On Tuesday, House Republicans, using their best CYA maneuver for their surrender on the two-year budget deal, suddenly introduced articles of impeachment on Tuesday against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz introduced four articles of impeachment, stating Koskinen “engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as an Officer of the United States,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
The four charges against Koskinen include 1) a failure to obey subpoenas; Congress told Koskinen in February 2014 to supply all emails related to Lerner, but Koskinen never responded; 2) “a pattern of deception” and three “materially false” statements Koskinen made to Congress, e.g. insisting none of Lerner’s emails were lost, although her hard drive had crashed and employees erased tapes; 3) delaying to inform Congress of Lerner’s emails until June 13 though he knew they were missing as early as February 2014, and 4) “incompetence,” as his department refused to search disaster backup tapes, a Lerner Blackberry and laptop, the email server and its backup tapes.
The Journal acknowledges, “ … no Presidency in decades has treated Congress with the disdain that President Obama has,” adding that even if the House votes to impeach Koskinen, the Senate is unlikely to muster the two-thirds vote to convict him. But the Journal then writes loftily, “Yet the exercise will have the salutary effect of reminding executive-branch officials that they are not a government unto themselves.”
And what does the act of filing fruitless articles of impeachment by the House GOP achieve?
In the very next breath, the Journal admits, “The U.S. Attorney has refused to honor Congress’s contempt charge against Ms. Lerner for refusing to testify, the Justice Department has closed its investigations into IRS targeting without prosecutions, and the press corps winks at abuses of power when conservatives are the targets. With an executive who refuses to honor the normal separation of powers, Congress is obliged to use its authority to hold government accountable.”
And just what does that noble sentiment achieve? Nothing. And what does the act of filing fruitless articles of impeachment by the House GOP achieve?
Distracting true conservatives from noticing their cowardly capitulation on the budget, that’s what.