Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan are joining House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz in calling on President Barack Obama to remove IRS Commissioner John Koskinen from his post.
Koskinen was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013 after the scandal broke alleging that the IRS put conservative groups seeking nonprofit status through additional scrutiny compared to other groups, thereby slowing down their approval leading up to the 2012 presidential election.
In an opinion piece for
The Wall Street Journal, DeSantis, who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, and Jordan, who is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules, say that Obama made the right decision when he removed the previous IRS head and appointed Koskinen.
"Unfortunately, Commissioner Koskinen, who took over in the wake of the IRS targeting scandal, has failed the American people by frustrating Congress’s attempts to ascertain the truth," the two Republicans write.
"A taxpayer would never get away with treating an IRS audit the way that IRS officials have treated the congressional investigation," they add.
The two say that Koskinen "needs to go" because he has failed in keeping "basic fiduciary duties."
The fiduciary duties that they claim Koskinen has breached include destruction of evidence, failure to inform Congress, false testimony before Congress, failure to correct the record, and failure to reform the IRS to protect First Amendment rights.
"If the president doesn’t remove Mr. Koskinen from his post, then Congress should remove him through impeachment," DeSantis and Jordan write. "John Koskinen has violated the public trust, breached his fiduciary obligations and demonstrated his unfitness to serve."
Chaffetz, the Utah congressman who is leading up the House committee investigating the IRS,
sent a letter to Obama on Monday telling him that he needs to remove Koskinen from his position at the IRS for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena, for failing to testify truthfully at committee hearings and for failing to preserve evidence.
The three Republican lawmakers cite a failure on the part of Koskinen to preserve and produce emails by former IRS official Lois Lerner, who is at the center of the scandal, even though he had promised he would do so.