Loss of e-mails called mistake
WASHINGTON — Investigators are blaming mistakes by IRS employees — not a criminal conspiracy — for the loss of thousands of e-mails related to the tax agency’s Tea Party scandal.
IRS workers erased 422 computer backup tapes that “most likely” contained as many as 24,000 e-mails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner, who has emerged as a central figure in congressional investigations, according to IRS’s inspector general.
The workers erased the tapes a month after IRS officials discovered that an untold number of Lerner’s e-mails were lost. The IG says the workers were unaware of a year-old directive not to destroy e-mail backup tapes.
J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, is scheduled to testify today before the House Oversight Committee about his investigation. The Associated Press obtained a copy of his prepared testimony.
George says his investigation “did not uncover evidence that the erasure was done in furtherance of an effort to destroy evidence or conceal information from Congress and/or law enforcement.”
Still, the revelation that computer tapes were erased after officials knew about the lost e-mails is likely to fuel conspiracy theories among conservatives who say the IRS has obstructed investigations into the scandal.
An IRS spokesman had no comment.
George set off a firestorm in May 2013 with an audit that said IRS agents improperly singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections. Several hundred groups had their applications delayed. Some were asked inappropriate questions about donors and group activities, the report said.
Lerner used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. In June 2014, the IRS told Congress it had lost an unknown number of Lerner’s e-mails in a computer crash.
