The attorney representing many conservative groups suing the IRS for harassment over their applications for tax-exempt status does not believe the claim that more than two years of critical emails are suddenly missing and she is demanding answers.
On Friday, the IRS announced that emails to and from former Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner were missing between the beginning of 2009 and mid-2011, the exact stretch in which the tea party was swelling in activity and political influence.
“Just when you think they can’t think of anything more bizarre to say that they’ve done or not done, then they come up with this,” said Cleta Mitchell, a highly regarded Washington attorney who is suing the IRS on behalf of True the Vote and other groups alleging IRS misconduct.
“They are required under many court decisions and many federal statutes to retain information that would be discoverable and relevant and issue related to litigation,” she said.
As a result, Mitchell is taking swift action in demanding answers to how the emails suddenly vanished and what the government plans to do about it.
“We sent a letter to the (Justice Department) and to the attorneys for Lois Lerner and the other IRS defendants yesterday, giving them until noon Wednesday to respond to several questions. If they don’t respond, we will file a motion in court to allow for an independent forensics expert to have access to the computers and the hard drives and to take the necessary steps to recover and preserve the evidence,” said Mitchell.
Lerner’s emails are also being sought by congressional investigators. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen recently assured House lawmakers that the emails existed and were carefully protected.
Mitchell isn’t buying the explanation and doesn’t think much of Koskinen either.
“I think they’re lying. They’re either lying before or they’re lying now. John Koskinen may be a nice person but he’s like a puppet. He says whatever his staff tells him to say and he trots over to Congress and says things. If I were in his position, I would have some heads because he has just parroted whatever the underlings have told him to say ever since he got there,” said Mitchell.
The IRS position lacks credibility on at least two fronts, according to Mitchell. First, she points out the investigation is nearly a year old and the IRS could have easily reported the missing emails when they were requested if they really didn’t exist. Second, the IRS only agreed to turn over the emails a month ago, which makes the timing of this announcement even more suspect to her and officials have made no effort to recover them.
“We have a bunch of people who are lawless. There are statutes that require the retention of these documents. They would not call in the FBI and the forensic experts at the NSA to recover these emails. I’ve had many, many emails from people around the country saying this is just not possible. This is not 1978. Those emails are not lost. They can be recovered. What I’m worried about is that they’ve proactively destroyed the sources of the hard drives and computers,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell insists her clients still have a strong case against the IRS and the government’s failure to preserve evidence can be construed by the courts as evidence against the IRS. Nonetheless, she says the Lerner emails could be very revealing.
“I think it would be a day-by-day diary,” said Lerner. “This was at the height of IRS targeting, when it began, how it began, the communications within the agency and outside the agency. She’s at the center of the storm,” said Mitchell.
The plaintiffs in the case are resolute in their commitment to find justice in this case, according to Mitchell. She says this entire saga is not only another dagger in the reputation of the IRS but is also a scandal for how Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department have done everything they can to prevent the truth from coming to light.
“Everybody should be beyond being shocked at what the IRS can come up with. It’s just breathtaking this is the most lawless agency. The thing that is most distressing is that if we had independent law enforcement of the nation in Attorney General Eric Holder, instead of an enforcer for the Obama administration’s political hatchet agenda, they could fear that the DOJ would step in and bring the FBI in and do whatever’s necessary to recover and preserve documents and prosecute those for failure to follow the statutes,” said Mitchell,
“However, we all know that the Department of Justice is complicit in this effort. My clients are more determined than ever to see this through with litigation, hoping that we’ll get law enforcement through the federal courts,” she said.
