and thank you, mr. issa, for doing that with thei g initially and i'd like to see us get back on track here and maybe they can help us out with the specific question we're dealing with now and i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. i'll now recognize myself for five minutes. miss o'connor, the ig, the inspector general, issued their report on may 14th, 2013. you were then appointed i believe on may 30th of 2013. what did you do? what's the first thing you do when you walk into this new role? >> i got a badge. i had some training. i think the 6103 training -- >> but how did you organize? who did you bring into the room and say i need to move forward? >> well, it wasn't like that. it really was the first and most important thing was the 6103 training because -- >> so after you got trained, then what did you do? >> and then i believe i met with mr. werfel to see kind of what was on the plate and what the marching -- >> after that, yeah? >> i can't remember the sort of play-by-play honestly. >> who did you gath

mr. issa, and our ranking member, mr. cummings, for their work together with me on this bill and especially chairman issa for seeing to it that this bill got to the house floor today. mr. speaker, this bill makes important -- really quite minor changes but they are important to the district of columbia and to the federal agencies involved. they happen to be federal agencies that uniquely serve the district of columbia. i will not bore the house with the -- all of the elements of this bill because they will seem quite minor to the house, though as i indicate, they are of some considering importance to the agencies involved. for example, and i will use examples only, for the courts. it allows the courts to collect debts owed to the courts by employees such as debts for ss of damage to property and improper credit card payments. this is the kind of authority the court would now have. where there were erroneous payments to employees, those mployees would get a hearing before any such collection wa

mr. issa's pres release and statements from mr. kane and other witnesses undermined the partisan narrative. mr. kane told the committee that he was aware of a, quote, potential issue, end of quote, regarding the backup tapes. but he did not know any additional detail. when asked whether he had seen, quote, any evidence that any irs employee intentionally destroyed documents or e-mails to avoid their disclosure, end of quote, commissioner kane said, and i quote, i have not seen anything to that effect, end of quote. have you seen any evidence of obstruction by irs employees? >> i have not. >> yesterday, the committee staff interviewed irs national director for legislative affairs leonard alsor. he told the committee staff that based on the information available at the time, your june 13th, 2014, letter to the senate finance committee stating that backup tapes from 2011 had been recycled was accurate. is that right? >> i don't know what he said, but i understand from the press release about mr. kane that he said the information we ha

mr. issa's head.nk because i'm a republican i am, and i also think we should quote -- "the washington post" is a great paper but it's not an authority. it's a journal, it's a piece of journalism. back to answer your question, he ended the hearing from what i understand because mr. semus did not show up. he said hey, i ain't coming. i don't have anything to answer to, and again, i think what's interesting about this, and we can agree to disagree, sally, is that this president, one minute he's exerting separation of powers, and that's what mr. semus said the white house is separate from congress and from the judiciary. the next minute he uses executive order like a roll of toilet paper, executive order here, there. you can't have it both ways. >> sally, last word, then i have to go. >> first of all, let me apologize for calling you cheryl instead of crystal, my bad on that one. >> that's all right. >> the second thing i think darrell issa owes the american people apology. he's no longer a congressman's

chairman, i'd like to point out that the chairman of the full committee, mr. issa was given a full ten minutes prior to mr. hortzberg's line of questioning. it was represented by you that he would be -- >> it was not represented -- i give you an extra -- >> i'm reclaiming my time. >> i'm reclaiming my time. >> i think that the chair and let me go ahead mr. cole with a few questions. one, in your testimony, your verbal testimony here today, you say you have the utmost confidence in their investigation. do you stand by that? i mean, that's a correct quote of you. >> yes, i do. >> the entire team that's investigating. >> let me ask you, is it normal procedure when tigda investigates somebody to have a member of management in personal interrogatory discussions with other employees. why would you -- would you normally do that in your investigative mode to have members of management in the majority of those interviews? >> a lot of those take place before -- >> i want to put it in context, congressman? >> were you there when the interviews were happening back in 2011? how

mr. issa and i visited post benghazi, some of the different posts. we saw some simple common sense things that needed to be done. improvements in video capability. improvements in a whole host of areas. are you aware that those improvements that had been identified by the different groups and congress have been made so that our personnel are not at risk? final question. >> if -- you're talking about improvements in benghazi. we no longer -- >> security improvements in our diplomatic posts. have been a host of groups investigating, reporting and they have said that certain things to be -- need to be done. i cited one as video capability. there are many others. but maybe we don't want to discuss it in an open forum. but can you tell the committee from your position have those improvements been made and addressed? >> so let me respond on two fronts. >> could you -- excuse me, could you please speak into your microphone? pull it -- thank you. >> sorry. as the committee knows, the secretary in the wake of benghazi appointed an accountability review board.

