[VIDEO] Chaffetz: IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Should Be Fired And Impeached

Katie Pavlich | Jul 28, 2015

After years of investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who took over as chairman after Rep. Darrell Issa earlier this year, has had enough of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. 

Yesterday Chaffetz called on the President to fire Koskinen over allegations of obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence and stonewalling a congressional investigation. He accused Koskinen of lying to Congress when he said last year that backup tapes belonging to former IRS commissioner Lois Lerner, the woman at the center of the targeting scandal, didn't exist. We of course learned shortly after that backup tapes do exist, but that IRS officials didn't bother looking for them in order to turn them over to Congress for scrutiny. It was later revealed that at least some of the available back-up tapes were destroyed, even after a congressional subpoena for the tapes was issued. 

"Congress needs to get more aggressive and stand up for itself. We may hold him in contempt and there are other constitutional remedies that perhaps, one of the things we're exploring is perhaps impeaching the commissioner," Chaffetz said last night On The Record. "He [President Obama] should fire Mr. Koskinen because he's not working with us." 

"We're going to get to the truth no matter where it is no matter how long this takes. We're going to get after it," Chaffetz continued.

Considering President Obama doesn't believe the IRS targeting of conservatives is a scandal at all, I doubt he'll be heeding Chaffetz' calls. However, Congress does have the power of impeachment. Whether that authority will be exercised under current GOP leadership is a different story.

Last week, former Oversight Chairman Issa revealed the IRS is still engaged in targeting of conservative groups.

Via: Townhall

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Rep. Jim Jordan: ‘Definitely’ Looking at Possibility of Impeaching IRS Commissioner

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is “definitely” looking at the possibility of impeaching IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in an interview with theWashington Free Beacon on Thursday.

“We are definitely looking at that,” Jordan said. “Definitely looking at that. I’ll say this, Mr. Koskinen has on more than one occasion come in front of the committee and conveyed information to the committee that later turned out not to be accurate.”

On June 25, 2015, the committee held a hearing on the 2013 IRS scandal and found that despite a subpoena and a preservation order, the IRS, under Koskinen’s control, had destroyed or degaussed422 tapes that might have contained emails from Lois Lerner, the former official at the center of the controversy. Around this time, a National Review article revealed that Republican leaders were considering possibilities to impeach Koskinen.

Jordan said that impeachment is a possibility for the IRS commissioner.

“When you have an individual who’s head of an agency with this kind of power the Internal Revenue Service has, who has stated things under oath that turned out later to be false, that’s a problem,” he said. “Couple that with the false information that was sent out to a lot of Obamacare enrollees that impacted their tax liability that was just false, and some of the data breaches that have taken place there too—so the main focus is, of course, the targeting scandal and his answers to questions in front of the committee under oath that I’ve said later turned out to be untrue.”

“But there’s also these other things, so that’s something that the committee is looking at but there’s a certain amount of homework you’ve got to do before you start down that path,” he said. “So we’re looking at it.”

Last year, Jordan introduced H. Res. 565 on May 2, 2014 that called on then-Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special counsel to investigate the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.

Jordan confirmed that he will continue to push Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the same issue.

“Yes, it’s something we’re looking at again,” said Jordan. He mentioned that Lynch would be in front of the Judiciary committee sometime in September and that he plans to ask her about that issue then.

Jordan also expressed skepticism about the Justice Department’s handling of the IRS controversy.

“Everyone knows the fix is in at the Justice Department,” said Jordan. “The FBI announced a year and a half ago, according to the Wall Street Journal, that no one was going to be prosecuted. The President made his famous statement on Super Bowl Sunday a year and a half ago that there’s no corruption, not even a smidgen, and the lead attorney on the case is Barbara Bosserman who’s a maxed-out contributor to the President’s campaign.”

“So everyone knows the fix is in, and what really tells you that the fix is in with the Justice Department investigation is Lois Lerner was willing to sit down with Justice Department attorneys, Ms. Bosserman and her team, and answer their questions but she’s not willing to answer members of Congress’ questions,” said Jordan.

“Now remember I can’t put her in jail, the Justice Department can put her in jail,” said Jordan. “We’re just doing a congressional investigation; we’re just trying to get the facts for the American people. So she’s willing to talk to the people who could put her in jail but not willing to talk to people who can’t?”

“And the reason she won’t talk to people who can’t put her in jail is because she knows she’s not going to jail because the President’s already announced there’s no corruption and the FBI’s already leaked to the Wall Street Journal no one’s going to be prosecuted,” Jordan continued. “The fix is in, so of course we need a special counsel.”

