Koskinen has a history of working at troubled organizations, including Freddie Mac. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Obama picks Koskinen for IRS

President Barack Obama intends to nominate John Koskinen as Internal Revenue Service commissioner, he announced Thursday.

If confirmed by the Senate, Koskinen would replace Daniel Werfel, who has led the scandal-plagued agency on an acting basis since May.


“John is an expert at turning around institutions in need of reform,” Obama said in a statement. “With decades of experience, in both the private and public sectors, John knows how to lead in difficult times, whether that means ensuring new management or implementing new checks and balances.”

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called Koskinen “the right person to take on this critical position at this important time.”

Obama initially called the agency’s practice of scrutinizing political groups seeking nonprofit status “intolerable and inexcusable,” but after watching his agenda get sidetracked for months as debates about the IRS and other issues dominated, he’s taken in recent days to dismissing those distractions as “phony scandals.”

Still, with the IRS in need of a strong — and permanent — leader, the president took the step of selecting Koskinen, who has a history of working at troubled organizations, including Freddie Mac, where he was non-executive chairman in the aftermath of the financial crisis. He also served in the Clinton administration, as chair of the President’s Council on Year 2000 Conversion, and as deputy director for management of the Office of Management and Budget from 1994 to 1997, a period that included several government shutdowns.

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He also worked in the District of Columbia government, where he served as deputy mayor from 2000 to 2003.

In choosing a new head for the IRS, Obama sought out a “proven leader with knowledge of best practices and significant experience entering an organization during a difficult time,” a senior administration official said.

Obama believes, the official added, that Koskinen is “exactly the kind of leader we need to help restore public confidence in the IRS, and to build on the work that Danny Werfel has done to strengthen the IRS.”

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Koskinen’s nomination will have to clear the Senate Finance Committee and the top Republican on that panel, Orrin Hatch, expressed frustration that the administration didn’t contact him ahead of Thursday’s announcement.

“As is always the case, this nominee will be fairly and thoroughly considered by the Finance Committee and the Senate to serve as the next IRS Commissioner,” he said. “But given the magnitude of the scandal facing the IRS, I am more than a little mystified that neither the president nor the secretary of Treasury either consulted with or told me in advance about this decision to select this nominee.”

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) told reporters he was informed about the nomination ahead of the announcement.

Werfel was brought in to lead the IRS in mid-May, after the then-acting commissioner, Steven Miller, resigned at the president’s request in the wake of the scandal. In a report released before Miller’s resignation, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration concluded that the IRS had used improper criteria — including a search for “tea party” in groups’ names — in determining whether to scrutinize groups applying for 501(c)(4) status.

The IRS hasn’t had a permanent leader since November, when Doug Shulman left the agency at the end of his term.