RUSH: John Koskinen, IRS commissioner, major Democrat donor, testified before Congress again last night regarding the IRS targeting of conservative groups and the mysterious disappearance of Lois Lerner’s e-mails. Just some things I want you to remember as you listen to the sound bites.
Koskinen has donated nearly $100,000 to Democrat candidates and groups. He has been donating to Democrats for four decades starting with a $1,000 contribution to Gary Hart when he was a candidate for the Senate in Colorado in 1979.
Now, fine, Obama can put in there whoever he wants, but we have the responsibility of knowing what that means. The IRS is supposed to be an objective, blinded-by-politics agency. None of that is supposed to matter, and we know that it does matter totally with this Regime. So that’s who this guy is. He’s an arrogant, condescending know-it-all who doesn’t know nearly what he thinks he knows. Who doesn’t know who told him about Lois Lerner’s e-mails. He has no idea.
He isn’t sure why the IRS didn’t use its existing backup system to recover her e-mails when he was told, but he doesn’t remember by who, that they were missing. No effort was made to recover them. And he’s also pretty sure that no laws have been broken despite his admission that he doesn’t know the relevant statutes.
So with that little background, let us now head to the audio sound bites. We’re going to start with Trey Gowdy. I think Trey Gowdy was superb last night. He is talking to Koskinen, he says, “You’re an attorney. Can you explain to our fellow citizens what the term ‘foliation of evidence’ means?”
KOSKINEN: I have no idea what that means. I practiced law once 45 years ago, gave it up for lent one year, never went back.
GOWDY: If you destroyed something, the jury has a right to infer that whatever you destroyed would not have been good for you, or else every litigant would destroy whatever evidence was detrimental to them. Agreed?
KOSKINEN: I’m not sure. I think if you destroy the evidence and people could prove it, it wouldn’t be a good thing for your defense.
RUSH: Now, there’s a little smart aleck in the first part of this answer, because Trey Gowdy says, “You’re an attorney. Can you explain to our fellow citizens what the term ‘foliation of evidence’ means?”
“I have no idea what it means. I practiced law once 45 years ago, gave it up for lent, never went back.” I mean, that’s an in-your-face, snarky little answer. And Gowdy points out, if you destroy evidence, the jury has a right to infer that whatever you destroyed would have harmed your case, otherwise every litigant would destroy whatever evidence was detrimental to them. And Koskinen said, “I’m not sure that’s true. If you destroy the evidence and people could prove it, it wouldn’t be a good thing for your defense.” Wrong. In a court of law where evidence is everything, if you can get rid of it and there isn’t any, and the jury cannot infer that you threw away something detrimental, then it could help you. The conversation continued.
GOWDY: They jury can draw, when theyÂ’re instructed they can draw a negative inference. And that’s true if a taxpayer is being sued by the IRS administratively, civilly or prosecuted criminally and they fail to keep documents the jury can draw a negative inference from the fact that they didnÂ’t keep receipts or e-mails or documents. So if it’s true and it applies to a taxpayer it ought to apply to the IRS as well. Agreed?
KOSKINEN: Is this a trial? Is this a jury? Is that what you’re —
GOWDY: I said administrative, civil, or criminal, if you want to go down that road, I’m happy to go down it.
RUSH: Again, a snarky, in-your-face response. See, the guy is a classic leftist. He’s not up there to answer questions like he’s supposed to or to explain what happened to these e-mails or what the IRS is doing. Congress has oversight; that’s what this committee is all about, and this guy’s trying to taunt. He’s no different than Tommy Vietor who appeared with Bret Baier on Fox. (imitating Vietor) “Come on, dude, that’s two years or so ago. You’re an idiot. You’re a fool. Don’t worry, don’t waste my time with that.” Same attitude here, one of cavalier superiority, if you will, being exhibited by Koskinen.
So, next, Gowdy gets Koskinen to admit that he doesn’t know anything about the law.
GOWDY: You have already said multiple times today that there was no evidence that you found of any criminal wrongdoing. I want you to tell me what criminal statutes you’ve evaluated.
KOSKINEN: I have not looked at any.
