House Oversight Committee: Lois Lerner Employed Private Email Account to Conduct Official IRS Business

Under the name "Lois Home," which is not quite as ridiculous a pseudonym as "Richard Windsor" but it does conceal the actual identity of the account's owner.

Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter to IRS official Lois Lerner seeking e-mails related to her official duties, in her non-government e-mail account.

“Through the course of the investigation, we have learned that you sent documents related to your official duties from your official IRS e-mail account to an msn.com e-mail account labeled ‘Lois Home,’” the letter sent to Lerner states. “This raises some serious questions concerning your use of a non-official e-mail account to conduct official business.”

“[T]he use of non-official e-mail accounts to conduct official business implicates federal records requirements,” Issa and Jordan continue. “It also creates difficulties in fulfilling the IRS’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and other litigation requests. Your use of non-official e-mail account also frustrates congressional oversight obligations.”

She probably didn't know a non-official account would frustrate congressional oversight obligations.

And the IRS is still employing "secondary screening" against Tea Party applicants, per a witness' testimony. That remains the current directive.

Q: “So, you would treat a Tea Party group as a political advocacy case even if there was no evidence of political activity on the application. Is that right?”

A: “Based on my current manager’s direction, uh-huh.”

posted by Ace at 01:42 PM

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