mr. issa's subcommittee or committee, it is now estimated that insurers are going to request over a billionollars more than they anticipate paying into the program so far from returning 8 billion back, now they will require a billion dollars more and it is not clear or that money comes from. and as regards the memo, which supposedly hhs justifies with, it is interesting. they say they will call this a fee but in the president's budget, he doesn't call this a fee. interesting they will call this a fee but then the president's budget he does not call this a fee. also of interest and never in the legislation is a call a fee but now it is called the fee. of the into a revolving fund that is not set up so there is no subject of a revolving fund in the legislation nor the fee but now we're told is toughie but the revolving fund does not exist but through the legal opinion but if the other side could do away with congress prerogative to appropriate and designator a revolving fund that is set to the exercise i suppose that comes from being loyal to one's president. a shame. i am loyal to the consti

. >> mr. issa. >> aye. >> mr. micah. aye. >> mr. turner. >> aye. >> mr. tuduncan. >> yoaye. mr. langford. >> aye. >> mr. amash. >> aye. >> mr. gosar. >> goaye. >> mr. meehan vote aye. >> aye. >> mr. hastings votes eye. >> aye. >> mr. woodall votes aye. mr. massey. mr. collins. mr. collins votes aye. mr. meadows. >> aye. >> mr. bentovolio votes aye. mr. desantos votes aye. mr. cummings votes no. mrs. maloney votes no. miss norton. miss norton votes no. mr. tierney votes no. mr. clay. mr. lynch votes no. mr. cooper. mr. connelly. >> anyway. >> mr. connelly votes no. miss spear. >> no. >> mr. cartwright. >> i would like to associate myself with the words of the ranking mechanical b ining memb. >> miss duckworth. >> no. >> miss kelly. >> absolutely not. >> mr. davis. mr. welch votes no. mr. cardenas. >> no. >> mr. horseford. >> no. >> miss grisham votes no. >> all members voted? the clerk will call -- >> on that vote, sir, 14 -- 19 ayes. 14 nos. >> the resolution rejecting the claim that david psimos is immune from being compelled to testify before congress on matters related to his

mr. issa and i visited post-benghazi some of the different diplomatic posts. we saw some simple common-sense things that needed to be done, improvements in video capability, improvements in a whole host of areas. are you aware that those improvements that have been identified by the different groups and congress have been made so our personnel are not at risk? final question. >> you're talking about improvements in benghazi, we no longer -- >> security improvements in our diplomatic posts that have been -- there's a host of groups investigating, reporting, and they've said that certain things need to be done. i cited one as video capability. there are many others. maybe we don't want to discuss it in an open forum, but can you tell the committee, from your position, have those improvements been made and addressed? >> so let me respond on two fronts. >> excuse me, could you please speak into your microphone. thank you. >> sorry. as the committee knows, the secretary in the wake of benghazi appointed an accountability review board. that review board made 28 reco

distinguished gentleman from california, mr. issa. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman goodlatte has said he wants to do comprehensive copyright reform. and i'm going to take this opportunity today to challenge all of you, since you start sort of represent, no kidding, the spectrum, the width and breadth of the problem in in music, both written and obviously the broadcast of the performance. and we'll just go back as we often do here, especially for the non-lawyers who are here on behalf of the constitution. to the clause. and i'm leaving words out because i only want to have the part related to copyright, not the part related to patent. the constitution clearly says that we have to promote the progress of useful art for a limited time, on behalf of the authors, ex-cheeks sieve right to the -- exclusive right to the respective writings. now it doesn't actually talk about the performance but we've all come to appreciate that a performance is in fact a participate of that structure of writing. the constitution is an interesting document to go back to because some

the distinguished gentle lman from california, mr. issa recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm glad that the last words i heard were that the copyright is a monopoly. i am pretty sure that the restraint of trade is not the intention of copyright. at the time of our founding i think it's pretty clear that the goal was to get authors and songwriters, obviously, but authors compensation to induce the creation of these useful arts. nowhere was restraint considered to be there, so lts the idea that there's only one seller of an asset does not a monopoly make. any of you, you know, antitrust attorneys here? i'd love to have one. let's just -- >> i dabble. >> okay. well mr. israelite, i'm glad you're dabbling. because i can't think of a song -- and i've got some songs i just dearly love -- i can't think of a song that i can't live without in favor of millions of others, hundreds of thousands at least. the fact is that songs are in competition and the author and the performer are simply people in competition to sell their war