RUSH: “I have not looked at any.” He says it with defiance, like, “Screw you! I haven’t looked up the law. I don’t care! It doesn’t matter. I can do whatever I want to do, and you can’t stop me. I’m in the IRS, and I’m part of the Obama administration, and you people are powerless, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us no matter what. I’ll come up here and talk to you, but I’m not gonna answer any of your questions at all and I’m gonna just be smart-alecky right back with you.”
Gowdy then brings it home.
KOSKINEN: ‘Cause I’ve seen no evidence that anyone consciously —
GOWDY: Well, how would you know what elements of the crime existed? You don’t even know what statutes are in play. I’m gonna ask you again: What statutes have you evaluated?
KOSKINEN: Ahhh, I think you can rely on common sense that nothing I have seen —
GOWDY: Common sense? Instead of the criminal code, you want to rely on common sense? Now, Mr. Koskinen you can shake your head all you want to. Commissioner, you have said today that there’s no evidence of criminal wrong doing, and I’m asking you what criminal statutes you have reviewed to reach that conclusion.
KOSKINEN: I reviewed no criminal statute.
RUSH: (translated) “Because I’m from the Obama administration, and the law is what we say it is. The law is what we think it is. I don’t care what the statute says, Gowdy! It doesn’t matter. The statute doesn’t apply. Don’t you understand? This is the Obama administration, and I’m the commissioner of the IRS, and we’re not bound by the law. Have you not been paying any attention?
“Have you noticed all the waivers to Obamacare? We’re breaking the law every day, and there nothing you can do about it! (Raspberry!)” That’s Koskinen. That’s exactly what he’s saying; that’s exactly who he is. “The law doesn’t matter to us! Can’t you look around, Gowdy? Can’t you see? We’re breaking the law every day, getting away with it every day. I don’t have to know what the law is ’cause there isn’t any law!
“We are the Obama administration, and I demand that you stop this. You can’t stop us; there’s nothing you can do to stop us.” It is clear that there’s no respect for this committee, no respect for the law, no respect whatsoever. This is a statist mentality. This is utter defiance. I mean, this guy needs to be impeached. We impeached Nixon for less than this kind of stuff! Nixon only dreamed about doing what this guy’s done!
Nixon only dreamed about doing what Lois Lerner has done. Nixon only dreamed of using the IRS to damage his political opponents. He never did it, but they wanted to convict him of a thought crime nevertheless. Well, these people have done it, and now they’re being called on it, and they’re asked to explain it. “You say you haven’t seen any violation of the law. What law are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look at any law.”
“You didn’t look at any law? Then what law are you talking about?”
“I don’t have to look at any law, Mr. Gowdy. There isn’t any! We are the Obama administration. We break the law every day, and we do it with impunity! (Raspberry) you!” That’s what happened here. Next it’s Jim Jordan, Republican from Ohio. He says, “I want to focus on when you did officially learn about the missing e-mails, according to your definition. The chairman asked you who told you this information. You say you can’t remember?”
KOSKINEN: I do not remember.
JORDAN: Did someone tell you in person? Did they send you an e-mail? How did you get the information?
KOSKINEN: I don’t recall. I do not get e-mails on these subjects so I’m sure it was someone in person.
JORDAN: Someone in person? This has been a major news story for the last 13 months, and you don’t remember who came up to you and said, “Hey, boss, we lost Lois Lerner’s e-mails”? You don’t even remember anything about that situation?
JORDAN: But you don’t remember who told you?
KOSKINEN: I do not recall who told me, no.
JORDAN: Something of that —
KOSKINEN: Yeah. I have —
JORDAN: Something that’s been a front-page story, you would think that would be significant enough to remember how it happened, when they told you, what the actual date was.
KOSKINEN: Gotta remember: I’m running an agency with 90,000 people. We are dealing with a whole set of —
JORDAN: And this has been the biggest issue in front of your agency for the last year.
KOSKINEN: We’re in the middle of filing season as all this is going on!
JORDAN: Okay, so here we go. Here we go.
RUSH: Yeah, and of course, “I interact with all 90,000 every people every day. They work for me, they’re my friends, and I talk to all of them every day. I can’t possibly tell you who told me this.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites. The House Oversight Government Reform Committee hearing on the IRS recordkeeping practices, the loss of e-mails related to Lois Lerner. John Koskinen, the commissioner/$100,000 Democrat donor was testifying. Jim Jordan, Ohio, says, “The Treasury department knew, the White House knew in April, but we didn’t know about Lois Lerner’s missing e-mails ’til June. The White House knew in April. Treasury knew. We didn’t find out ’til June.”
KOSKINEN: No one in the IRS talked to the White House.
JORDAN: How’d they find out?
KOSKINEN: (pause) I’m told by the, uh, people who’ve read the White House letterthat the White House found out from Treasury. Nobody from the IRS talked with the White House.
JORDAN: Someone from the IRS talked to Treasury, then.
KOSKINEN: Uh, that’s what I understand.
JORDAN: We’d like to know who that person is. I hope you’ll find out. Could you make a commitment to this committee tonight that you’re going to go find out who that individual was, who those individuals were who talked to the Treasury chief counsel, who then talked to the White House two months before the people’s house got that same information?
KOSKINEN: (silence)
JORDAN: Can you make that commitment?
KOSKINEN: I’ll do my best.
RUSH: “(Raspberry) you!” You may say, “Why does this matter?” Because the IRS knew that these e-mails were gone — purposely, probably — and didn’t tell the Congress. They’re telling everybody else in the Regime to get them up to speed, to let them know what’s going on, but they’re keeping the information from the oversight committee.
So up next is Jason Chaffetz, who is a Republican from Utah. He says to Koskinen, “When Lois Lerner figured out on June 13, 2011, that her computer crashed — and there have been e-mails showing that she was going to great lengths to try to get them recovered — why didn’t they just go to the six-month tape and get ’em back?”
KOSKINEN: ‘Cause that six-month tape is a disaster-recovery tape that has all of the e-mails on it and is a very complicated tape to actually extract, uhhh, e-mails for. But I have not seen any e-mails to explain why they didn’t do it, so I… I… It would be difficult, but I don’t know why.
JORDAN: Did anybody try?
KOSKINEN: I have no idea — indication that they did.
RUSH: Now, this is… (laughs) They’ve got a backup tape, right? It’s a six-month back up tape. It’s an emergency backup tape, so the e-mails are there. “But it’s just worthless, Mr. Chaffetz. I’m sorry, but we may as well not even have it ’cause it’s so hard to find what you want from that tape, because everything’s on it. We’ve never been able to get anything from it ’cause it’s just so… Well, it’s crowded.
“There are so many e-mails. It’s so much backed-up history on the six-month tape that it’s a very complicated tape to extract e-mails from. I don’t know why they didn’t do it, but it would be really hard.” And you don’t know why? “No, I don’t know.” Did anybody try? “I don’t know if anybody tried — and, you know what? I don’t care if anybody tried. And you know what else, Mr. Chaffetz? You’re never gonna see these e-mails, I don’t care what you do.
“You can impeach the president, you can impeach me, you can sick Trey Gowdy on me, but let me tell you one thing: You’re never gonna see these e-mails! You know why? ‘Cause we’ve got ’em locked and secured away, and nobody’s gonna see these e-mails! I know exactly what’s in ’em. I know what I’m hiding from you and I know what you’re not gonna get, and I don’t care what you do. We’re the Obama administration, and we don’t care about the law and we don’t care about you! You can keep flapping your gums; you can yell and scream at me all you want. But I’m just gonna never let you see what you want even though I’ve got it. (Raspberry) you!”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Eric, Margate, New Jersey. Hi. Welcome to the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s an honor to talk with you again.
RUSH: I appreciate that.
CALLER: Third time on here. Thank you. Listen, pertaining to the e-mails now that they’re lost. I was telling Mr. Snerdley, “Why don’t they just request the e-mails now from the White House during that period from the IRS or sent to or from Lois Lerner?” They have to have a log there.
RUSH: The White House has Lois Lerner’s e-mails?
CALLER: No, just any of the e-mails pertaining to the IRS at that time.
RUSH: Oh, I see. Why don’t they just subpoena the e-mails from the Regime to find out what kind of coordination might have been going on?
CALLER: Yes. Maybe that would answer a lot of questions and allay our fears.
RUSH: Well, if I had to guess, there aren’t any.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: If I had to guess, this Regime is smart enough to know that they’re not gonna put these kinds of instructions where they can be found by people. In other words: Fast and Furious. I guarantee you there is not a paper trail between Obama and Eric Holder about that. They talked about it maybe somewhere, or they had a third party/a liaison do it. I asked J. Christian Adams, who used to be in the justice department.
