Allen West
Allen West Republic
7/9/2014
‘I was cautioning folks about email and how we have several occasions where Congress has asked for emails … we need to be cautious about what we say in emails’
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today released new e-mails at a hearing with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen showing former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Lois Lerner leading an IRS effort to hide information from Congressional inquiries. From the April 9, 2013, email exchange among Lerner, an IRS technology employee (Maria Hooke), and the agency’s Director for Exempt Organizations Exam Unit Manager Nanette Downing who led audits:
I had a question today about OCS [Microsoft Office Communications Server]. I was cautioning folks about email and how we have 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. Someone asked if OCS conversations were also searchable – I don’t know, but told them I would get back to them. Do you know?
Lerner’s April 2013 e-mail exchanges came just twelve days after the IRS Inspector General shared a draft copy of its targeting audit with the IRS that Lerner would leak at a bar association speech only weeks before the scandal became public.
In e-mails withheld from the Committee until only last week, Lerner was apparently concerned that IRS conversations taking place within the agency’s instant messenger program could end up in the hands of Congress along with requested e-mails. An IRS technology employees responded that “OCS messages are not set to automatically save” but cautioned that “parties involved in an OCS conversation can copy and save the contents of the conversation to an email or file.” Lerner responded, “Perfect.”
When Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, raised the e-mail to Commissioner Koskinen’s attention, Koskinen said he had never seen the e-mail and was unfamiliar with the OCS communication system…
There is video and more links at AllenWestRepublic.com
H/T The Washington Free Beacon on Facebook
Update: Lois Lerner Did Print Out ‘Some’ Emails, After All (video)
Disgraced ex-IRS official Lois Lerner actually printed out some of her missing emails, according to a statement by her attorney. Lerner’s lawyer Bill Taylor initially claimed that Lerner did not print out and file her emails, as the Federal Records Act required her to do, before they allegedly went missing in a 2011 computer crash and her hard drive was “recycled” by the IRS. Taylor also claimed that Lerner “did not think it was required,” despite clear instructions for employees on the IRS website. But now the story is changing. Taylor told a Virginia-based publication Wednesday that Lerner printed out “some” of her emails…
