On June 13, 2014, the IRS notified Republican congressional investigators that it had lost Lerner's emails from January 2009 to April 2011 because of a mid-2011 computer crash.[143] The emails were under subpoena as part of the congressional investigation.[144] On June 19, the IRS said that the damaged hard drive containing Lerner's missing emails had been disposed of more than two years prior.[145] Some commentators have raised legal issues concerning how the IRS handled these federal records.[146][147][148] A National Archives and Records Administration spokesperson said in an email communication that: "The Office of the Chief Records Officer for the U.S. Government has contacted the IRS to explore specifics of the situation."[147]
On July 9, 2014, Republicans released an April 13, 2013 email from Lerner in which she cautioned colleagues to "be cautious about what we say in emails," citing congressional inquiries. The email did not specify which congressional inquiries Lerner was concerned about and made no mention of the then-impending TIGTA report. Republicans said that this email suggested that Lerner tried to hide evidence from investigators.[149]
On September 5, 2014, the IRS said it lost additional emails of five workers under congressional investigation, blaming computer crashes.[150] These five workers include two people based in Cincinnati who worked on Tea Party cases; according to the IRS the crashes all predate congressional investigations and had occurred between September 2009 and February 2014.[151]
funny how that search warrant gets approved
