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Lerner Used Program That Automatically Deleted Messages
Tuesday, July 28, 2015 05:24 PM
By: Cathy Burke
Lois Lerner, the retired IRS official at the center of a 2013 conservative group targeting scandal, used an instant-messaging system that automatically deleted sent messages, the Daily Caller reports.
Citing newly released emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Daily Caller reports that Lerner preferred the agency's Office Communication Server because it left no record of her messages during the period when her department was giving extra scrutiny to conservative and tea party groups.
“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,” Lerner wrote in an email to co-workers, the House committee noted in a 29-page letter sent Monday to President Barack Obama asking for IRS Commissioner John Koskinen's firing.
According to the Daily Caller, Lerner asked colleagues whether the OCS system automatically archives its messages. A colleague told her the system does not have an automatic archival function.
"Perfect," Lerner replied, the Daily Caller reports.
The House voted last year to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress after she refused to answer questions at two House Oversight committee hearings.
On Tuesday, Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Ron DeSantis of Florida also demanded Koskinen's removal.
"Unfortunately, Commissioner Koskinen, who took over in the wake of the IRS targeting scandal, has failed the American people by frustrating Congress’s attempts to ascertain the truth," they wrote in an op-ed commentary for The Wall Street Journal.
