At a contentious impeachment hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen admitted that his agency targeted Tea Party groups looking to obtain tax-exempt status. “They were totally improper criteria used to select organizations, applying for c-4 designation for further review,” testified Koskinen before the committee, “Those organizations predominantly were conservative organizations.” This stunning abuse of power went unreported by the “Big Three” networks Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.
The only reference to Koskinen being in a hearing that day was made by NBC that evening, but the report had nothing to do with a possible impeachment or his testimony. During her report on NBC Nightly News, reporter Katy Tur used a clip of the commissioner, talking about how tax-exempt organizations can spend their funds, to take a swipe at Donald Trump and his foundation for alleged self-dealing.
“But was the targeting an act of malice or incompetence,” Fox News’ Doug McKelway ask during his report on Special Report, “One skeptic noticed that Lois Lerner, the IRS’ head of exempt organizations during the targeting, openly expressed a political bias in numerous work e-mails.” McKelway also mentioned that tapes containing the backups of Lerner’s e-mails were destroyed after congressional committees told them not to.
McKelway noted that the future of Koskinen’s impeachment is in doubt because, “…it stands almost no chance of being reported out of committee, of passing in the full House, and even less chance of moving to the Senate for trial. But it put Koskinen on record.”
The only piece of news Spanish-language network Univision garnered from the hearing was their favorite son, Representative Luis Gutierrez, eating Skittles in an effort to mock Donald Trump Jr. for a tweet he recently made. “Democrat Congressman Luis Gutierrez drew laughs today from his colleagues when during a hearing of the House of Representatives, he apologized for trying to finish a bag of Skittles,” reported anchor Enrique Acevedo, “He showed the bag, saying that he likes them because they come in different colors, in a clear reference to Donald Trump's son.”