Trey Gowdy Gets a Crack at IRS Commissioner During Hearing on Targeting Scandal — and It Feels More Like a Trial

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) gave Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen a serious grilling on Wednesday, demanding that he provide disgraced IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails in a reasonable amount of time.

“How long will it take you to produce Lois Lerner’s emails, that don’t involve 6103 material, from January of 2010?” Gowdy asked. “Can we have it by Friday?”

“Absolutely not,” Koskinen replied. “There’s no way physically we can.”

At a different point in the hearing, the official argued it could take "years" to produce the emails.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Gowdy continued to press the top IRS official to produce the emails from January 2010 as quickly as possible, but Koskinen remained elusive when asked for a specific timeframe.

“Lets do January 2010. Then lets get ambitious and do February of 2010. Then lets go to March 2010,” Gowdy said. “And I think you know why I’m doing 2010, commissioner.”

The South Carolina Republican went on to tell Koskinen firmly, “I want our subpoena complied with.”

Watch the entire tense exchange below:

Later on Wednesday, Gowdy appeared on TV with host Greta Van Susteren to discuss the hearing. He said lawmakers may consider holding Koskinen in contempt of Congress if he refuses to turn over Lerner's emails.

"Just emails like the one she sent celebrating a Democratic victory in a special election, calling on the FEC to save the day, overtly political, nothing to do with her job — we'll just settle for those!" the congressman said. "And I even said just give me the ones from January 2010."

Republicans issued a subpoena in February in an attempt to obtain Lerner's emails and get to the bottom of the IRS targeting scandal.

Watch the interview via Fox News: