DOJ Waits for the Press to Investigate IRS

Despite Yearlong Investigation Of IRS, DOJ Just Learned Of Lost Emails From News Media

Before a Congressional committee that even a year into its investigation, DOJ had no advance notice of the 2 years’ worth of emails the IRS says went missing years ago. ...

[T]his is astonishing. On June 13, 2014, the IRS admitted that it lost Lois Lerner’s emails from January 2009 through April 2011. DOJ says it learned of the missing emails after June 13, 2014 from the media! Oh, those two-years’ worth of emails to and from the key IRS figure who refused to testify to Congress about her job as a top IRS official? They covered the precise period of time when the alleged IRS targeting of Tea Party groups took place.

Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis asked Deputy Attorney General James Cole, “So you actually read about it in the press and nobody in the IRS ever went to the Justice Department to give you a heads-up, knowing you were conducting the investigation that some evidence may have been destroyed?”

“Not before the 13th of June,” Cole replied. “I think we learned about it after that, from press accounts,” Mr. Cole told House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan. Rep. Jordan pressed Mr. Cole, “Is it a big deal to you Mr. Cole, a big deal to the Justice Department that the head of the Internal Revenue Service waited two months to tell the United States Congress, two months to tell the American people, and, most importantly, two months to tell the FBI and the Justice Department that they had lost Lois Lerner’s emails?”

Mr. Cole’s response seemed practically Presidential, “It depends on what the circumstances were behind,” Cole responded. The whole story may eventually come out, but the investigation has taken on a decidedly pale complection. Now there’s a new DOJ investigation underway into the IRS missing emails. One might wonder if it will ever turn up even a smidgen of corruption.

The New York Times motto is "All the news that's fit to print." Apparently the DOJ's new motto is "The only evidence fit to investigate."