i'll start first by recognizing mr. issa. >> i know that this is unprecedented to have a commissioner of the irs in front of this committee so often, and appreciate the fact that you've been willing to be briefed and participate, even beyond our request at times. as we continue to explore a number of questions, the timeline of the crash. the inconsistency of the probability of lost e-mails by multiple people within government, we appreciate that you were not in government. you were not doing this at the time. but as you can imagine, not just the internet, not just fox, but america is beginning to question how convenient so many e-mails of so many people at the heart of targeting conservative groups for their views, for their politi politics, and for the fact that citizens united was objected to by the president, how many of them had loss of data, and how much is not available to the american people. a coverup is normally described as something that happens during an investigation around here. in ord in other words things go

my colleague, mr. issa, had asked a question, and i'm not sure everybody got a chance to respond, i just want to ask it slightly differently. i believe he said if we were to scrap copyright and start over, what would you like to see changed. my question is, is could you briefly explain one provision that you would amend in the current law? and i know that several of you didn't have a chance to respond, so those of you that didn't, maybe you would like to take the opportunity now. mr. warfield. >> from the radio -- [inaudible] i'm sorry. i know mr. christian and i represented radio. we haven't had much to say here. a lot has been said about us, we have not had an opportunity -- >> well, take the opportunity now. >> -- to say much. you know, i'm hearing a lot of comments about, you know, the industry that provides free play for free promotion and has done it for 80 years. and we're talking about what's driving it, radio itself is driving it. i've heard comments here that radio because not drive record sales.

mr. chairman. chairman issa, chairman jordan alleged that prominent democrats, mr. cole, pressured the department of justice and the irs to single out conservative groups for potential prosecution. both chairman allege in a may 22nd letter to the attorney general that a hearing held on april -- in april of last year by a democratic senator, quote, led to the justice department reengaging with the irs on possible criminal enforcement relating to political speech by nonprofits end of quote. a press release accompanying the letter allege that department officials and lois l erner quote, zusz eed singling tax xemplt citizens at the urge of a democrat senator. general cole, i would like to give you an opportunity to address this allegation and did the department discuss singling out and prosecuting tax exempt applicants at the urging of a democratic senator? >> no. what happened in that regard was just trying to answer a question of whether we had a mechanism for whether applicants for tax exempt status, if they had lied on their application for that status, if there was

believe for one second that this was about finding legitimate answers to the questions raised by mr. issaase, kate, he had at that hearing the woman who basically is responsible for overseeing the hatch act who has investigated power and prosecutorial power sitting at that table, who had already gone over all of this and was about to testify this new office had not violated the hatch act, they were in compliance and he did not ask her one single question. something is wrong abowith that picture. >> what do you think chairman issa is trying to do then? >> i'm not sure what he's trying to do, perhaps to play to his base but i can tell you one thing, it goes against anything that when ur' trying to be if e you're trying to be effective and efficient it leads to d dysfunction and distraction. that's the unfortunate part of this. i mourn for what we could have done and could have accomplished under his leadership. >> and the oversight if folks don't know is one of the most important and influential committees in the house. >> it is. >> one of the only committees that has subpoena power or one

mr. chairman. chairman issa and chairman jordan have alleged that prominent democrats, mr. cole, pressured the department of justice and the irs singled out coservative groups for potential prosecution to the attorney general and the hearing that was held in april of last year i a democratic senator, "led to the justice department re-engaging with the irs on possible criminal enforcement related to political speech by nonprofits." the letter alleged the department officials and lois lerner, "discussed singling out and prosecuting tax exempt applicants at the urging of a democratic senator." general cole, i would like to give you an opportunity to address this allegation. did the department discuss singling out and prosecuting tax exempt applicants at the urging of a democratic senator? >> no, what happened in that regard was trying to answer a question of whether we had a mechanism for whether applicants for tax exempt status, if they had lied on their application for that status, if there was a mechanism for the irs to refer those types of false statements to the prosecuto

