GOP presidential contenders including Mike Huckabee.