IRS says Lois Lerner’s emails done got wiped out in one of them there computer crashes

 Aw, shoot!  The IRS was trying so hard to come up with documents requested by the House Ways and Means Committee, as part of its investigation into the abuse of power against conservative groups during the 2012 election.  But wouldn’t you know it?  One of those newfangled computer thingamabobs had itself a crash, and all of Tax Exempt Organizations Division director Lois Lerner’s emails done got erased!

Everything she sent to outside email addresses between January 2009 and April 2011 is lost into the ether.  Everything she sent to the White House, the Justice Department, her old chums at the Federal Elections Commission, high-ranking Democrat politicians – gone!  All they’ve got left is email correspondence between Lerner and other IRS employees.

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), who asked for all these emails a year ago, is fit to be tied:

“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.

“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.”

Dagnabbit, thanks to this here act of God, we might never know “the full scope of the violation of taxpayer rights.”  Everybody in the whole dad-gum Obama Administration must be real broken up about that.

Update: House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) reacts angrily to the IRS claims of a computer crash:

Isn’t it convenient for the Obama Administration that the IRS now says it has suddenly realized it lost Lois Lerner’s emails requested by Congress and promised by Commissioner John Koskinen?  Do they really expect the American people to believe that, after having withheld these emails for a year, they’re just now realizing the most critical time period is missing?

Congressional oversight has revealed that the IRS has –potentially illegally– shared confidential taxpayer information with the FBI and lost crucial email records even as the agency continues to withhold information by not fully complying with the Committee’s subpoena. Left to the IRS’ own preferences, the White House would still be retelling the lie that this was all about mismanagement confined to a local office.  The supposed loss of Lerner’s emails further blows a hole in the credibility of claims that the IRS is complying with Congressional requests and their repeated assurances that they’re working to get to the truth. If there wasn’t nefarious conduct that went much higher than Lois Lerner in the IRS targeting scandal, why are they playing these games?

I imagined how the IRS might respond on Twitter:

John Hayward @Doc_0