Let’s See Lerner’s IRS Emails
It’s been nearly two years since Lois Lerner planted a question at an American Bar Association gathering to slip in the fact that the IRS had singled out Tea Party groups for special scrutiny.
Since then, we’ve learned the following:
- We’re not going to get more from Lerner, who invoked the Fifth before Congress.
- We’re not going to get real answers from IRS chief John Koskinen. To the contrary, the only assurance from him that we’re sure he’ll make good on is his recent promise that Americans will get terrible service from the IRS this year.
- We’re not going to get any help from the Justice Department, which has refused to follow up Congress’ finding of contempt against Lerner by referring her case to a grand jury.
Still, we do know this. Contrary to earlier assertions by the IRS, the Lois Lerner emails Congress sought were not lost forever.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, says authorities have now managed to recover roughly 16,000 Lerner emails.
This has led Johnson to send Koskinen a letter in which the senator writes, “I respectfully request your assistance in better understanding the IRS’s document-retention and -production process.”
We prefer the way the senator put it on Fox News: “I smell a rat. I smell a number of rats, and that’s what we are going to get to the bottom of.”
We’re as curious as anyone about why the IRS told us the Lerner emails were gone forever. But what we really want to know is this: What the heck is in them?
