Democrat: IRS chief ‘arrogant’

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Tuesday that IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has done “a terrible job communicating” in the investigation into former IRS official Lois Lerner’s missing emails.

“Obviously, I think he is doing a terrible job communicating, and obviously, they made huge mistakes as far as how they’ve retained records and whether or not they’ve been upfront and whether or not those records were available,” McCaskill said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“This guy did a terrible job being arrogant yesterday. We all think of the IRS as being arrogant, and he kind of confirmed that,” she added about his performance at a hearing Monday evening before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

{mosads}Koskinen denied that he has misled Congress by promising the agency would turn over all of Lerner’s emails. He recently told lawmakers that the IRS couldn’t recover Lerner’s emails from 2009-2011 because of a computer crash.

Asked why they couldn’t be reproduced, he told lawmakers Monday, “If you have a magical way for me to do that, I’d be happy to know about it.”

McCaskill rejected the idea that the IRS’s targeting of political groups seeking tax-exempt status was a conspiracy directed by the White House to lash out at conservatives. She did, however, point out that there must be people who still possess emails from Lerner.

“Two people are in an email. It’s not just Lerner emailing Lerner,” she said.

McCaskill also said the IRS had improperly investigated liberal groups.

Lerner has retired from the IRS and was held in contempt of Congress by the House earlier this year.