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GOP: Lerner Warned IRS Employees to Hide Information from Congress (+video)

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Photo Credit: Lauren Victoria BurkeJust as the IRS tea party targeting scandal was erupting, Lois G. Lerner warned colleagues to “be cautious” about what information they put in emails because it could end up being turned over to Congress, according to an email message released Wednesday.

The 2013 email exchange between Ms. Lerner and fellow employees at the Internal Revenue Service also says that instant message conversations were probably never stored and weren’t checked during open-records requests — even though they also fell under the law requiring electronic records to be stored.

“I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails — so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails,” Ms. Lerner wrote in an April 9, 2013, message.

She went on to ask whether the instant message communications were stored automatically. When a tech staffer said no but the records could be stored if employees copied them, she replied, “Perfect.”

“Why did it take us this long to get these emails? We’ve been after this for six months,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who raised the emails with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at a hearing Wednesday.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Heroine for Our Times: We Now Have a Politics of Meanness and Spite, Where Hatred is a Sign of Legitimacy

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Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla / GettyThe narrative of decline is one of a slow and silent accumulation of ills. Looking backwards, we don’t remember a special moment when the evil days came, or the years drew nigh when all would be changed, but only the painful contrast between the days of our youth and the decrepitude of age. So it is with countries. We fail to see sharp breaks where we can say: There, there is where it all happened.

And yet such moments do exist, the points of inflection where the curve changes from positive to negative. We might have thought little of the changes at the time, perhaps, but they made all the difference, and it is the task of the historian to bring them to light.

I am no historian, but I have one such moment in mind. It was when The New Republic’s senior editor Jonathan Chait wrote in 2003, “I hate President George W. Bush.” TNR was always a liberal journal, but under editors such as Andrew Sullivan (before he went mad) and the restraining hand of Martin Peretz, it prided itself on its reasonableness. The magazine might have been coma-inducing boring, but by God it was reasonable.

And then came Chait’s tirade. For conservatives who seek to be loved by the Left, it was deeply painful. More cynical conservatives took it in stride. And just what was it anyway? Merely an op-ed. But then it was more than that too. It was a sea change in which the swimmer suddenly finds himself in frigid water. And Chait’s permission slip for hatred explains what has happened to American politics since then, the bitterness, the calls for revenge, the IRS campaign against the Tea Party.

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Archives Official: IRS Didn’t Follow Law on Missing Emails

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Photo Credit: Getty/AFPThe IRS didn’t follow the law by failing to report it lost emails when former official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed, the top official at the National Archives told a House panel on Tuesday.

But those actions could have limited consequences for the agency.

U.S. Archivist David Ferriero cast the IRS’s email problems as part of a broader government issue at the House Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday, a point latched onto by Democrats.

The goal of the Archives in these situations, Ferriero also noted, is to “ensure that the circumstances that may have led to the loss of federal records are corrected and not repeated.”

“It’s not an enforcement statute,” Paul Wester, the Archives’ chief records officer, said about the Federal Records Act.

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So if the IRS “Lost” Lois Lerner’s Potentially Criminal Emails, Maybe They Should Check These Guys…

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Photo Credit: IJ Review As we begin a nationwide house-to-house and computer-to-computer search for Lois Lerner’s magically disappearing emails, The Blaze reports that from 2005 to 2010 a private company called Sonasoft was contracted to archive all IRS emails.

A quick look at the company’s website reveals its clever tagline: “Email Archiving Done Right.”

How “right”? That’s not so clear, as we now know…

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Sources: Lois Lerner’s Emails Likely Gone Forever

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Photo Credit: Getty Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive has been recycled, making it likely the lost emails of the lightening rod in the tea party targeting controversy will never be found, according to multiple sources.

“We’ve been informed that the hard drive has been thrown away,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a brief hallway interview.

Two additional sources told POLITICO the same late Wednesday, citing IRS officials.

It may just be standard government procedure, but the revelation is significant because some lawmakers and observers thought there was a way that tech experts could revive Lerner’s emails after they were washed away in a computer crash in the summer of 2011. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), for example, subpoenaed her damaged hard drive earlier this week, when he asked for “all hard drives, external drives, thumb drives and computers” and “all electronic communication devices the IRS issued to Lois G. Lerner.”

“IT experts have weighed in and said yes — we can get those” emails, said Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) earlier Wednesday.

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Lawmakers: IRS Knew for Months of ‘Lost’ Lerner Emails, More Documents Missing

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Photo Credit: APRepublican lawmakers charged Tuesday that the IRS knew for months they had “lost” a massive trove of emails from embattled ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, but kept it “secret” until this past Friday.

The lawmakers noted that during this period, newly appointed Commissioner John Koskinen nevertheless assured Congress the agency would produce the documents, which are considered critical to their efforts to probe the targeting of Tea Party and other groups. Further, lawmakers said records from six other IRS workers appear to have gone missing as well.

“It looks like the American people were lied to and the IRS tried to cover-up the fact it conveniently lost key documents in this investigation,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., said in a statement.

Republicans on the committee said the agency knew as early as February that emails were missing.

Yet the IRS only revealed last Friday that it had lost an untold number of emails when Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Lerner used to head the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status.

