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Press Release Published: Aug 13, 2013

Oversight Seeks E-mails about Official Business Conducted by IRS’s Lerner on Non-Official Account

Request comes after documents show Lerner used personal account for official business

WASHINGTON – Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter to IRS official Lois Lerner seeking e-mails related to her official duties, in her non-government e-mail account.

“Through the course of the investigation, we have learned that you sent documents related to your official duties from your official IRS e-mail account to an msn.com e-mail account labeled ‘Lois Home,’” the letter sent to Lerner states. “This raises some serious questions concerning your use of a non-official e-mail account to conduct official business.”

“[T]he use of non-official e-mail accounts to conduct official business implicates federal records requirements,” Issa and Jordan continue. “It also creates difficulties in fulfilling the IRS’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and other litigation requests. Your use of non-official e-mail account also frustrates congressional oversight obligations.”

The letter requests all documents and communications housed in Lerner’s msn.com account or any other non-official account that reference her official IRS duties by August 27, 2013. You can read the complete letter here.

Lerner has been at the center of the IRS Tea Party targeting scandal and is currently on administrative leave from the IRS.  She has asserted her Fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions about the disparate treatment given to Tea Party applicants for tax exempt status.