Via: WFB:

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Impeach the 6 justices who upheld health care law, group urges

Here’s one group’s way of stopping Supreme Court decisions like Thursday’s health care ruling: Impeact the six justices who voted to uphold a key part of the law.

“The six U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold ObamaCare should be impeached for abandoning the rule of law,” said Larry Klayman, a former federal prosecutor who now heads Freedom Watch, a conservative group.

"These six Justices have violated their own long-established rules of interpretation for applying statutes to instead advance their own political objectives or burnish their public persona. Such personal goals corrode the role of the Court. The justices abandoned the rule of law and have become merely a political focus group."

Impeachment of any justice, let along six, is highly unlikely.

Klayman remains insistent. “To preserve the Republic in its last gasps, Congress must impeach these Justices. The U.S. Constitution provides in Article III, Section 1, that "’the Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior.’ It does not give judges a term for life but only ‘during good Behavior.’’

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/25/271193/impeach-the-6-justices-who-upheld.html#storylink=cpy

Impeachment Lessons: The Nineties taught us it’s not guilt that matters; it’s political will.

Well whaddya know: The topic of impeachment reared its head at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Jonathan Strong’s report here at NRO noted the wincing consternation of GOP-leadership aides at utterances of the “i-word” during the testimony of prominent legal experts. For the Republican establishment, it seems, history begins and ends in the 1990s: No matter howtimes have perilously changed, any talk of shutdowns or impeachment is bad, bad, bad. Yes, the Obama “uber-presidency,” as left-of-center law professor Jonathan Turley called it, has enveloped the nation in what he conceded is “the most serious constitutional crisis . . . of my lifetime,” but GOP strategists would just as soon have us chattering about immigration “reform” and bravely balancing the federal budget by, oh, around 2040.

But as we discussed in this August column — back when the first anniversary of the Benghazi massacre loomed, back when many Americans still believed that if they liked their health-insurance plans, they could keep their health-insurance plans — it is not crazy to talk about impeaching President Obama. And if you’re going to have a congressional hearing about systematic presidential lawlessness, it is only natural that the word “impeachment” gets bandied about. Not only is impeachment the intended constitutional remedy for systematic presidential lawlessness; it is, practically speaking, the only remedy.

Via: NRO

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Lt. Gov. Dewhurst Says President Obama Should Be Impeached

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) – A surprising statement from one of Texas’ top leaders: President Obama should be impeached. This came from Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who is running for re-election and appeared at a Tea Party candidates forum.

Dewhurst warned that freedoms are being trampled on, and so the President should be impeached.  Later he fleshed out his thoughts for the Texas Observer’s Christopher Hooks.  “I think this President, Barack Obama, has disregarded federal law.  He has tried to do things which are not authorized under federal law.  Things he’s disregarded such as immigration.  He’s not, not following our federal drug laws.   And he has created winners and losers in Obamacare where he has no authority,” according to Dewhurst, who pointed out the extensions given to unions and big businesses.

And then Dewhurst criticized alleged inaction. “I am very concerned about Benghazi, in which all of the national news reporting indicated that live video was streaming into the White House situation room.  Which means there was a(n) overhead platform, probably a drone in the area.  At least that’s what it tells me.   And for not mobilizing some response to protect the ambassador and those three Americans is just outrageous to me.  Just outrageous.”

Dewhurst called his comments those of a private citizen, but when pressed on that issue by the Texas Observer, he refused to  back down.  “That happens to be my view, that the man has committed crimes that do not warrant his staying in office.”

CBS-11 Political Analyst John Weekley  says Dewhurst should be taken seriously.  He points out the Lieutenant Governor was an intelligence officer for both the U.S. Air Force and later the CIA.

“For Dewhurst to say, basically, ‘I think we ought to impeach the President,’ is a big deal,” according to Weekley.  He says the office of Lieutenant Governor is the most powerful in Texas, so the accusations aren’t made lightly.

Via: CBS DFW

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Bachmann: House Could Impeach 'Dictator' Obama

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Tuesday that President Obama has “committed impeachable offenses” and that the House could hold a hearing to impeach.

“We can have an impeachment hearing in the House, and in my mind the president has committed impeachable offenses,” Bachmann told conservative talk show host Rusty Humphries in an interview first detailed by Right Wing Watch.

Bachmann was careful to distinguish between the House’s ability to impeach the president, which she said would merely be a “stain” on his record, and the Senate’s authority to remove the president from office, which she acknowledged would be unlikely in the Democratic-controlled upper chamber.

Still, the Minnesota Republican warned that impeachment was a “disruptive and harmful” tool.

