Tuesday, July 1, 2014

CHAIRMAN HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE DAVE CAMP ON LOST IRS EMAILS

FROM:  CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP'S ONLINE NEWSLETTER 

Earlier in June, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) informed Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, that it lost Lois Lerner emails from a period of January 2009 – April 2011.  Lerner is a key figure in the Ways and Means Committee’s year-long investigation of the IRS targeting groups based on their personal beliefs.

Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame.  The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices.  In addition to the missing Lerner e-mails, Camp learned the IRS lost emails from six additional IRS employees and has known about the computer crashes since early 2014.

After learning about the lost emails Camp stated, “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.  Instead, because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone.  This failure of the IRS requires the White House, which promised to get to the bottom of this, to do an Administration-wide search and production of any emails to or from Lois Lerner.  The Administration has repeatedly referred us back to the IRS for production of materials.  It is clear that is wholly insufficient when it comes to determining the full scope of the violation of taxpayer rights.”

Camp and Ways and Means Committee investigators are continuing to question how these emails were lost.  Last week, the Ways and Means Committee held a hearing with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to demand answers.

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