Lois Lerner / AP
The Internal Revenue Service official under fire for her role in targeting conservative nonprofit groups used a private email address to conduct official business, congressional investigators say.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter Tuesday to Lois Lerner , the former director of the IRS’s exempt organizations unit, seeking all work-related emails from her personal 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,’” Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) wrote. “This raises some serious questions concerning your use of a non-official e-mail account to conduct official business.”
If federal employees use private email for work, they are required to send copies to their official email accounts for record keeping purposes. Lerner would be in violation of federal record law if she failed to do so.
“The use of non-official e-mail accounts to conduct official business implicates federal records requirements,” Issa and Jordan said. “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.”
Her using her personnel computer or account and not ccing the office may be against the law but she will never be fined or do time for it. There are separate laws and punishments for the people in power, we all know that. So as Hilary said, big deal, who cares.