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Convenient: IRS Has ‘Lost’ Two Years of Lois Lerner’s Emails

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Photo Credit: TownHallBy Katie Pavlich.

According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS has “lost” two years of emails belonging to former head of tax exempt organizations Lois Lerner. The IRS doesn’t have a record of her emails to outside groups or government agencies from January 2009 through April 2011, conveniently encompassing some of the same time when tea party groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution. The IRS says the loss of emails is due to a “computer crash” and claims emails from or to Lerner from the White House, Democratic members of Congress, the Treasury Department, FEC and Department of Justice cannot be located. They do however have emails belonging to Lerner that she sent to other IRS employees.

“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries. There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp said in a statement. “Just a short time ago, Commissioner Koskinen promised to produce all Lerner documents. It appears now that was an empty promise. Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies…

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Photo Credit: Getty Images IRS claims it has LOST two years’ worth of emails from embattled former official Lois Lerner as tea party targeting scandal heats up again

The Internal Revenue Service has lost two years worth of emails to and from embattled former tax official Lois Lerner, the agency told congressional investigators on Friday.

The IRS promised on May 8 to turn over all her emails but now blames a computer crash for huge tranches of missing documents.

Lerner is under investigation for allegedly orchestrating a years-long program that targeted tea party groups and other conservative organizations for unusually intrusive scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status beginning in the year before the 2010 congressional midterm elections.

The House Ways and Means Committee, one of two bodies probing the case, said Friday that the IRS says that for the period of January 2009 through April 2011, the only Lerner emails it can find are those that were sent to or from other IRS employees.

Emails whose sender or recipient was outside the government, or inside other agencies, have mysteriously disappeared.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Won’t Arrest Lois Lerner

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Photo Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

Under a precedent affirmed by the Supreme Court, each chamber of Congress can authorize its sergeant-at-arms to detain individuals it holds in contempt. But Boehner said on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” on Fox News that he has no interest in doing that with Lerner, whom the House last week voted to hold in contempt over her refusal to testify about her role in the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups.

“I’m not sure we want to go down that path,” Boehner said. “It’s never been used,” he said of the provision allowing Congress to arrest individuals and place them in the Capitol jail. The Senate has in fact used that power, but not in the last 80 years. “I’m not sure that it’s an appropriate way to go about this,” Boehner said.

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Congress Holds Lerner in Contempt

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Photo Credit: AP / Carolyn Kaster

Photo Credit: AP / Carolyn Kaster

By Stephen Ohlemacher.

House Republicans voted Wednesday to hold a former Internal Revenue Service official in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a pair of committee hearings about her role in the agency’s tea party controversy.

The House also passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the IRS.

Lois Lerner directed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. A year ago this week, Lerner publicly disclosed that agents had improperly singled out tea party applications for extra, sometimes burdensome scrutiny.

An inspector general’s report blamed poor management but found no evidence of a political conspiracy. Many Republicans in Congress believe otherwise.

“Who’s been fired over the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS? No one that I’m aware of,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday. “Who’s gone to jail for violating the law? When is the administration going to tell the American people the truth?”

Read more from this story HERE.

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In Showdown With Lerner, House Imprisonment Not Out of the Question

By Katy O’Donnell.

Former tax official Lois Lerner’s confrontation with Congress over a potential contempt citation may get emphatically more dramatic, depending on how far back into congressional history House Republicans want to reach.

Deep in the recesses of congressional power — and in precedent stretching back to the 18th century — is the ability to pursue “inherent contempt” against individuals, including the right to imprison a person in the Capitol to compel compliance with lawmakers’ authority.

Congress hasn’t exercised inherent contempt power since 1935 and there’s no suggestion that lawmakers are actively considering the option in Lerner’s case.

But House attorneys, and lawyers for the former Internal Revenue Service official, are looking at the potential legal paths as House leaders consider first whether to take a contempt citation to the floor and, if it passes, whether the Justice Department will pursue prosecution.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted on party lines to recommend the full House hold Lerner in contempt and refer her to the Justice Department for refusing to testify before the committee on allegations of political targeting at the IRS of conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status. The GOP members said Lerner, who resigned from the IRS last year under fire for her role as the head of the office at the heart of the controversy, waived her Fifth Amendment privilege by delivering an opening statement declaring her innocence before the panel last year.

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Lois Lerner’s Attorney: It Would Be ‘Un-American’ to Hold Her in Contempt

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Photo Credit: Townhall

Photo Credit: Townhall

Earlier this month, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. The full House is set to vote on contempt charges for Lerner in May.

[A] memo from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the contempt vote would proceed unless Lerner agrees to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the targeting scandal.

“Thorough investigations by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as the Ways and Means Committee have revealed findings that indicate that Ms. Lerner played a central role in the illegal targeting of conservative groups by the IRS,” the memo reads.

Now her attorney, William W. Taylor III, is asking for the opportunity to defend her in front of Congress before the vote is taken. Taylor is arguing it would be unfair and “un-American” to hold Lerner in contempt.

“Holding Ms. Lerner in contempt would not only be unfair and, indeed, un-American, it would be flatly inconsistent with the Fifth Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court,” Lerner’s lawyer, William W. Taylor III, wrote in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Read more from this story HERE.