I said, “Can you walk three me through it? Because obviously you’ve got like-minded people. You got Obama; he puts Holder in there. They have the same objective where the Department of Justice is concerned. How does Holder find out what Obama wants done?” Adams told me, “He doesn’t need to find out. He already knows. They’re two peas in a pod. That’s why Holder’s there. He doesn’t need marching orders.”
Lois Lerner did not need any instructions. Lois Lerner did not need any approval. That’s why these people are where they are! That’s who these people are. That’s the exact reason why they have been put in these positions. Koskinen does not have to hear from the White House what to say, what to do. He’s there because it’s already known that this is the water he’s gonna carry.
Now, if Koskinen and Obama happen to end up in a cocktail party in the Rose Garden on Flag Day or some such thing? Who knows? You’re never gonna recover that. But the White House isn’t gonna give that stuff up anyway. Separation of powers would come into play. Besides, Josh Earnest (who is Tommy Vietor Jr., Jay Carney III), the new White House press secretary already said that they had checked and that the White House doesn’t have any e-mails of Lois Lerner.
“So (raspberry) you!” What are you gonna do after that? Josh Earnest, doing his best impersonation of Jay Carney, said (sniveling), “Uh, we already checked, and you know what, dude? There aren’t any here. Heh-heh-heh. We looked, and there aren’t any. Try all you want, but you’re not gonna find ’em. It’s two years ago, dude! Besides, we don’t care. We don’t know who she is. Lois Lerner? Who is she? Some bimbo? Who is she? Screw you!”
So what are you gonna do? You do that and Obama’s in front of some college kids the next day whining and moaning about how the Republicans are letting children starve, women get beat up, and focusing on him. But he’ll take it. He’ll take it. Now, the key here is Lerner. They’re trying to get to Lerner any way they can. They know the e-mails exist. They know they’re there. Everybody knows these e-mails are somewhere.
(interruption) Mr. Snerdley just said, “Why are the guys on the left unafraid to do what they’re doing?” Well, again, Snerdley, you are deeply immersed in the traditional ways of Washington, and those traditional ways of Washington have been blown smithereens. Under normal circumstances in a situation like this, I guarantee you if it was the other way around and if the Democrats wanted some e-mails from the Bush administration?
Our guys would be up there begging and cajoling, and they’d been producing everything they had trying to satisfy it. Bush would require it to make sure that the principles involved here were honored, that the Constitution was revered and all that. But with these people, they don’t view the House of Representatives as legitimate. They’re not entitled to anything.
Who the hell are you guys?
We’re doing what we’re doing here!
We’re transforming this country, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us. I don’t care what tradition is. Okay, tradition is that you want some evidence that we have? We’re not gonna give it to you. We’re not gonna incriminate ourselves. And we’re not doing anything wrong anyway. You guys are who screwed up this country for all these hundreds of years. We’re just fixing it now, so screw you.
And they can take that attitude ’cause can anybody point to me where they’ve paid a price for that attitude. They haven’t. They continue to break the law, get away with it. All the waivers with Obamacare, the flooding of the border, suing the state of Arizona, you name it, the list is long. Where is there any evidence that they’re held to account for any of this by anybody?
So that’s why they’re fearless. They’re fearlessness is accompanied by a cocksure arrogance. In a way, I mean, you could understand it. They’re getting away with whatever they want to do for the most part. And I’ll tell you, now that Obama’s a lame duck, they’re really just now getting up to speed and getting into gear. I laugh at these people who think, “Oh, my God, the president, see that last poll? Oh, my God, it’s over. The presidency has imploded,” F. Chuck Todd. It’s just now getting up to speed.
Look, Lerner’s supposed hard drive crash happened just 10 days after the very first time Congress asks the IRS about the potential targeting of conservatives. When this thing first got going and Congress wanted to know, officially know, if the IRS was indeed targeting conservatives, or was it just these rogue employees in Cincinnati or was it something more to it, 10 days after that is when Lois Lerner’s e-mails just happened to disappear. They weren’t whistling Dixie or taking any chances. They got rid of ’em two years ago. That’s how long they’ve been gone. It’s only just recently been discovered.
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