darrell issa today began asking mr.kinen if he was aware of ocs, folks who are online knows it's a text messaging system. one of these things that employees can confer during the day. well, that information would be covered by the subpoena that congress issued the irs for communiques relative to lois lerner. they haven't gotten any of them. in addition they have in their possession an e-mail where lerner e-mails an i.t. person and asks speckally what has to be done and whether or not those text messages are going to be collected and go to congress. and in it she says she's already warned her colleagues at irs to be very careful about what they put in their e-mails, lest congress get ahold of it. this has republicans infuriated. they think it's proof of a cover-up and more evidence and more grist for the mill for these investigations. shep? >> good times. carl cameron with us. good to see you. thank you. >>> the father accused of murdering his toddler by leaving him in a hot car for seven hours had reportedly tweeted abo

mr. ferriero. >> chairman issa, ranking member cummings and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify to the a disposal of records at the irs. accompanying me is paul wester. government and a member of my senior management. first, concerning the reported unauthorized disposal, federal agencies are responsible for preventing the unauthorized disposition of federal records including unlawful or accidental destruction, deletion or removal from federal custody. agencies should carefully monitor the implementation of approved records schedule to prevent unauthorized destruction. when an agency becomes aware of an incident of unauthorized destruction, they must report the incident to us. the report should describe the records, the circumstances in which the unauthorized destruction took place, and the corrective steps being taken to properly manage the records in the future. if we hear about the incident before the agency has reported it, we'll notify the agency and request similar information. the goal of this process is to ensure that the circumstances that may have led to the

mr. jones? >> good morning, chairman issa, ranking member cummings, and members of the committee.hank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i am a deputy of director in the overseas building operations in the u.s. department of state and have served in this position since october of 2013. the safety and security of the individuals who work for the u.s. government agencies overseas in creating and maintaining safe and secure facilities in all parts of the world is critical to the department. i know firsthand the reality of living in a high threat environment is part of a foreign mission. as a child, i lived in pakistan through periods of martial law and civil unrest. we lived on the grounds of the embassy returning to the united states months before it was stormed in november 1979. this experience had a profound impact on me. security has been obo's top priority since the 1998 bombings of the american embassies in salam and nairobi. obo executed a successful building program utilizing a standard embassy design. this work is now being enhanced by our excellence in dipl

mr. chairman, i have a point of information. yesterday chairman issa informed committee members that he'll be holding yet another hearing on this topic next wednesday. could the chairman please inform us who will be testifying at that hearing on wednesday? >> pursuant to the rules, we'll inform at the appropriate time, but at this time, they haven't sent anything out, and i appreciate your inquiry. >> so you don't know? or you won't tell us? >> i think regular order, please. >> we'll do regular order. and the chair at this point will now recognize the gentleman from michigan for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> mr. commissioner, if any of my constituents were not as forthcoming as the irs, there would be a presumption of guilt. there would be fines? and/or have their wages garnished am/or liens laid on their home and/or savings accounts seized. when i go back to the district, i had the opportunity to talk to many irs former employees at the irs, now retired. and i asked them what they thought about what was going on at the irs, an

of course there's a bit of civility and darrell issa is painted in the media as a bad guy and he's going up there acting like a normal guy and greeting mrkinen as chairman. committee. standard pleasantries being exchanged. >> they have a lot of business to discuss because now we find out that aside from these missing e-mails which they'll probably get to, now we find out that the irs waste a bunch of our taxpayer money. >> honor leftestlyhonestly, yes. this is not new. when i started to look at this, i went back one year and i kept going back and i went back through the bush administration, clinton administration. this is unfortunately been going on for decades. i hate the irs. i'm sure i'm not the only american that does. this past year the problem is that you have too many people who don't pay taxes, not enough people in the irs to go after them. too many people who are getting refunds who are deceased or unemployment benefits, social security, that don't have to have those. we also have to look that there are billions of dollars intercepted this past april, 75 of that went towards some of these debts that are over ten years old. >> i

chairman darrell issa offering irs commissioner john koskinen a chance to try again and explain his testimony after isis said lerner's attorney made conflicting statements. here is mrkoskinen testifying 10 days ago on what he knew about whether lerner kept hard copies much her official records as required by law. >> the responsibility is if you have an email you have a record and print it out as a hard copy. my understanding every employee is supposed to print records that are official records on hard copy and keep them. she had hard copy records. >> but lerner's attorney dropped this bombshell when he spoke to "politico" last week saying his client did not know she was supposed to print out official records. a few days later, in a tv interview, lerner's attorney appeared to muck up the waters even more when he said this. >> she printed out some things, not others. you can't print out hundreds of thousands of emails. we'll be back, we'll be back -- >> print out everything that had to do with irs business, with policy, with questions? did she print all those out? >> what is federal record is subjective i'm not sure everything but she printed out a lot of things. >>

