2016 Sept 12^th

As most people know, our country is faced with many very serious problems: Our economy, while improving, is not robust (nor is anyone’s), portions of our armed forces are at serious risk, North Korea is on the verge of the ability to use nuclear weapons against us and Russia is likely interfering in our national election. The list is not exhaustive.

Now comes George Will, a newly minted political independent (formerly known as a Republican) to write a column recommending the impeachment of the IRS commissioner. Will sees the problem as several years in the making. Indeed going back three years to when Lois Lerner was Director of Tax Exempt Organizations for the IRS. Lerner was mortally slow to grant exemptions to some organizations she considered sketchy and at the outcry from tea party types, resigned almost exactly three years ago on Sept. 23 2016.

Republicans, not entirely happy that Lerner had left without leaving behind a pound of flesh, insisted on an investigation. The FBI did the job and their report found that Lerner had committed no crimes but was guilty of poor management, which is not a crime (For which the Congress can be grateful.). This was most unsatisfactory to the many congressional investigating committees.

On December 23 2013, John Koskinen was sworn in as director of the IRS and then he was responsible for all the email requests from all of the investigating committees. According to Will, John Koskinen, “…failed to disclose the disappearance of emails germane to a congressional investigation of IRS misbehavior. Under his leadership the IRS failed to comply with a preservation  order pertaining to the investigation.” …Or, one could say John Koskinen, graduate of Yale Law, Duke University Phi Beta Kappa, and previous holder of many executive positions, failed utterly to waste his time on a witch hunt. Because of that George Will believes the House of Representative should take time from their critically busy schedules of continuing to push bills to resend The Affordable Care Act (50 so far) and vote for impeachment. Of course voting to impeach the head of the IRS might finally give them something they could agree on.

I like my version better than George Will’s. Why do Republicans, even after they leave their party, seem to return if the issue is about money or about entities connected to money? We shouldn’t be too hard on Mr. Will; he left the Republican Party only because Donald Trump had joined it.