Unanimous Consent Request-- S. RES. 487

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, as the chairman of the Finance Committee, which oversees the IRS, I have a question as to whether bringing in a special prosecutor would be a good use of taxpayer money in this case. I am going to spend a few minutes laying out what is actually going on with respect to this matter.

There are already five IRS investigations that have either concluded or are ongoing. There was the original Treasury inspector general audit, in addition to ongoing investigations by four congressional committees, the Senate Finance Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The Senate Finance Committee, the committee I chair, has been conducting a bipartisan investigation for more than a year. I repeat: This is a bipartisan investigation. In fact, the committee's report was essentially ready to be released last week when the IRS informed us that some emails were missing because of a hard drive crash. So that colleagues understand just how bipartisan our effort has been, Senator Hatch and I have worked closely on this every step of the way since I had the honor of becoming the chair of the Finance Committee. When we heard of the hard drive problem, the two of us, a Democrat and a Republican, immediately asked the IRS Commissioner to come to my office where we asked pointed questions of Commissioner Koskinen. We didn't wait 10 days. We didn't wait a week. The two of us, a Democrat and a Republican, felt it was an important part of our committee's bipartisan inquiry, so we had Mr. Koskinen come to our office. And this has just been one example--it happens to be very recent--of the bipartisan efforts that have been made looking into this matter.

The Finance Committee staff, Democrats and Republicans, have reviewed over 700,000 pages of documents and interviewed 30 IRS employees. Those interviews were done jointly. We had Democrats and Republicans doing them together. Now, as we continue to look at how this is going to unfold, the Treasury Department Inspector General--that is Mr. Russell George--has agreed to investigate the most recent matter, and he briefed our staff just yesterday on the work plan for getting their investigation done promptly. Once the committee determines what happened with the hard drive crashes, then the committee will, again on a bipartisan basis, move forward with releasing our report--the report that was almost ready to be released when the IRS informed us that the emails were missing because of a hard drive crash and when Senator Hatch and I together brought Mr. Koskinen immediately to my office.

I heard my colleague say that things would be different if this were a Republican administration. Well, I want it understood--I want every Senator to understand this. Senator Hatch and I would be doing exactly what we are doing now, with the same diligence, if it was a Republican administration. That, in my view, is the bottom line, because that is what bipartisanship is all about. That is the way an important inquiry ought to be handled.

There is nothing of value that a special prosecutor would bring to the table, and it certainly would involve significant cost to American taxpayers. In fact, many of us can remember special prosecutors abusing their power, spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money, and going on for years and years without concluding their investigations. Too often, special prosecutors have turned into lawyers' full employment programs. They ought to be reserved for when there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing inside the government. It would be premature to appoint a special prosecutor with the bipartisan Finance Committee report almost finished.

I will just close by saying I am a pretty bipartisan fellow. In fact, sometimes I get a fair amount of criticism for being too bipartisan. I want it understood this is a bipartisan inquiry that is being done by the book. Senator Hatch and I are looking at these matters together. We talk about it frequently. Those witnesses were interviewed together. We brought Mr. Koskinen in immediately. My view is that it would be premature to appoint a special prosecutor with the bipartisan Finance Committee report almost finished.

If we look at this in terms of what is at issue now, we can bring the facts to light with our own investigators and our own bipartisan inquiry and avoid the special prosecutor disasters of the past.

I object to the Senator's request.

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