“Impeachment is important that we have that tool — it’s very important — but it’s also disruptive and harmful to the nation and it’s to be used sparingly,” she said.

But she argued it may be necessary because citizens are on the cusp of civil disobedience because they’re so fed up with Obama’s “thuggery.”

“I think we could be on the cusp of seeing civil disobedience — I’m not saying I want civil disobedience — but people aren’t going to take the thuggery of this president much longer,” she said. “We see thuggery going on in the White House, we’re not going to take it. We’ve drawn a line in the sand, and we’re telling the president you need to recognize ... that you are a co-equal branch of government. You are not a dictator.”

Bachmann said that the U.S. was at risk of devolving “into a dictatorship,” but that the Tea Party had done its job in standing up to Democrats on the fiscal issues surrounding the government shutdown.

Via: The Hill

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Judge Napolitano on Fox: Obama Can Be Indicted as War Criminal If He Strikes Syria

The pressure to strike Syria is really heating up fo rPresident Obama (even if there now appears to be a way out), but it might not necessarily be legal to do so. Judge Andrew Napolitano reiterated as much to Shepard Smith on Tuesday, saying this time that if Obama strikes Syria, he could very well be declared a war criminal by the European Union.

Napolitano walked through all the ways the United States could exercise authority under international law, from a retaliatory attack to preempting a “dangerously imminent” attack on American soil. Even intervening when a nation has violated an international agreement they are partner to is okay, the problem being that Syria never signed the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Napolitano warned that if Obama proceeds anyway, the consequences could be particularly dire for him.

“The president runs the risk of being declared a war criminal by a magistrate in the EU…. If they indict him as a war criminal, an indictment for which there’s no statute of limitations, after he leaves the White House, he can’t go to Europe for fear of having to confront this.”

Watch the video below, via Fox News:

Via: Mediaite.com

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[Flashback] ‘Nothing More Impeachable' Than War Without Authorization, Says Constitutional Scholar

(CNSNews.com) - Louis Fisher, a scholar in residence at the Constitution Project who served for 40 years as a constitutional law expert at the Library of Congress, says Americans and members of Congress should understand that President Barack Obama committed a “very grave offense” against the Constitution in taking military action in Libya without congressional authorization.

“I am not going to recommend that the House Judiciary Committee hold impeachment hearings, but I would like members of Congress and the public to say that nothing would be more impeachable than a President who takes the country to war without coming to Congress, who does it unilaterally,” Fisher told CNSNews.com’s Online With Terry Jeffrey.

“So, I would like people to be educated, including members of Congress, to be educated that that is a very grave offense,” said Fisher.

On March 19, President Barack Obama ordered the U.S. military to take actions against the Libyan regime of Muammar Gadhafi.

The day before that, Obama had given a speech stating that a resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council on the previous day that authorized the use of military force in Libya would justify U.S. action there.

Via: CNS News

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Congressman to Town Hall: It Would Be a ‘Dream Come True’ to Impeach Obama

During a Republican meeting Monday, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) let it slip that it would be a “dream come true” for him to impeach President Obama. He stressed that he would first need some “evidence” of wrongdoing, but assured his audience that he has gone so far as to meet with lawyers to help him figure out how to obtain what he needs to make his “dream” a reality.

Answering a question from an attendee about what Congress is doing to stop Obama “from everything he’s doing against our Constitution,” Bentivolio said, “You know if I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true. I feel your pain and I know. I stood 12 feet away from that guy and listened to him and I couldn’t stand being there. But because he is president I have to respect the office. That’s my job as a congressman. I respect the office.”

Via: Fox News

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Obama’s 13 Impeachable Offenses

Adapted from an article titled “Lawless in the White House,” written by former GOP Congressman from Colorado, Bob Beauprez – Monday, August 19, 2013.
Paraphrased video commentary, with permission of the author, by Jerry McGlothlin

Article 2, Sec. 3 of the Constitution charges the President “shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” It doesn’t say that he “should” execute the laws of the United States; it uses the imperative “shall.”

Nor does the Constitution say that the President can pick and choose to enforce some of the laws, or just the ones he likes.

Nor does the Constitution give the President the authority to create new laws. Article 1, Sec. 1 is clear on that point; “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

The editors at Investor’s Business Daily picked up on the issue, too. Following is what they call “just a small sampling” of a “Lengthy Legacy of Lawlessness.”

Aug. 14, 2013: The Obama administration delayed the provision in ObamaCare to cap out-of-pocket health care costs, picking and choosing parts of the law to enforce, which is to exceed its authority.

Via: Western Center for Journalism

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