Disgraced ex-IRS official Lois Lerner actually printed out some of her missing emails, according to a statement by her attorney.
Lerner’s lawyer Bill Taylor initially claimed that Lerner did not print out and file her emails, as the Federal Records Act required her to do, before they allegedly went missing in a 2011 computer crash and her hard drive was “recycled” by the IRS. Taylor also claimed that Lerner “did not think it was required,” despite clear instructions for employees on the IRS website. But now the story is changing.
Taylor told a Virginia-based publication Wednesday that Lerner printed out “some” of her emails.
“During her tenure as Director of Exempt Organizations, she did print out some emails, although not every one of the thousands she sent and received,” Taylor said.
The “computer crash” episode, in which the IRS has claimed that seven different employees in Washington, D.C. and Cincinnati experienced email-destroying computer crashes, has riled Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, but there may be new hope that the emails could see the light of day.
Judge Emmet Sullivan will rule Thursday in U.S. District Court as to whether the independent group Judicial Watch can obtain Lerner’s emails under a Freedom of Information Act request that the IRS has stonewalled. Judicial Watch told The Daily Caller that there are numerous possible decisions Sullivan could make, ranging from ordering the IRS to release the emails to merely asking the scandal-plagued agency for further information about its email-restoring programs.
Congressional investigators will be watching Thursday’s ruling closely.