team. she is not the leader of the investigation. >> despite the fact that she is not the lead investigator, they continue to assert that her political donations have created a startling conflict of interest. this supposed conflict of interest is key justification for some republican members for a request that a special prosecutor be appointed to conduct a criminal investigation. days before introducing a resolution requesting special counsel, chairman jordan said we needed special counsel to help us get to the truth. it has no credibility because it is being headed by someone financially interested in the president's.

>> i do not believe there is merit. >> on june 26, the department of justice sent a letter concluding the appointment of the special counsel is not warranted. can you explain the determination as to why special counsel is not needed? >> we look at the regulations. we go by the law. we look at what the regulations are. we have talked about it in this hearing. ms. bosserman's activities do not come near the regulation for her disqualification. there is no reason to take it away from the normal, regular -- doing a job. other people were involved. she is part of a much larger team.

that is usually the best way to do an investigation. >> congress should be addressing other issues. provide a level of decorum and stability so that those of us on the committee who do want to get to the truth and have a fair and impartial process can do so without having an abusive setting in which to operate. is there a financial interest in the president's success? >> i do not believe she does. you do not have a financial interest. i know several leading ethics attorneys have been asked to behind on that. the 112,000 employees, you

could not find someone who did not have this perceived financial interest? perceiveds no interests. >> there is by the american people. district anyto my time you want. >> the gentleman from arizona is recognized. things, you get my point. can you tell me about the statute of 6103. who gets that? 6103.m not an expert in >> i want to make a comparison.

i have no hippo regulations. i am not excused from that. itn we are talking about within the irs or for anybody working in the federal they are astute as to who gets 6103. when i am under a malpractice case, i am not under -- four osha. does anyone get away with 6103? >> if you violate it, you should not get away with it. >> i can get away with a 6103?

>> that is not what i am trying to say. when we share 6103, there has to doj. from >> there has to be approval from the irs as i understand it. they have to authorize that. >> do you have that in your position? disk withou a applications. individuals have privileged information. withmember of congress, pertinent information, this is a sharing aspect of disk. she knew what was on there.

>> it was represented to us at the time he came that there was not. >> she is the one who sent it. she has a correspondence with the fbi. mean sheoes not prepared the disk. >> she has oversight of that, right? >> whether or not whoever sent it knew there was 6103 information on it. she is the one talking to the fbi. it gives me more pertinent information that there was a violation of 6103. >> there has to be an intentional violation. the question was, the information that was included,

whether it was inadvertent or intentional. at the time it was provided we were told that there was no non-public information. >> then once again, you were told that there was no non-pertinent information -- >> non-public. >> non-public information. so once again to me this brings this issue up of this being pertinent information and that when congress says that we're doing contempt charges, when we're looking at the criminal or civil violation of an oath of office, doesn't that give us some aspect of hedging our bet? >> i'm not sure what you mean. >> wouldn't this kind of go in the mindset of a u.s. attorney that they would actually bring fort the contempt charges issued by congress? >> i believe the u.s. attorney for the district of columbia has the contempt citation and is reviewing it and has assigned it to somebody and the matter is being reviewed. >> let me ask you a question the you keep bringing up this olson ruling. isn't that subjective and interpretative?

the statute is very specific. >> the opinions by the office of legal counsel, when they issue formal opinions, are binding on the executive branch. >> but isn't there also, when there's a conflict between the legislative intent of the language and the executive branch, that we have to have a better review, to just one interive aspect would not be good enough? >> i'm sure somebody could probably challenge that in the right forum in court, if they don't agree with the opinion. generally the way the structure is set up for o.l.c. is they are the source of legal advice for the executive branch. >> well, thank you. the chairman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. cole. >> are you interrupting me? isn't there decorum? >> i was asking the chairman -- >> i guess i'll yield. >> please, mr. chairman. nevada is recognized. >> i was asking whether the chairman had made a determination on my request for unanimous consent to enter the document. >> i apologize. i forgot to look at that. if we can take a look and staff

