but chaffetz said koskinen violated the public trust .
who started the investigation of the targeting of conservative groups ( epa michael reynolds ) this post has been updated : a group of house republicans led by the chairman of a powerful committee moved tuesday to impeach the head of the internal revenue service , saying he violated the public trust and lied to congress as it investigated the treatment of conservative groups .
he failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena , documents were destroyed on his watch , and the public was consistently misled .
“ impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public trust .
chaffetz ’s resolution charges that koskinen , who took irs commissioner john koskinen and rep. darrell issa ( r - calif . )
the last - ditch effort to remove irs commissioner john koskinen follows through on a threat chaffetz made over the summer after he called on president obama to fire the commissioner , whom he accused of erasing back - up tapes containing thousands of e - mails written by lois lerner , the central irs official in the scandal .
much of the committee ’s impeachment charge centers around the destruction of several backup tapes that could have contained missing emails sent by lois lerner , the former official at the center of the irs ’s improper scrutiny of conservative groups .
” “ impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the irs and
the announcement by rep. jason chaffetz ( r - utah ) , chairman of the house oversight and government reform panel , came four days after the justice department formally closed its investigation of the targeting scandal without filing criminal charges .