Midday Roundup: With Lerner cleared, House GOP targets IRS chief

Tax man takedown. Republicans have introduced a measure to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform accused Koskinen of making false statements to Congress and failing to comply with a subpoena for documents related to the IRS political targeting scandal. The move came just hours after Koskinen told the Senate Finance Committee the IRS is correcting sloppy management practices that led to conservative groups waiting months or years for tax-exempt certification. The Justice Department informed Congress by letter Friday that it is closing it’s two-year investigation of the IRS targeting scandal without filing charges against Lois Lerner or anyone else at the IRS. Lerner was the head of the IRS tax-exempt division that targeted conservative groups.

Fessing up. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty today to lying to the FBI in a hush money case involving alleged sexual misconduct during his time as a high school coach. As part of the plea deal, federal prosecutors recommended no more than six months in prison for the retired Illinois Republican. The judge could set the sentence higher. Today’s hearing in Chicago provided no new details in the case, which involved $3.5 million in payments to a so-far unidentified person. In the “confession” statement he read in court, Hastert focused on the technicality of breaking banking laws. He admitted he started making smaller withdrawals from his account to avoid answering questions about how he planned to use the money.

Serious series. The Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets kicked off the World Series with a drama-filled Game 1 last night. Even before the first pitch, news broke that Royals starting pitcher Edinson Volquez’s father had died earlier in the day from a heart condition. Under orders from Volquez’s wife, Royals management did not tell him about his father’s death until after he finished pitching six innings. The game, which opened with a Royals in-the-park home run on the first pitch, went for 14 innings before manager Ned Yost told some of his players about Volquez’s father and said they needed to win the game for him. The Royals won 5-4 over the hard-fighting Mets with a walk-off sacrifice fly by Eric Hosmer.

Disorderly conduct. The U.S. Justice Department is joining an investigation into a sheriff’s deputy’s takedown of an African-American teen in a Columbia, S.C. classroom. The student refused to get out of her seat when confronted for texting in class. Cellphone video taken by fellow students shows Richland County Senior Deputy Ben Fields yanking the girl and her desk to the ground and pulling her out and away from the desk. Her attorney says she received injuries, but the extent of them is unclear. Sheriff Leon Lott called in the Justice Department to help investigate the situation after videos of the confrontation stirred up accusations of excessive force and racism. Fields has been the subject of three other lawsuits for allegedly abusing his authority; he won two of them and a third is pending.

WORLD Radio’s Jim Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report.