U.S. Archivist: IRS Skirted Law on Disclosing Email Snafu

The government’s chief archivist told a congressional committee Tuesday that the Internal Revenue Service did not follow legal procedure in failing to notify his office about the loss of thousands of emails to and from Lois Lerner, former head of the IRS unit on nonprofits, the Associated Press reports.

Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, David Ferriero said the National Archives and Records Administration did not learn of the lost records until this month, when IRS Commissioner John Koskinen disclosed that much of Ms. Lerner’s correspondence between 2009 and 2011 had been lost in a crash of her computer.

“Any agency is required to notify us when they realize they have a problem,” Mr. Ferriero told the committee, which is investigating alleged IRS targeting of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status. Mr. Koskinen has said that the IRS attempted without success to recover the lost material, but House Republicans have accused the tax agency of obstructing the Tea Party probe.