The emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner do exist, but the government refuses to retrieve them, Judicial Watch blogger Irene Garcia tells
Newsmax TV.
Judicial Watch's president,
Tom Fitton, said in a statement Monday that the government watchdog group had learned from Justice Department attorneys that all of Lerner's emails are backed up, but that they would be too difficult to retrieve.
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Garcia told J.D. Hayworth and Francesca Page on "America's Forum" on Tuesday that this was learned "during a legal conference" in Judicial Watch's Washington, D.C., office, "where department attorneys representing the IRS in this matter admitted and revealed that there's a backup to all of the electronic mail and hard drives on all government computers in case of a catastrophe or emergency."
"These emails do in fact exist and we can still retrieve them," she explained. "However, [they said] it would be too difficult for the government to do that."
"They are essentially refusing to do it," she said, adding that it "smells of a cover-up."
"This is clearly a government cover-up," Garcia said. "They're going out of their way to cover up the information and anything that could be damaging."
The Judicial Watch blogger said that the federal judge overseeing Judicial Watch's lawsuit against the government in an effort to retrieve Lerner's emails "has ordered that this information be provided and has appointed a magistrate judge to help investigate this matter."
"On some level, that indicates that the judge realizes that something is going on here and that the government needs to be held accountable," she added.
Garcia contends that it "certainly" looks like something criminal may have occurred that the Obama administration is trying to cover up.
She alleges that "the IRS was used as a political tool to go and scrutinize conservative groups, tea party groups, and other conservative groups, and that's not legal."
"It appears that they're trying to cover their tracks and hide some of the damaging information," she said. "The head of the IRS, the commissioner, said that her computer conveniently crashed and nothing could be retrieved," Garcia said of John Koskinen.
"Now, we find out from the Justice Department attorneys that in fact there are backups to all these hard drives," she said.
The Judicial Watch blogger says it looks like Koskinen may have perjured himself by making contrary statements about Lerner's emails to
congressional committees while under oath.
"Everyone has been lying on all levels of governments," she added. "Certainly, the higher-ups in the IRS."
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