[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17579]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE RIGHT TO KNOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Garrett) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, President Obama purports to protect and 
defend the idea of open government, but his staff seems to have missed 
the memo. You see, just 5 months ago, I asked Treasury Secretary Jack 
Lew about his personal knowledge of the IRS' reprehensible practice of 
targeting innocent Americans. I inquired of him three basic things, one 
of which was what was the Secretary's knowledge and what was his 
involvement with any of the various meetings with then-IRS Commissioner 
Doug Shulman and the White House. You see, back then a year ago, Jack 
Lew served as the chief of staff to the President while some of the 
most egregious, reprehensible behavior ever displayed by the IRS took 
place while Doug Shulman was the IRS Commissioner and while Doug 
Shulman reportedly attended meetings at the White House at various 
times. Unfortunately, rather than answer some of these basic and simple 
questions and putting to bed any and all appearance of impropriety by 
Jack Lew, Secretary Lew continues to ignore all of my questions.
  The American people have the right to know. The American people have 
the right to know exactly what Secretary Lew knew and what he did. So I 
rise today to ask the American people to join with me and demand 
openness from this government, from this President, and from Secretary 
Jack Lew.
  Secretary Lew, it is time to answer the questions of the American 
public.

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