Today, Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) penned a letter signed by all Senate Finance Committee Republicans to Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) calling for a hearing into the alleged loss of emails and other electronic information by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
“The thoroughness of the Committee’s bipartisan investigation into the allegations of political targeting by the IRS, the supportability of its findings, and the soundness of its recommendations for changes at the IRS are dependent upon the answers to these questions. Accordingly, we urge you to convene a hearing as soon as possible during which time IRS Commissioner Koskinen and other IRS officials responsible for its data collection efforts can provide answers to these and other related questions,” the Senators wrote.
The letter was signed by all Senate Finance Republicans: Richard Burr (R-NC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Rob Portman (R-OH), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Patrick Toomey (R-PA), and John Thune (R-SD).
The full letter is below:
All Senate Finance Committee Republicans also penned three letters to the Administration demanding that all messages and communications be produced from IRS employees that have been said to suffer computer malfunctions. The letters were sent to Attorney General Eric Holder, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, and Federal Election Commission (FEC) Commissioner Lee E. Goodman.
“As Republican members of the Finance Committee, we are determined to get to the bottom of what happened at the IRS and why it happened. To date, the Committee’s investigation has largely consisted of evaluating information provided by the IRS. Unfortunately, following the IRS’ recent pattern of misleading the Committee and failing to provide accurate and timely information, we now need to look outside of the IRS,” the Senators wrote.
Letter to Department of Justice is available here.
Letter to Treasury is available here.
Letter to FEC is available here.