look at the document, then we'll look at it. >> general cole, would you put up on the board the chart, please? i'm glad you brought up this whole question. this is a little small, a little complex, but that chart up on the board shows the attorney general followed by you, followed by a whole group of associates, followed by all the division chiefs. virtually all of those people are political appointees, aren't they? >> many of them are. >> virtually all. you and the attorney general and your direct reports are political appointees. >> by and large, most of them are. some are career but the vast majority are political appointees. >> even if they're career, they're career people who serve at the pleasure. i mean, you can move them around. >> some. they're in the s.c.s. service. but the vast majority are political appointees. >> and the head of the civil rights division? >> right now that person is an

acting person and is a career employee. >> but they serve at the pleasure of you. >> that's correct. although there's certain civil servants. >> but you can move them right to some other position. >> that would possibly be correct. >> they keep their pay, but they lose their job. and the criminal division? >> same thing. >> that person is a political appointee approved by the senate. so when we talk about ms. bosserman and the team she's on, everybody practically from her team all the way up to your boss, you're all political appointees who control their lives and so on. so when the question was asked and the gentleman from nevada's left, but i think fairly, he was saying, well -- he was asking you, and you answered, oh, of course, we don't need a special prosecutor. don't you understand, the american people see you as a political appointee. they see your boss, who's been held in contempt by the house to for failure to comply, they see them get 9-0 against you. now, i'm going to go to one

quick one. your legal opinions included your brief in fast and furious, didn't they? >> your legal opinions led to those briefs in the fast and furious case that's currently in the district court in washington. >> we have our lawyers in the civil division who draft those. >> so your legal opinions were that you didn't have to provide them, and that you were immune from having to provide them, and that -- and specifically, your opinion was that she didn't have the right to adjudicate that, wasn't that so? >> i believe that was the position we took. >> and didn't judge jackson say just the opposite, that she did have the authority and that she found the same as judge bates did in an earlier case that your premise was wrong, an aren't you relitigating the

exact same thing that president bush lost? >> we are relitigating positions constantly. >> so you're part of an administration that can relitigate that which has been decided. just yesterday you decided that there was an inherent -- your administration decided there was an inherent right not to deliver a federal employee, even though in the harriet myers bolton case it was made clear that depositions and witness subpoenas were in fact binding. so the strange thing is, when you talk about legal opinions -- and i appreciate the former solicitor and how well he's held in regard. but what you're saying is you pick an opinion, and the opinion can be wrong, but your opinion is that you don't fall under us, that in fact our oversight is irrelevant, that

you don't have to answer our questions, you don't have to produce documents, and you can withhold. that's been a consistent pattern of this administration. and just yesterday the president of the united states asserted a brand-new right, an inherent right not to deliver a political appointee who serves and interfaces with the d.n.c. and the dccc -- that's the democratic national committee and the democratic national congressional committee -- works directly with those heads to plan the president's targeting of races to support democrats for their re-election on a partisan basis, and we're not even allowed to hear from that person because there's an inherent right not to produce that. so when you ask -- when you say here that you stand and the attorney general's letter is well thought out that you don't need a special prosecutor, do you know how absurd it sounds to the american people? absurd it sounds to the american people that you don't need a special prosecutor because all you political

appointees overseeing a team of people who may, at the lowest level, actually be career people hoaching to move up, that -- hoping to move up, that you political people aren't influencing it, that there's no influence? i just find it amazing. i know he left, and i'm sorry he left because he would get an opportunity once again to take the party line. you're not prosecuting a contempt of congress because you've got this new opinion that "shall" doesn't mean shall presented to the court or, in this case, to the grand jury. but you haven't given it to us and today is the first time we hear about it. so i join with the chairman in reiterating that we need a special prosecutor because you're a political appointee, your boss is a political appointee held in contempt by congress, the people who work for you work at your pleasure and you're controlling an

investigation that is slowly reaching no decision, when in fact lois learner has been found by a committee of this congress to have violated laws as she targeted conservatives for their views. this committee has produced a massive document showing that lois lerner targeted them and not liberal groups and yet, you sit here today i am applying that you're relying -- implying that you're relying on well known more conservatives' decisions as though we're supposed to believe that. i've got to tell you, when the gentleman from nevada talks about contempt, yes. we have contempt for the man you work for because in fact congress has, as a matter of record, held him in contempt for failure to deliver documents. your office has implied that a federal judge had no right to even consider a case that was directly on point a nixon-era point of lying to congress and then refusing to deliver documents related to those false statements.

