The latest bombshell in the IRS scandal has landed. On Monday, Judicial Watch’s president Tom Fitton told FNC’s Shannon Bream that a Justice Department attorney told them the missing Lois Lerner e-mails do exist.
Appearing on FNC’s The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, Fitton announced: “A Department of Justice attorney told a Judicial Watch attorney on Friday that it turns out the federal government backs up all computer records in case something terrible happens in Washington and there is a catastrophe....So everything we’ve been hearing about scratched hard drives, about missing e-mails of Lois Lerner, other IRS officials, other officials in the Obama administration, it’s all been a pack of malarkey.”
Fitton continued: “They could get these records but they don’t want to and they haven’t told anyone about it, frankly, until we were able to get it out of them on Friday. And there’s no such thing as Lois Lerner’s missing e-mails. It’s all been a big lie. They’ve been lying to the courts, to the American people and to congress. It’s really outrageous...We got to get these e-mails. And now we know where they are, where they’re likely to be. And the Obama administration needs to get it’s, needs to get on the ball and start retrieving them as opposed to stonewalling and continuing to obstruct justice.”
The question has to be asked: Will the Big Three networks do their due diligence and follow up on this latest wrinkle in the IRS scandal?
The following exchange was aired on the August 25 edition of FNC’s The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson:
SHANNON BREAM: Alright we are learning that the IRS may actually have those missing Lois Lerner e-mails after all. Agency attorneys apparently telling Judicial Watch, the group trying to get to the bottom of this whole thing, that they back up everything. Just in case. Now that may be a different story from what you’ve been hearing since those records disappeared.
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BREAM: Alright Tom Fitton is the president of Judicial Watch. He’s been on the front lines of this entire thing. Tom, tell us what you found out and were you surprised to now hear somebody with the agency saying these e-mails may never have been missing at all?
TOM FITTON, JUDICIAL WATCH: Right. A Department of Justice attorney told a Judicial Watch attorney on Friday that it turns out the federal government backs up all computer records in case something terrible happens in Washington and there is a catastrophe. So the government can continue operating. And they say it would be too hard to go get Lois Lerner’s e-, it would be too hard to get Lois Lerner’s e-mails from that back-up system. So everything we’ve been hearing about scratched hard drives, about missing e-mails of Lois Lerner, other IRS officials, other officials in the Obama administration, it’s all been a pack of malarkey. They could get these records but they don’t want to and they haven’t told anyone about it, frankly, until we were able to get it out of them on Friday. And there’s no such thing as Lois Lerner’s missing e-mails. It’s all been a big lie. They’ve been lying to the courts, to the American people and to congress. It’s really outrageous.
BREAM: I mean that is stunning. If what you’re saying is a Justice Department attorney has told attorneys with your group that these e-mails exist and they’ve always existed, I mean we are talking about subpoenas, we’re talking about sworn congressional testimony, we’re talking about court hearings, we are talking about an order from the judge there in D.C., the federal judge who said “I want everybody to have sworn affidavits and tell me exactly what happened to these.” I read those affidavits when they came in a week or two ago and there was no mention of this. How is that possible?
FITTON: And we’re, we’ve asked the Department of Justice that same thing. And we want to know why they hadn’t told the court about this back-up system. If this back-up system is working, Lois Lerner’s e-mails are there. There are a half-a-dozen other IRS officials whose e-mails supposedly have disappeared as well. And we’ve heard from other agencies like in, over in the HHS over Obamacare, e-mails disappearing there. And we’ve been led to believe that, you know, once they disappear they can’t be found again, when in fact they back up everything, as most people suspected. Now the government has confirmed.
And you know we’re going to ask the judge in this case for relief. We’re already in a hearing or a mediation session as we speak with a magistrate judge overseeing this discovery issue. But we got to get these e-mails. And now we know where they are, where they’re likely to be. And the Obama administration needs to get it’s, needs to get on the ball and start retrieving them as opposed to stonewalling and continuing to obstruct justice.
BREAM: Well this is a very important piece of information. I got the impression that Judge Sullivan was not happy with the response he got from those affidavits. So we’ll know you’ll stay on it and please keep us updated as soon as you get any more developments here. Thanks Tom.
— Geoffrey Dickens is Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter. [1]