Lois Lerner’s lost emails may have been saved, thanks to budget cuts.
A top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said he has learned that key lost emails sent by Lerner, a former IRS administrator accused of targeting conservatives, may be preserved somewhere within 760 exchange servers that were supposed to be destroyed two years ago.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is chairman of an Oversight panel subcommittee, said Friday that according to the Treasury Inspector General, “the servers had not been destroyed due to budgetary constraints.”
Jordan made the revelation in an announcement that IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has been scheduled to testify Sept. 17 before the Oversight subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation and Regulatory Affairs. Jordan wants Koskinen to update Congress on the effort to recover Lerner’s lost emails.
It will be Koskinen’s first appearance before Congress since a lawsuit by the conservative group Judicial Watch revealed Lerner’s emails still exist.
Jordan said the existence of the exchange servers “contradicts” previous committee testimony by Koskinen, who told Congress earlier this year he believed the emails were not recoverable because the hard drives had been recycled.
Many Lerner emails sent prior to 2011 were lost in a hard drive crash, the IRS has said. The agency said emails from other key IRS officials had also vanished due to hard drive crashes.
According to Jordan, new information indicates eight other IRS employees may have lost their emails due to computer problems.
The missing information has led some lawmakers to question whether the emails were purposely destroyed, which the IRS vehemently denies.
Congressional investigators believe Lerner’s missing emails may show evidence that conservative groups seeking tax exemption from the IRS in recent years were treated with unfair scrutiny at the direction of Lerner, and perhaps Obama administration officials working above her.
Lerner was head of the IRS department that oversees tax-exempt organizations. She is no longer working for the IRS and has been held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify.
