New emails uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee indicate that former IRS employee Lois Lerner has a strong dislike of conservatives, and at one point called them “assholes” in an email exchange.
The committee released an email Lerner received in November 2012 complaining about the “whacko wing of the GOP.” The person wrote Lerner that there are “too many foreigners sucking the teat,” and that the “right wing radio shows are scary to listen to.”
Lerner replied, “Great. Maybe we are through if there are that many assholes.”
The other person then wrote, “And I’m talking about the hosts of the shows. The callers are rabid.”
Lerner replied, “So we don’t need to worry about alien terrorists. It’s our own crazies that will take us down.”
“Despite the serious investigation and evidence this Committee has undertaken into the IRS’s targeting of individuals for their beliefs, there is no indication that DOJ is taking this matter seriously,” Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and chairman of the committee, said in a letter to the department.
“In light of this new information, I hope DOJ will aggressively pursue this case and finally appoint a special counsel, so the full truth can be revealed and justice is served,” he wrote.
Mr. Camp argued that the newly discovered emails demonstrated Ms. Lerner’s “personal hostility toward conservatives,” who were targeted by the IRS office run by Ms. Lerner.
The new emails were not from the critical time period from 2009 to 2011, which the IRS claims were lost when Ms. Lerner’s computer crashed.
In one of the new emails, Ms. Lerner states: “So we don’t need to worry about alien teRrorists. (sic) It’s our own crazies that will take us down.”
The committee also turned over evidence that Ms. Lerner used her personal home computer for IRS business, including storing taxpayer information.
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An email from Feb. 22, 2012, shows an exchange between Ms. Lerner and an IRS IT professional regarding a “Virus on Home PC.” In the exchange, Ms. Lerner indicates that she kept work information on her home computer, some of which may have been lost.
She said her computer may have been “simply hacked because my password was too simple.”
The committee said the exchange further raised concerns that taxpayer information may have been leaked.
Ms. Lerner ran the division that gave unwarranted scrutiny into tea party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status. She retired from the agency last year while under scrutiny for her actions.
The House has since voted to hold her in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify under oath.
Her lawyer has said she did not break the law, but said she doesn’t trust the congressional investigation.
Read more: Washington Times