Remember the fake IRS scandal?
It's been a couple years so here's a brief primer: the IRS was accused of singling out conservative non-profits for extra scrutiny but a subsequent investigation revealed that the IRS actually flagged more liberal than conservative groups for review.
The Republican witch hunt has never uncovered a smoking gun that proves the IRS, acting under orders directly from the White House, launched politically-motivated audits aimed exclusively at conservatives, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming an established fact in modern conservative folklore.
We're now several years removed from the genesis of this Republican conspiracy theory and House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz has now called for the impeachment of IRS chief John Koskinen.
Why? Because some of Lois Lerner's (former nonprofit unit director) emails from the time period including the alleged conspiracy (that took place before Koskinen even became the commissioner of the IRS) were destroyed.
"As members of Congress we have no reason to have any confidence that Mr. Koskinen will run one of the most powerful agencies with any integrity," Chaffetz said in his written testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. "Nor can the American people feel confident the agency won’t misuse its power under his direction.
"For these reasons, it is time for Congress to act and remove him as head of the agency," Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz has accused Koskinen of lying to the committee by saying he could produce all of Lois Lerner's emails. That would have been true except some of Lerner's emails were literally destroyed at an arcane storage facility in West Virginia where old government computer hardware goes to be recycled. Lerner's emails were stored on data tapes that haven't been a relevant storage medium for nearly 20 years.
Koskinen had no way of knowing a small portion of them (24,000 were delivered to the Oversight Committee) were destroyed when he agreed to hand over all of her emails.
For those keeping track, Republicans are chasing three separate conspiracy theories here.
1) They say the IRS was ordered by the White House to target conservatives
2) They say Lois Lerner destroyed her emails to cover-up the White House's orders
3) They say Koskinen intentionally allowed the cover-up to happen
If Republicans take John Koskinen to court they will lose.