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POLITICS

House to Consider I.R.S.Commissioner’s ImpeachmentBy DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and JACKIE CALMES MAY 23, 2016

WASHINGTON — When the House Judiciary Committee convenes onTuesday to consider the alleged misdeeds of the Internal Revenue Servicecommissioner, John Koskinen, it will contemplate action that has not beentaken in more than 140 years, and that in some respects has never beenpursued: the impeachment of an agency head of Mr. Koskinen’s rank.

Tuesday’s hearing on accusations by House Republicans that Mr.Koskinen lied under oath to Congress and defied a congressional subpoena is aremarkable moment, even for a Washington long fractured by partisanship.

Not since Secretary of War William W. Belknap in 1876 has the Houseimpeached an administration official other than the president, said Michael J.Gerhardt, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law and anexpert on the federal impeachment process. And an official below thepresident’s cabinet has never been impeached.

“This is unprecedented in many respects,” Professor Gerhardt said.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Finance Committee,has made clear that the Senate would not convict Mr. Koskinen, which wouldrequire a nearly impossible two-thirds vote. But the effort in the Househighlights the extent to which the I.R.S. has become a symbol for HouseRepublicans of everything they despise about the federal bureaucracy, andtheir outrage about what they view as a pattern of obstruction by the Obamaadministration.

“We can have our disagreements with him, but that doesn’t mean there’san impeachable offense,” Mr. Hatch said last week.

Mr. Koskinen was not even in government when the I.R.S. admitted tosingling out the tax-exemption applications of Tea Party groups for scrutiny.Organizations on the I.R.S.’s “lookout lists” went beyond conservative groupsto include groups like Palestinian rights activists and open-softwaredevelopers, but the scrutiny of hundreds of Tea Party applicants infuriatedcongressional Republicans.

President Obama turned to Mr. Koskinen in 2013 to lead the I.R.S.because of his reputation in the public and private sectors as a go-to managerof troubled enterprises. Mr. Koskinen, who was 74 at the time, agreed.

“He is one of the truly dedicated public servants who has been respected as atop government manager for years,” said G. William Hoagland, who was alongtime staff director of the Senate Budget Committee and fiscal policyadviser to Senate Republican leaders.

But amid the mishandling of email messages sought as evidence by Houseinvestigators, that fury turned on him. Mr. Koskinen will not appear at theTuesday hearing, the I.R.S. said on Monday, because he just returned from amultinational tax conference in China and had little time to prepare given thecommittee’s recent invitation.

“He provided, I think, a whole series of false testimony,” said

Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah and chairman of the HouseOversight and Government Reform Committee, who is one of the leaders ofthe push for impeachment. “You can’t be under a duly issued subpoena andmislead Congress, and when you provide false testimony there has to be aconsequence.”

“We’re left with no other remedy,” Mr. Chaffetz added. “The F.B.I. is notgoing to take action. The president is not going to take action, but clearly heprovided false testimony.”

Congressional Democrats and the White House have characterized thecriticism as part of a broader effort by Republicans bent on destroying theI.R.S. by slashing its budget and impeding its work.

“Instead of taking real action on critical issues that involve the securityand well-being of Americans, House Republicans are busy engaging in politicalwitch hunts,” said Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the seniorDemocrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

The drive to impeach Mr. Koskinen is running parallel to the Republicans’investigation into the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, andallegations against Planned Parenthood.

“The fact is that John Koskinen has assumed a very difficult task, and thattask has been made only more difficult by the false accusations of Republicansand by the continued insistence of Republicans to cut the budget for theI.R.S.,” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said at a briefing lastweek.

The case against Mr. Koskinen focuses on testimony that he gave toCongress as part of inquiries into whether the I.R.S. improperly scrutinizedapplications for tax-exempt status by conservative political groups. The I.R.S.admitted the improper conduct and apologized. The Justice Departmentultimately said it had found mismanagement but no crime, and it did not bring

any charges.

Mr. Koskinen started as commissioner of the I.R.S. in December 2013,well after the scrutiny was exposed.

But House Republicans continued their investigations, and say the newcommissioner lied during testimony in the winter and spring of 2014. Theypoint to assurances that the I.R.S. would turn over email messages sent andreceived by Lois Lerner, a senior official in the Exempt Organizations Divisionfrom 2009 to 2010, when Tea Party-affiliated groups applying for tax-exemptstatus were unfairly scrutinized.

Professor Gerhardt said that impeachment might be appropriate ifRepublicans proved their case. “Lying to Congress is a very serious charge, andif somebody were actually guilty of that, that is a perfectly legitimate basis fortheir removal,” he said.

But he said Republicans could undermine their effort if they focused onpolitical arguments and potential wrongdoing by the I.R.S., rather than thelegal arguments against Mr. Koskinen.

Mr. Koskinen’s supporters say some of the House members pushing forimpeachment have been using the effort for their own political gain, includingto raise campaign donations. They also note that in recent weeks, thechairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Robert W.Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, has come under pressure by a conservativechallenger in the Republican primary, Harry Griego.

Some House Republicans have made clear that the targeting by the I.R.S.is still the main backdrop.

“We know they targeted people’s most cherished right, their FirstAmendment free speech rights, their political speech rights,” saidRepresentative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and a leading proponent of

impeachment. “They did it systematically. They did it for a sustained period oftime, and then they got caught. And when they got caught, Mr. Koskinen’sresponse to those investigations has been terrible.”

Mr. Koskinen was unavailable for comment last week, but in an interviewin April he called the House impeachment resolution, which was introduced inthe fall, “groundless.”

“We testified truthfully and completely on the basis of what we knew atthe time,” he said. He attributed the loss of some of Ms. Lerner’s emails to “theinadvertent destruction of very old tapes.”

Mr. Koskinen is something of an unlikely target for the first impeachmentof an agency’s leader. Before his I.R.S. appointment, he was enlisted to run themortgage giant Freddie Mac when it was put under governmentconservatorship in September 2008 during the nation’s financial crisis. Beforethat, he was named by President Bill Clinton to lead a federal task forceoverseeing the tricky “Y2K” computer coding transition at the turn of thecentury, and the deputy director for management of the White House Office ofManagement and Budget.

Still, only two Republicans voted with Democrats to confirm Mr.Koskinen for the I.R.S. job. One was Mr. Hatch, who last week told reporters atthe Capitol, “For the most part, he’s been very cooperative with us.”

Fred T. Goldberg Jr., a tax lawyer and Republican who was thecommissioner of the I.R.S. under the first President George Bush, calledcharges of unethical or illegal behavior “preposterous” and calls forimpeachment “just way over the line.”

But House Republicans are resolute. Last week, Mr. Chaffetz proposed aresolution censuring Mr. Koskinen. Mr. Chaffetz said he viewed the step as a“precursor” to impeachment, but one that also might be sufficient for somecolleagues who regarded impeachment as too drastic.

Mr. Chaffetz said he did not know if the full House would ultimately voteon impeachment.

“It’s incumbent upon us to make the case and rally enough support in theconference in order to justify it coming to the floor,” he said.

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A version of this article appears in print on May 24, 2016, on page A12 of the New York editionwith the headline: House to Consider I.R.S. Chief’s Impeachment, Without a Precedent.

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