Scott Walker: “I thank Congressman Ratcliffe for his powerful stance. Mr. Speaker, since 2012, one of the bulldogs that has been…”

“I thank Congressman Ratcliffe for his powerful stance. Mr. Speaker, since 2012, one of the bulldogs that has been holding the IRS accountable is the Congressman from central Florida. At this point, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. DeSantis). Mr. DeSANTIS. I thank my friend from North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if you are a taxpayer and if you become subjected to an IRS audit, you have got to prove and justify what you have submitted to the IRS. If you tell the IRS, ``I don't really have those documents. They were destroyed, and there is nothing I can do. Let's just move along,'' I don't think most IRS agents are going to accept that, and I think the taxpayer would likely find himself in hot water. I think it is really unacceptable that the IRS seems to think it could operate under a totally different standard than the standard that it imposes on American taxpayers. We have been going through this now since 2013 with Lois Lerner and the targeting scandal in our trying to get more information. Last year, before Congress, John Koskinen, the IRS Commissioner, said: We are going to produce Lois Lerner's emails. We will produce all of them. We have nothing to hide. A couple of months later, he said: Actually, most of Lois Lerner's emails were destroyed because, you see, they are held on these backup tapes, and we recycle the backup tapes. We destroy the tapes, so there is just nothing we can do here.…”