issa's aides today, but to know avail. a leak this afternoon, the congressman confirmed he will not drop the subpoena and reit are airted he expects mr his committee tomorrow. >>> just ahead, republicans finally decide they like science. it's just too bad the science they like turns out to be fake science. joining me to talk about the latest in the republican fight against basic health care. that's next. and within budget. angie's list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. now that we're expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angie's list and look for pediatricians. the service providers that i've found on angie's list actually have blown me away. find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust. we're changing the way we do business, with startup ny. we've created tax free zones throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no busin

mr. taylor is not under oath. the commissioner is. probably will make us understand that lois lerner's attorney continues to profess her innocence when we're long past the question of guilt. >> chairman issa claiming the justice department is holding up the investigation into the targeting scandal and that may be political pressure will force it to move. meantime, a non part son watchdog group saying the i.r.s. may have obstructed congress when it said it lost lerner's emails. executive director of cause of action telling the daily crawler, it's very clear this is obstruction of congress. the i.r.s. became on notice that there was a congressional investigation which automatically means that there is a duty to preserve documents. there should have been copies of lois lerner's hard drive and other practices to make sure all of her emails and documents were preserved but isn't that the problem? there weren't. that's why we continue to see the frustration of the american people. >> first of all, this is the most powerful agency in the world. it touches everyone's paycheck. it should not be that hard to get information. lois lerner works for us. the bigger issue is whether or not eric holder a

mr. cole, for your response. the attorney general in a january 8, 2014, letter responded -- excuse me. chairman issa and chairman jordan in a letter to the attorney general claimed that miss boserman, a career attorney in the civil rights division at the department of justice is leading the doj fbi investigation. however, this allegation was directly refuted by the attorney general in his testimony before the senate yush yair committee on january 29th, 2014. i won't read his full testimony. but so that there's no stone left unturned, deputy attorney cole, i would like to ask you the same question that was asked of mr. holder. is barbara boserman the lead attorney in the department of justice's investigation or the member of a larger team? >> she's the member of a larger team. she is not the leader of the investigation. >> despite assurances from the department that miss boeserman is not the lead investigator, they continue to assert that her political donations have created a, quote, startling conflict of interest. this supposed conflict of interest is a key justification for some republican members

mr. tiberi: thank you. i thank the gentleman and chairman issa for their ability to pass this through committee and bring it to the floor today. mr. speaker, i rise in support of my bill, h.r. 4919, to designate the united states postal facility located at 715 shawan falls drive in dublin, ohio, as the lance corporal wesley g. davids and captain nicholas j. rozanski memorial post office. marine lance corporal wesley davids was 16 years old and still attending dublin high school, dublin high school, when he was inspired to serve our nation following the terrorist attacks on september 11, 2001. he was killed the day after his 20th birthday in may of 2005 while fighting in iraq. he was a member of the columbus-based lima company. 23 total service members from lima company died in iraq. marine lance corporal davids died during a 96-hour period, mr. speaker, in which six members died and 15 were wounded. marine lance corporal davids was also willing to lend a hand. his family and friends say he was full of energy, especially when it came to driving or working on cars. he was also a stand-out rower in high school

darrell issa and elijah cummings in this brief gathering to hear from the office of political oversight and outreach, david simas. he's been offered to testify by deposition. it's unclear whether mr. simas will respond in that way. this was to be his second appearance on capitol hill before this committee. he failed to show last week when he was called. the white house council has said mr. simas is immune to testify about matters relate to go his official duties and will not appear. the company, as you heard, going into recess for now. they will return for a business meeting at about 10:15 eastern. we're likely to hear more about this during today's white house briefing. that is said to begin at 1:00 p.m. eastern and you'll be able to hear that and watch it on c-span2. the house judiciary committee's task force is holding another in a series of hearings this morning regarding the overfederalization of the criminal justice system according to a new report from the congressional resource service, there were 103 statutes created, making 500 statutes with criminal hearings. veterans issues remain a hot topic on capitol hill. senate democrats spoke briefly with reporters yesterday to