IRS Needed Only Two Days to Confirm Lerner Hard Drive Crash

quote:

---

“The Committee has obtained information that senior IRS leadership knew in February 2014 that e-mails on Ms. Lerner’s hard drive were unrecoverable,” Issa and Jordan write in today’s letter. “The IRS’s failure to disclose in a timely manner that it had destroyed evidence critical to congressional and criminal investigations is further reason that a special prosecutor is needed to thoroughly and independently investigate all facets of the IRS targeting.”

The letter continued:

“On July 17, 2014, the Committee conducted a transcribed interview of Thomas Kane, the IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel for Procedure and Administration. During the interview, Mr. Kane testified that senior leadership in the IRS became aware of problems with Lois Lerner’s e-mails in early February 2014. According to Mr. Kane, on February 2, 2014, Catherine Duval, Counselor to the Commissioner, noticed a discrepancy in the number of e-mails gathered from Ms. Lerner’s account. The IRS had gathered 16,000 e-mails from the period after April 2011 and ‘less than 100’ from the period before April 2011.

“After becoming aware of the discrepancy in the number of e-mails, Mr. Kane asked a subordinate, Paul Butler, to look into the cause of the discrepancy. Two days later, on February 4, 2014, senior IRS leadership learned that Ms. Lerner’s hard drive had crashed in 2011 from her former administrative assistant, Dawn Marx. Mr. Kane testified:

---