Yet Another Lois Lerner Email Account Identified

In another twist in the trail of federal executives doing business with private email accounts, Justice Department trial attorneys defending the Internal Revenue Service this week revealed the existence of an additional account used by Lois Lerner, the former IRS executive who oversaw the administration of tax exempt organizations.

To her email accounts “Lois G. Lerner” and “Lois Home,” those who harbor expectations for new revelations in the IRS political targeting affair can now add another one: “Toby Miles.”

The disclosure came in an Aug. 24 filing by Justice trial counsels Geoffrey Klimas and Stephanie Sasarak responding to a Freedom of Information Act suit brought by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. The attorneys and the IRS “are in the process of reviewing prior releases of documents to Judicial Watch in connection with the FOIA request for Lerner communications, as well as the search parameters used in connection with processing that FOIA request, and will provide a further update to the Court by Aug. 31, 2015,” they wrote. The update will detail whether previously released Lerner documents need to be redacted differently, and whether further document searches are needed and a timeframe.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in a statement, “It is remarkable that the Obama IRS and Justice Department waited two years to tell a federal court that Lois Lerner had a separate email account that contains documents at issue in the IRS scandal.  Especially since both agencies knew about this account since April of last year. It could be a crime if Lois Lerner kept confidential taxpayer data on her non-governmental email account.”

Judicial Watch characterizes the controversy that embroiled the IRS for the past two years as the “Obama IRS’ targeting and harassment of Tea Party and conservative opponents of President Obama,” and the administration’s document production as a “Nixonian” practice of “modified limited hangouts.”

On Wednesday IRS Commissioner John Koskinen dismissed the disclosure as “old news,” saying congressional committees have known this for more than a year, as noted by Paul Streckfus, editor of a newsletter on tax-exempt organizations. “Until there is a smoking gun email, I don’t think it really matters how many email accounts Lois had or what snarky comments she made to her husband or her dog,” Streckfus wrote, noting that the name Toby Miles refers to Lerner’s dog and her husband’s last name.