i am ashamed that you sit here day after day implying that there's no reason for a special prosecutor. the whole reason you want an independent prosecutor is not to be innocent of somebody down low, but to be independent of you. so, chairman, i thank you for your indulgence and i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. i would just -- well, let me do this. one of their line of questioning here, mr. cole. i know you've been here a while and we're almost done. august 27, 2010, then chairman of the white house council revealed private taxpayer information about koch industries in order to imply they somehow didn't pay their full amount of taxes. goolsbee knew this information and whether he inappropriately protected tax information remains unknown. my question to you is this -- if a white house employee without 6103 authority viewed

6103 protected information and made that public, would he or she wash what he or she learned from that information, would that be a crime? >> you know, i'd have to have all the facts and circumstances. what generally happens when there's disclosure of 6103 information is tigda for the i.r.s. investigates the matter, determines whether or not there's been a criminal violation of 6103 and if they do believe there has been one, they present it to the justice department. >> have you guys investigated this matter? have you or are you going to investigate this matter? >> this is it. it depends on whether tigda determines whether or not there is evidence of criminal activity. so that's up to tigda to decide. >> finally, and then i'll let the ranking member have some time, too, before we conclude. i just want to go back to the chairman, to reiterate this.

this is so frustrating to me and so frustrating to so many of the good folks i get the chance of representing in the fourth district of ohio. when in fact you have the fact pattern we do, the f.b.i. leaking to the "wall street journal" no one is going to be prosecuted. the president prejudicing the case with his comments about no corruption. the fact that barbara bosserman is the lead investigator part of the team and a maximum contributor to the president's campaign. the fact that two had interaction with lois lerner, that you had a database of 1.1 million pages of taxpayer information, donor c-4 information. you had it for four years and some of that information was confidential. all that fact, all that cries out for a special prosecutor. i would think you would want it

just so you can say, look, we're going to be as unbiased -- that would be a welcome thing to do, to find something that everyone can agree on. fine. let them do the investigation. that would be something it seems that you would want. as others have pointed out, if that doesn't warrant a special prosecutor, i don't know what does. i do not know what does. when i look at the elements contained in the statute -- if that doesn't meet it, i don't know if you ever could meet it. with that, i do thank you for being here today, mr. cole and i will yield to the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and just a few points i want to cover at the end of this hearing. number one, i want to note that the chairman of the full committee was highly critical of our fellow member, mr. horseford, noting that he left the room. the fact of the matter is that we have been called to vote and we have less than seven minutes to vote. that's why mr. horseford was

not here and was not here to defend himself against the charges made by the chairman of the committee. secondly, before we let you go, i want to -- i think i speak on behalf of the full committee that we all really want to know what happened to those missing emails, all of us. and we are all somewhat skeptical that they can't be recovered in some fashion. and we urge you to do your utmost and urge your colleagues to find those missing emails. because when there are emails missing, it makes people suspicious and it leads to unfounded charges, reckless allegations. this is an arena where reckless allegations find a home. and so i think it would make a lot of sense to redouble your efforts to find those emails.

