lerner's hard drive crash. hard to challenge this as an attempt to stonewall-- sorry, hard to characterize it as an attempt to stonewall-- stonewall a congressional investigation. the overall record of multiple investigations failed to support the allegations leveled in this hearing and i regret we are not addressing many of the issues that the irs that were raised by the gentle lady from washington that would have a real impact on the services provided to our constituents and i also regret there was no time today to hold a hearing on criminal justice reform, gun violence prevention, legislation to protect intellectual property rights of artists and musicians or comprehensive immigration reform and with that, i yield back. >> chair thinks the gentleman and recognizes the gentleman from south carolina four, five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i was thinking to myself as the chairman was talking about the chronology of this investigation as these two witnesses well-- well know that there were about a half-d

lerner and all of that. the premise is of course all the information and charges made by discriminating against conservative groups, are they not? >> the underlying concern and need -- >> came about through all of that. >> yes. >> right. and so the basis of which the doj investigation found no evidence to suggest any crime. and so in respect to the commissioner, his answers cannot be part of a crime. if they found no basis for such crime. if he's answering best of his knowledge, he cannot -- maybe bad behavior, but not an impeachable offense. >> i would disagree with that. >> that's why we have that right of disagreements. this is the impeachment committee. mr. issa asked you if we had threatened impeachment hundreds of times. you said yes. if that turns out to be untrue have you given us yourself a false testimony and should you be removed from office? >> well, i hope i've given everything as accurate. if i find there is something inaccurate, i have a duty and obligation to as swiftly as possible correct th

lerner's e-mails and mr. koskinen testified that he knew in february that this is his quote on july 23, 2014 hearing quote what i was advised anew in february was that when you look at these e-mails that have already been provided to the committee and other investigations and instead of looking at them by search terms looked at them by date was clear there were fewer e-mails than than that. matthew 20 lebanon subsequently. there was also island was told there had there had been a problem with ms. lerner's computer. the question is what did mr. koskinen under subpoena do about it? after all he had the subpoena. he just learned the most crucial evidence covered by the subpoena was missing so you'd expect him to spring into action but let's start with what he did not do. according to the treasury inspector general he failed to look in five of the six places ms. lerner's e-mails could exist in the backup tapes, her blackberry, the server, the backup server and the loaner laptop. in fact the irs barely looked for

[video clip] >> lois lerner. >> where is lois lerner? >> the possibility of criminal activity. >> the whole truth and nothing but retrieve. let the record show the witness incident near from affirmative. >> i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right. nerve.lore >> bits of these is over the years. what does it look altogether. let's rewind. in 2013, the irs admitted to the selective intentional targeting of american taxpayers based on their political beliefs. this is lois lerner. she of intentional tampering and she was unwilling to cooperate. to get to the truth, come inside to obtain and review documents. was a sequence of obscure occasion, destruction, and hiding of evidence. the people were left with no real answers as to why there first of amendment right was violated. of targeting percolating in june 2011, ways and means chairman wrote a withr to the irs allegations of the irs mistreatment of conservative groups. nine months later, in march 2012, chairman darrell isaiah oversightrman of the committee sent a letter. by may 2013

this includes over 78,000 e-mails sent or received by lois lerner.d to challenge this as an attempt to still rule -- stonewall the investigation. it fails to support the llegations leveled in this hearing. raised by the gentlelady from ashington. we should hold a hearing on criminal justice reform or gun iolence. mr. gary: mr. gowdy: they were about a half dozen offenses offered by the irs during the course of his investigation. it began with the two people in ohio. hich was that the irs was to accompany it to construct such a scheme. olice we were equal in our iscrimination they said. the president himself did not personally approve this targeting scheme therefore you don't need to look at it. i know the next hearing is about the process that has been mentioned. hat the standard of proof? is it clear and convincing evidence? is it beyond a reasonable doubt? do the rules of evidence apply? can you use hearsay? impeachment is a penalty. that's exactly right. what congress really wants his access to the documents. you can't conduct an investigation if

