Cover-up: Lois Lerner Caught Trying to Hide Information and Emails From Congress

The latest bombshell email revelation from former top IRS official Lois Lerner shows her actively trying to hide information from Congress just days after learning of the Investigator General report on the IRS targeting of the Tea Party and conservative groups.

Lerner stated that she had been “cautioning” fellow IRS employees to be “cautious about what we say in emails” because “Congress has asked for emails”.  She was also concerned with hiding information shared through an IRS internal messaging system known as OCS, previously unknown to congressional investigators and others.  She asked another employee if “OCS conversations were also searchable.”

When she was told that they typically are not saved unless the individual conversation participants intentionally save them, Lerner responded, “Perfect.”

The initial email from Lerner dated April 9, 2013 with the subject line “OCS” provides:

I had a question today about OCS [Microsoft Office Communications Server]. I was cautioning folks about email and how we have several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails – so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails.  Someone asked if OCS conversations were also searchable – I don’t know, but told them I would get back to them.  Do you know?

This email came just twelve days after the Treasury IG shared his interim report on the targeting of conservative groups with the IRS and just one month before Lerner delivered her faux-apology.

The latest revelation shows that Lerner and others at the IRS were in full cover-up mode.  There is information, damning information, that she didn’t want Congress or the American public to see.

Today, when IRS Commissioner Koskinen was asked about this email and the OCS system he said he was completely unaware of either.

Tellingly, the IRS Commissioner did admit that there are more Lerner emails to be turned over to Congress, testifying, “I'm sure some of those will be interesting to people.”

The deeper this investigation goes the worse it gets, and it’s going to get a lot worse.  The IRS targeted conservatives, and then it tried to cover its tracks.  This is a real scandal, the likes of which we may have never seen before.

At the ACLJ, we will continue to pursue justice for targeted Americans and accountability for those responsible through our ongoing lawsuit on behalf of 41 targeted conservative groups from 22 states.