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Press Release Published: Jul 17, 2014

Justice Department Investigating the IRS Commissioner’s Delay in Notifying Justice, Congress about Lerner’s Lost Emails

DAG Cole: We are looking into Koskinen’s delay in reporting the revelation that key witness’s evidence was lost

In today’s House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation, and Regulatory Affairs hearing on the U.S. Department of Justice’s response to the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, in an exchange with Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH),  noted that the Justice Department is investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) delay in alerting other agencies that they had lost former IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails.

Chairman Jordan:  So, you said earlier that relative to Mr. Koskinen, it depends on whether there is a problem with the fact that the Commissioner at the IRS knew in April, and waited two months to tell us the American people, and more importantly, you. So you are going to investigate that aspect as well, as you would for a private citizen?

Deputy Attorney General James Cole: All the issues related to those emails will be wrapped up in the investigation that we do.

Jordan: Including the delay?

Cole: Including the delay.

Jordan: So the delay, the fact that the Commissioner at the Internal Revenue Service delayed telling the Congress, the American people, the FBI, and the Justice Department, is a matter that you are going to investigate?

Cole: We’re going to look into what the circumstances were around it, yes.

Jordan: That’s important.

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