in the wake of this scandal, then irs official lois lerner stepped down from her position but questioned remained about scope of abuses by the irs. the allegations of misconduct are serious and includes the following, on his watch, volume of information crucial to the investigation into the irs targeting scandal were destroyed. before the tapes were destroyed congressional demands including subpoena for information about the irs targeting scandal went unanswered. he provided misleading testimony before the house oversight and government reform committee concerning irs efforts to provide information to congress. these are serious allegations of misconduct and this committee has taken these allegations seriously. over the past several months this committee has meticulously poured through thousands of pages of information produced by the investigation into this matter resulting in this hearing today which will giver the the house oversight and government reform committee the opportunity to formerly present its findings and evidence to the members of this committee. we will hear from represe

so he is on the job lerner, he is a great lerner. we had number one-on-one conversations past couple weeks. there is soreness out there. but like every other campaign season. the democrats will have to coalesce too but i think we'll do a better job than they will come the fall. deirdre: when you mentioned coalescing, donald trump in some respects honestly has a harder path to go on in the idea of unity. not everybody in the republican party has been behind him. in fact mitt romney very openly criticized him about his tax returns and trump is saying listen i will be the first candidate since 1976 to make a decision not to release my returns. mitt romney as you know told neil cavuto that trump is probably hiding something. we'll play this quick clip, so everyone is on the same page. hold on anthony. >> frankly i think we have good reason to believe that there is a bombshell in donald trump's taxes. david: what do you mean? >> i think there something there. that he is not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is or not paying kind of t

lois lerner was head of the exempt organizations unit, and it was under her watch and steven miller's and the prior irs commissioner, doug shulman, that this all occurred. and so there was an acting commissioner who was fired by the president, president obama, may 15th, 2013, and he appointed an interim, acting, another acting irs commissioner, danny wer full. december 2013 a new commissioner nominated and confirmed by congress, and took office in january of 2014. and that individual is john koskinen. and when he took office, just to give you a little bullet point of what the em pichmeimpeachmen is prem isd upon, when john koskinen, at time he took office as commissioner, he should never have been nominated, never confirmed. this was at a time when the irs was under siege for politicalization of exempt organizations, john koskinen was an active partisan donor, given over $80,000 to democrats presidents, president obama, hillary clinton, in the ten years preceding his becoming irs commissioner. so it was a very bad idea to put him in that job in the first place. but at the time he took

they didn't even look at lois lerner's blackberry. surprised he's not availing himself to testify. eric: the agency says he just came back from a trip to china and he hasn't had time to prepare for this. what do you think they are trying to hide? >> how did he respond when he was commissioner to congress trying to get the truth. when you destroy lerner's emails that prevents the american people from being able to identify the truth. either he was intentionally stonewalling or his false statements and destroyed emails are the result of gross negligence. but either way that meets the standards for constitutional misdemeanors. the. eric: could it go to the full house floor? >> we'll lay out the factual case what he did to obstruct the congressional investigation. we hope our members become apprised of those facts and agree with us. we'll do a follow-on hearing regarding the standard for impeachment. that will be in a couple weeks. my hope is after that time there is as consensus in the house that we can't allow this guy to operate under

in the irs case it was implicated in that scandal because they were involved with lois lerner. the fbi was not a disinterested party so they're doing the irs investigation and surprise, surprise, no criminal charges arise out of it. in this case, i don't think they've got that conflict, so maybe they'll do a better job. the fbi should be subject to the same scrutiny as any other federal agency. host: all right. we have sue from gothersberg, maryland. caller: i'm not sure people really understand the importance of what foia is. >> there are amazing amounts of information that they wouldn't have. i encourage folks to write a check to judicial watch because you're writing a check to save the country. i just can't support the organization enough and i'm proud to be a member. tom, you're doing great work. keep it up. guest: thank you for that. that's an essential point. the freedom of information act is somewhat limited. i can't get president obama's phone messages, for instance. at least not yet. it doesn't apply to congress. congress should be held to account for that. it doesn't

