Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is calling for the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service.
"A total rehaul of our tax system is important and necessary. I am on board with all of that," Priebus told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"I am on board with the idea of totally overhauling or ridding ourselves of the IRS and the tax code and coming up with a better system," he said Tuesday.
But Priebus added that the task is easier said than done.
"Unfortunately, none of that happens with a person in the White House who is actually more interested in a European style of government than the way that our country was drafted and led to be run by the Constitution," he said.
"So it's going to be very difficult to do, and certainly with [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid on the other side of running the Senate, it makes it even harder."
Priebus' comments followed a combative appearance by IRS Commissioner John Koskinen before the House Oversight Committee, which is probing allegations that his agency targeted conservative groups.
Koskinen, who insists that key emails written by former IRS official Lois Lerner and others are gone forever because of a computer crash, was accused by Committee Chairman Darrell Issa of having "a problem with credibility"
"This guy [IRS Commissioner Koskinen] is one of the most arrogant, petulant people I've ever seen in any sort of formal hearing in Washington, D.C. It's unbelievable," Priebus said.
He said he was stunned the IRS had never notified the Justice Department of the missing emails, even though the alleged targeting was the subject of an investigation.
"The RNC [is] ... in court right now over a document request for these emails that has lasted now over a year and three months. And their lawyers have been responding to us for over a year seeking extensions," Preibus said.
"So the idea that suddenly they just sort of disappeared and [they] didn't realize it, it is such a lie, because there's no possible way that all these lawyers could be responding to all of these document requests for years now and suddenly now, 'Oh, we didn't realize they were missing.'"
Preibus called the IRS' excuses a "totally intentional misrepresentation and potentially criminal," and urged that a special prosecutor be appointed.
"At this point you need somebody that has some kind of subpoena power and criminal powers to look into what was going on," he said.
Preibus was not impressed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent publicity blitz for her new memoir
"Hard Choices," published by Simon & Schuster.
"She's in much worse shape today than she was before the tour,'' Priebus said.
"I just don
't think she's really good at politics ... Here you have a potential presidential candidate that the Democratic Party's clamoring around; she has a book rollout that is very well scripted. They set up all these interviews, they purposefully chose the people that were going to put Hillary in the best light possible.
"They come out of the gate with Diane Sawyer, and Diane Sawyer pretty much kind of picked her apart. I mean, it was a terrible interview for her. She wasn't ready on the easiest questions.''
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