The House Oversight Committee hearing went long into the evening, so we didn’t get a chance to post any of the highlights of the interrogation of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. That doesn’t mean that these exchanges are any less interesting this morning, especially this first clip. Former prosecutor Trey Gowdy takes Koskinen to task for declaring that he’s seen no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the destruction of e-mail data when, as it turns out, Koskinen has no idea at all what statutes might be in play. And when Koskinen accuses Gowdy of indulging in conspiracy theories … it’s on (via Twitchy):

http://twitter.com/#!/KatiePavlich/status/481251257248518144

http://twitter.com/#!/KatiePavlich/status/481251587609067521

Jason Chaffetz used a little less heat, but still effectively demolished the claim that the IRS tried “desperately” to restore Lois Lerner’s data after the hard drive crash. But more importantly, Chaffetz points out that the IRS never disclosed that Lerner’s data was lost, not to the Inspector General and not to Congress, during the investigation, even though the IRS knew full well that the data was lost. Koskinen, who was appointed to run the IRS because of the scandal, claims that he didn’t know because, well … he never bothered to ask:

This morning, Jennifer O’Connor will testify in response to a subpoena from Oversight. Now an attorney at the White House, O’Connor was at the IRS from May to November 2013 and in charge of producing the data records related to this investigation. She won’t have Koskinen’s excuse for not disclosing the destruction of data from Lerner and six other IRS officials related to the targeting scandal, so her testimony will be interesting indeed. So will the questioning.