when my sister lerner would be presenting a book she gave me a vice if it goes over good do it every time you speak. / with like to announce this is my first appearance but it is my first appearance in this area so that is very cool and also my first appearance on booktv so it is wonderful for me. tonight i thought i would start with a very short reading from the introductions of you have not read it you will get an idea of the scope as there are three plot lines. i don't have time to talk about all of them so i would give u.s. sense of what it is about and i will talk about one of the characters that everybody knows to associate with boston and then we should have plenty of time for discussion. >> i will start with the introduction from the book "the fever of 1721". >> 1721 might be the most important year in the evolution of modern medicine and american liberty. with a smallpox epidemic a long position that saved hundreds of lives launched a new medical discipline the eradication of the most deadly disease. the inoculation overtime would be modified to prevent the deaths of untold

. >> his biggest issue was lois lerner.it started. >> they were targeting americans and suppressing their first amendment right based on their political beliefs. then when we go to ask for those document after lois lerner plead the fifth. they don't provide them to congress even though they told us they had them, then they went ahead and destroyed them. you can't do that and get away with it. the fir step was the chairman, we are grateful to him for having the fact pattern in this case. we have another hearing coming up in june about the remedy and the constitutional provisions there. because like you said, it hasn't been used in a long time. then i think mr. koskinen need to lawyer up. this thing is marching forward. we had a very good hearing yesterday and we'll keep after it. bill: you usually asked the questions. what was it like the other way around? >> i had to go to bathroom. it's hard to sit there for a long time. i feel comfortable about what you have to do. it was interesting to be on the other side of those quest

this is next step in a process that began during my tenure, one in which we tried to have lois lernerd to get the information that existed and, quite candidly, the ways and means committee referred to the department of justice for criminal prosecution and the fbi director and the justice department refused to perform the duty that was statutorily their requirement. so i think although no decision has been made to the merit of this case, for jason chaffetz it is very clear, his next step could not be another referral to a justice department that is part of a cover-up by willfully failing to execute its duties. i think there is nothing more to say than, this is the logical next step in the chairman's mind. neil: congressman, you have indicated that you would support donald trump. many in your party have come to that same conclusion even though they personally disavowed him during the campaign season but they are largely rallying around him. not although. what do you say to those who are holding back? what is your argument to say, support donald trump or we all go down? >> well, look i'm

lois lerner was the head of the exempt organizations unit.was under her watch and stephen miller's watch and the prior irs commissioner that this all happened. there was an acting commissioner it was fired by the president, president obama may 15, 2013, and he appointed interim -- another acting irs commissioner. danny warfel, who was at the head of omb. in november 2013, a new commissioner was nominated and confirmed by congress, and took office in january 2014. and that individual is john koskinen. when he took office, just to give you a little bullet point of what the mps to resolution is premised upon -- when john koskinen, at the time he took office, he should never have been nominated and never confirmed. this is a time of the irs was under siege for its politicization of its review of exempt organization applications. john koskinen was a very active part -- partisan donor. he'd given almost $80,000 to democratic candidates, the president obama campaign, hillary clinton, in the 10 years preceding his becoming irs commissioner. it was a

if there were people who had don't things lois lerner had done, president trump would be calling formp has couple with an enemies list he's going to target. he attacked amazon. this likely pick for a.g. is chris christie who has a history of targeting political opponent. the problem with obama's white house is the culture. we saw the james rosen piece on iran. with no accountability. the targeting conservatives with the irs. there i a culture that comes from the top. i don't think the president make the decisions. he establishes a culture ... charles: the underlings want to please their boss, whether it's employed. we know the story broke a while back. and the same kind of targeting continues. they blame bad training. they had a litany of excuses that don't make any sense. >> these cases which were first launched are coming to the d.c. circuit court of appeal. these judges are saying there have been egregious vie layings of people's first amendment right. so this is not casual we conservatives think there is a war on conservatives so they are making these thing up. these are impartia

