The Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) “did not follow the law” when it failed to report the loss of
emails belonging to Lois Lerner, the former director of the IRS
Exempt Organizations Unit, and the recycling of her hard drive,
rendering recovery impossible. That’s according to
David Ferriero (pictured), the Archivist of the United States,
during questioning by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) of the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The loss of Lerner’s
potentially sensitive emails is just the latest development in the
evolving story that has grown from revelations of almost certainly
politically motivated scrutiny of small-government and Tea Party
groups by the tax agency.
The
entire exchange is below:
Walberg: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ferriero,
just to review a bit in your testimony, you state that when
agencies become aware of unauthorized destruction of federal
records that they are required to report the incidents to the
Archives. At any time in 2011, through last Monday, did the IRS
report any loss of records related to Lois Lerner?Ferriero: No.
Walberg: Is it fair to say that the IRS broke
the Federal Records Act?Ferriero: They are required, any agency is
required to notify us when they realize they have a problem that
could be destruction or disposal, unauthorized disposal.Walberg: But they didn’t do that?
Ferriero: That’s right.
Walberg: Did they break the law?
Ferrerio: I’m not a lawyer.
Walberg: But you administer the Federal Records
Act.Ferriero: I do.
Walberg: If they didn’t follow it, can we
safely assume they broke the law?Ferriero: They did not follow the law.
According to Fox News polling,
76 percent of Americans think the destruction of the emails was
deliberate, while just 12 percent are conviced by the
dog-ate-my-homework claim that it was an acccident.
Deliberate or not, the IRS, which is so zealous in enforcing the
tax code, apparently managed to break the law
regarding retention of federal records.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1ryefsg
via IFTTT