Lois Lerner’s IRS Blackberry Destroyed After Federal Probe
Source: theepochtimes.com
The IRS destroyed former Lois Lerner’s BlackBerry after Congress started probing whether the IRS was targeting conservative groups. Lerner was director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS. A sworn declaration of Thomas Kane, a senior IRS lawyer, reveals that in June 2012, the IT department of the IRS wiped any sensitive or proprietary information from the BlackBerry in preparation for its destruction.
The declaration is part of a lawsuit against the IRS brought by the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch. The group said last week in a related statement that Department of Justice attorneys for the IRS told them last week that all government computer records, including emails, are backed up. They said, however, that to search the backup system would be too onerous. Judicial Watch lashed out at the DOJ’s position.
“This is a jaw-dropping revelation,” said the organization’s president, Tom Fitton, in a statement. “The Obama administration had been lying to the American people about Lois Lerner’s missing emails.
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Read the full article at: theepochtimes.com
In addition to the investigation of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Judicial Watch has been dogged in pursuing litigation under the Freedom of Information Act against the Obama administration over its refusal to turn over documents in the IRS targeting scandal. Judicial Watch convinced the federal judge assigned to its case, Emmet G. Sullivan, that the IRS needed to explain how a significant chunk of Lois Lerner’s emails could have gone missing and why the agency did not bother to inform Judicial Watch or the court. As a result, various IRS officials have been forced to file sworn affidavits with the court explaining the circumstances surrounding the hard drive on Lerner’s laptop going bad and their inability to recover any emails from that hard drive.
But in the midst of those affidavits was another stunning admission: that Lerner’s Blackberry had also been destroyed. Thomas J. Kane, the deputy associate chief counsel of the IRS, said in an affidavit that Lerner’s Blackberry, which had been issued to her on Nov. 12, 2009, had been “wiped clean” and “removed as scrap for disposal in June 2012.” There is no explanation given in Kane’s affidavit as to why this was done – in contrast to the detailed affidavits filed in the Judicial Watch case that describe the problems with Lerner’s hard drive on her laptop.
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