lying under oath and failing to preserve evidence from the irs targeting scandal that involved miss lerner, a low-level irs official during the first obama turn. koskinen's tenure began after that targeting against tea party groups was exposed. rather unusually, today's witnesses feature to members of the judiciary committee itself. congressman jason chivas of utah, ron desantis of florida presented the case against koskinen. democrats on the panel site the findings of an inspector general in the treasury department that there is no evidence that anyone in irs sought to hide evidence from congress. the justice department or the inspector general's office and more fundamentally, the panelsplit along party lines this morning on what kind of proceeding they were conducting this morning . >> this is not an impeachment inquiry . i think you usethat phrase . >> it's aninquiry into the recommendation for impeachment . >> know, the title of the hearing is examining the allegations of misconduct against irs commissioner john koskinen. part one. >> and i appreciate that but he is in fact the subject

steven miller, the very same bureaucrat who stonewalled congress and got away with it and helped lois lerner the commerce committee's grasp and got away with it, do you notice a trend with our nation's bureaucrats? and now the tsa, this week trying to hold itself accountable just a little for the maddening, frustrating, still growing lines at our nation's airports. the head of security operations kelly hoggin removed from his post. but no, he wasn't fired. no, no, no, the bureaucrats don't operate like that. he wasn't fired. he was put on paid administrative leave pending reassignment, all of this after being paid a $90,000 bonus for presumably doing such a boffo job. you know donald trump is right, the american voter, the american taxpayer, we're all dumb as rocks in the view of the bureaucrats because we put up with them and no wonder americans are angry and frustrated with our federal government because it's a morass of mediocrity and indifference, and lord, it's going to take some kind of leader to take the moving parts and immoveable obstructions into working order and find a way for it

. >> lois lerner. >> right. exactly. mark zuckerberg denied that was the days.ight not realize the bias that's going into it but they only hire people that are kind of liberal in nature which we see in the media generally. you hire people of like mind. so you connell go to the sources that has they think are objective but not covering stories that are significant i think to everybody. but particularly to conservatives. >> what they're saying is we have human beings who will put up a story if we can see that it's not getting the attention it deserves. it's not getting picked up by all 0 these websites but it's a real story generated by the people and the example they gave was the black lives matter. that begs the question, did you do that for the tea party movement? you need a real person. do you do that about darren wilson? once upinject a person's editorial opinion, it has to be disclosed and you have to have protocols in place to make sure that's going to be fair and balanced. >> right. and i think the key point is transparency here. they're claiming this was

gets to the heart of the controversy, lois lerner controversy. irs has all of this information.hey have extensive files. when you have a foundation and you make donations you have to list out in your filings who got the money. similarly, you have to list out in these filings for irs only, not for public, who gave you big donations. so anybody in irs, i did this myself, i'm one person. it has taken me 15 months. i took big donors, big governments, the big foundations looked in their fillings compared to what they gave to the clinton foundation to what the clinton downdation says they resieve in press disclosures and there are massive discrepancies. melissa: final thing, they only give, this is something i own always get stuck on, only use 10% of their budget toward charitable good works. rest of it, 33% to salaries and benefits. 47% to all other expenses which raises the question is this even a charity? isn't that the essential question. >> that is absolutely essential question. you can't say, can't form a charity to go off to europe. you have to have a specific tax-exempt charit

even lois lerner the former irs officials loathed by conservatives for her targeting of tea party groupsinst anonymous tipsters saying quote we take allegations of bias very seriously. there are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to insure consistency in neutrality. these guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives, nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. reince priebus and rnc calling reports of censoring conservatives chilling and adding, quote, with 167 million u.s. facebook users reading stories highlighted in the trending section, facebook has the power to greatly influence the presidential election. harris, you're nodding your head. harris: that is really the problem here. what they chose to, should say one of the problems, to make trending, to make important, to slant. it is one thing to quiet a source and to censor it, but draw attention to something else to make you think that is the most important, so would be liberal point of view or whatever, that is really egregiousness, if they