i also want to mention, a lot has been made in this hearing today about improper influence on the i.r.s. having to do with citizens united and the way that the i.r.s. folks were targeting certain 501 c-4 groups. i want to mention here that the inspector general's report, mr. george, found that lois lerner, the former director of exempt organizations at the i.r.s., did not discover the use of these inappropriate criteria that we are all talking about until a year later, in june 2011, after which she immediately ordered the practice to stop. this is something found by -- >> will the gentleman yield for just one point of clarification? >> certainly. >> we have been going back to this tgda report that says that she didn't know until june of 2011 when the majority of the tgda were based on emails. now that we know that emails

are missing to make that conclusion is hard and i wanted to point that out. yield back. >> that's a fair point. i want to go on. i also want to point on it that the inspector general's report found that employees subsequently began using different inappropriate criteria without management knowledge. the inspector general's report, mr. george, stated, and i quote, "the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the i.r.s." in other words, russell george, the inspector general, whose report brought here before this committee started the firestorm that has been raging for more than a year and a half, his report said flat out that these i.r.s. people were not

influenced by any organization or individual outside the i.r.s.. i yield. >> one every the reasons is we didn't have the report from lois lerner. but for that we never would have had mr. pill ger or mr. smith from the justice department for a deposition. mr. george didn't have that information in his hand. >> let's let the witness answer a question here. mr. cole, are you aware of any information to the effect that inspector general's statement there is incorrect? >> no. the understanding i have of the interactions between the justice department and the i.r.s. on those two meetings was that the i.r.s. in the first one said there's really nothing we can do here, and nothing came of it. and in the second meeting there was never any substance discussed. it never was followed up on.

>> i thank you for that, ann and i yield back, mr. chairman. >> the point i'm making is that's the time frame -- if that's the time frame where the emails are lost -- i'm not even sure the i.r.s. was going to tell us they lost the emails but for the requests which uncovered the richard pilger-lois lerner correspondence. once they knew we got something from justice, then the i.r.s. says wait a minute, we better let them know we lost all the emails during that time period and mr. cole has told us today that maybe some of the documents they're withholding from the committee are more of that correspondence. >> i didn't say that. >> you said you can't guarantee it's not. >> that's correct. >> that's correct. so -- >> because i haven't seen them. i just can't answer your question. >> well, it would have been nice if you had looked at them before you came here to testify today and you could have answered that question, right? i wish you had done your home work there and know what documents -- you would think you would know what documents you're withholding from the committee. >> i know we're in the process

of gathering and collecting them, and that that process is not done yet. >> we've been trying to get you here for a couple of weeks. we accommodated your schedule. you knew we were going to be asking about the stuff you withheld from us and you didn't even review it? >> i knew what the status was of the review. >> so you cannot guarantee that some of the documents you're withholding are lois lerner documents. >> i can't tell you either way. >> because you didn't look at them. >> we've been investigating this thing for 14 months. you would think you would have reviewed the documents you're not going to let us see. you'd think. i think my ranking member -- the ranking member would agree with that. you should have reviewed this stuff, and you didn't do it. and that's the whole point. we would have not known lois lerner emails were lot and getting that one email which showed, wait a minute, richard pilger was talking with

lois lerner in 2010 and we never would have known that. we've got to vote. we're out of time. thank the deputy attorney general for being here and the committee is adjourned. >> up next, q and a with fred kaplan.

today, anthony foxx speaks at the luncheon series. country'sscuss the transportation needs and infrastructure spending. coverage begins at 1:00 p.m. eastern. >> our guest is author fred , talking about "john quincy adams: american visionary." >> i want to start with your

life of a biographer. if he had been dead, the experience of interviewing him, great as it was, was a difficult one. we had a bit of a falling out after the book was finished. it was gore the dall -- gore vidal. he is a distinctive american and a distinctive character. deep and conflicting tendencies. he could be generous and loyal. he could be very backbiting and

demanding. a controlling personality. bit and watch a little give people a chance to see what he looks like. i looked about my native city, i have a distinct sense we are living in a pre-revolutionary time. the race war grows more intense. poverty, more severe. the rich, richer. the hatred of those inside the beltway for those inside is now -- what else -- creating a true hatred on the part of the many for the few who govern, or appear to do so, since the decision-makers and paymasters are beyond our reach in the boardrooms. him at his witty and

perceptive best. i saw or as so big he was, unassertive and incisive personality. he was more often wrong than right. the career is a fascinating one in terms of the times of our history that he lived through. also, the relationship between his semi-aristocratic background, if you will him and his championship of the common voice. lex the year was 1999 that you did this. did you get into biography? biography when as a student of charles