whether lois lerner from the irs or benghazi or whatever it is, that is why we are in this high-pitchedntial election. people have had it because then what never happens. melissa: all it is a public flogging. you go up to one of the hearings, you go up, get flogged. talking about facebook to talk about issue we get later in the show cultivating -- so what? you yell, this is in fact what americans are so frustrated about there is so much talking and hot air but in reality nothing happens. >> they're frustrated and angry about it. josh ernest in the clip you played, he started to deflect and deny and point fingers at somebody else. this is what they do. if he goes, if he goes up, they will try to get the truth out of him but one or two things are going to happen. he will deny that is the case. or if he admits it is case he will come up with some flimsy excuse hope at that that the liberal media just dismisses it. harris: if they're spinning it communicates they felt like there was a need to spin something that was true. >> exactly. harris: my question what is view about this deal that you

lois lerner take the fifth amendment and refused to turn over her e-mails from the very beginning.erson recover allowed thosenen to be deleted. there is something very bad going on here. i'm disappointed in the american people calling into this program and trying to up escape the whole thing by turning it into a political defense of the administration. forget that. this is a dangerous thing for our society. host: you mentioned the lois fifth, allding the -- if you missed those or want to go back and look at what was happening, go to www.c-span.org. reporting that dems are discussing dropping wasserman schultz. democrats backing hillary she has become too divisive a figure to unify the party in 2016. which they say is crucial to the feeding donald trump. -- defeating donald trump. here is "the new york times" this morning. gop is weighing primary changes after 2016 chaos. have begun internal deliberations over what would be s to the waychange it's presidential nominees are chosen. presidential nominees are chosen. you've probably seen the video, but here is the story in new mexico,

e-mails, he allows them to be destroyed with two subpoenas in place and knew about the problem with lerner'sbetween there where he actually testified in front of congress and told us, i will get you all of her e-mails, already knowing, already knowing that there was trouble with her hard drive and with her computer and waiting four months to tell us. any private citizen who's being audited by the irs and allows documents to be destroyed and then waits months to tell the -- they're in big trouble. somehow it's okay if it's john koskinen, okay if the guy brought in by the president to clean up the irs when he's not done that in any way, shape or form. >> mr. koskinen says he hasn't had time to prepare. we'll wait and see what happens on that hearing. one thing we know absolutely, while all of this is going on, that irs isn't looking into any dark money from either party right now. we're waiting for this to end so they can get back to their job are making sure money is clean in politics. congressman, as always, a pleasure. thank you for making the case on issues that matter. >> thank you. take

he knew when he he testified in front of congress he knew there were problems with lois lerner's hards about those problems and did it on page 7 of letter to senate finance. we'll not get all her emails. we think he gave false testimony in front ever congress. we gave him opportunity to correct the record. he didn't do that. when you have that record, lack of help and lack of assistance and doing what the law requires we think you should go, particularly when you're the chair of the -- neil: how does this go? >> commissioner of irs. neil: i apologize. how does this go, house votes would be certainly within your committee. house follows up and recommends it, does it go to the senate? what is the process? >> well, that is the process. we're a long way from that. tomorrow is just the first hearing giving, reacquainting the judiciary committee with the basic facts n a couple weeks we'll have in legal experts who will talk about the standard. some people think the standard should be a criminal intent standard when in fact, we don't believe that is what the constitution requires. we don't t

>> well, louis lerner was charged by the ways and means community and the justice department did not follow the law. so i would expect that the state department ig has made it clear that she violated regulations backed by the law, meaning violating those regulations is violating the law. at this point, you have an ig appointed by secretary kerry confirmed by the senate who believes that she violated the law. >> stand by, congressman, we're going to come back to you and pick up on that thought inside a big crowd there that is gathered in support of donald trump. outside, not so much. outside being look at this. there are a lot of protesters out there, some of them waving mexican flags. they are protesting peacefully right now but they are making their voice heard and they've got a lot of signs, as you can see. we'll continue our coverage right after this. (vo) they say big can never be good. purina believes it can. inspecting every ingredient for quality? that's big. being confident that your pet's food is 100% safe? that's big, too. spending more healthy years with your best friend?

get we've got an irs by scandals with lois lerner and when it comes to us having to pay, and they are>> it's interesting hillary clinton has been doubling down. we want to build up on obamacare, not repeal it. we want to raise more taxes than we know in the last seven years that hasn't worked. >> it hasn't worked at all. we are facing in $19 trillion deficit. i have a theory. it's not mine but i subscribe to it that the expansion of government really causes a contraction of our own personal liberty. again, we are mortgaging a bill for our kids and grandkids that may very well be something that can eventually collapse our economic system. maria: great analysis. we appreciate you joining us this morning. sean tran 11 joining us. karen shawn tonkin others talk, i feel like this could be a crushing in november. i don't know how you feel, but i know this is a very solid never trump campaign up there. more and more people say we don't trust hillary clinton. >> day by day i hear people who have reservations about donald trump. those are not there anymore. >> donald trump is running for the b

liz: there were 422 backup tapes destroyed, lois lerner tea party probe, 22,000 emails wiped out.what happened at the irs that he should be testifying. he is not showing up at his own impeachment hearing. extensive bullet point rebuttal. >> looking at all the things that didn't destroy, and something there. i want to get to the election itself. hillary clinton is not only playing the gender card on the campaign trail, do you remember this? >> being the first woman president would be quite a change. i won the iowa caucus, that is a tough gauntlet to run and a woman has never won it. i have hundreds of thousands of donors, most of them fall, for the first time a majority of my donors are women, 60%. they roll their eyes, when i or others say women's issues are american issues, but they just have to get used to it. fighting for women's healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card then deal me in. stuart: we hear she is now ditching the gender card move because internal polling showed it wasn't working. >> we talk about trump's woman problem. more than one

. >> so they would tamp down stories like the lois lerner story. >> how about the chris kyle story. >wer to suppress righty speech and facebook suppressed the fact that the users cared about it. it's one of those things we have told you about in the past -- >> we talked about this last week. >> this is a graphic example. >> stuart varney talked about this and two of the curators who used to work for facebook came out. and one of the stories suppressed was the chris kyle, the murdered navy s.e.a.l., was that story. >> and they're primarily ivy league educate and they create the model and they're injecting into the stories they like. i noticed that many times when you want to share a conservative post the share button is missing. >> no way. really? all right. missy writes, we noticed this long ago. our posts would disappear. posts wouldn't share, facebook makes no secret about where they stand. wow. >> sunny says i shut down my facebook page and i hope many others do the same. so here you've got the story that facebook censors the news. then over the weekend there was a story in "the ne

that way won't be just ignored like it was with lois lerner. host: a republican is next.r: good morning. -- you are to say talking about drugs the neighborhood. i want to say ronald reagan in went to one of these for thecountries iran-contra war. nancy reagan turned around and put the war on drugs. 10 years later, they start arresting our children. all of this dope is here now. you throw them in jail for it. then you go to the middle east and get all the dope from over there now. i guess our grandchildren will be selling next area basically, you have destroyed the black family. the only thing we have left is the great almighty to save the children of israel. thank you very much and have a good day. guest: i hope you have a good day. i don't think she has been a registered republican in all likelihood. point but ip a think each of those points need to be looked at quickly. when we went into panama to go after noriega, he was involved in the drug trafficking and ultimately brought to justice. panama has been cleaned up and it is a success story. drugs had effectively taken