Cleta Mitchell, who represents Tea Party groups targeted by the IRS, slammed them for losing emails related to the investigation.
Last Friday, the IRS said it had lost a number of emails when former IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Lerner was previously the head of the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status. On Tuesday, it was reported that the IRS has also lost emails from six more IRS workers whose computers crashed.
"I absolutely think there is something crazy about this," Mitchell told Megyn Kelly Tuesday night on The Kelly File.
"Once the congressional investigations began and once the lawsuits were filed by my clients and others, they had a duty to immediately notify Congress and immediately notify the federal judge who is assigned to handle these cases. Not only did they not notify anybody, but we got a very snippy letter from Lois Lerner’s attorney last September…I’m absolutely shocked that…this is their process- because that violates federal law-….and that they did not immediately notify the Congress and then immediately notify the federal judge when these lawsuits were filed," Mitchell explained.
Mitchell said claims made by the IRS that the emails are lost is untrue. "This is all false. I absolutely don’t believe it. It is a sign of bad faith in the litigation and I think it’s contemptuous of Congress and the Congressional investigations…It is absolutely not credible," she told Kelly.
Asked by Kelly if she expects the IRS to produce the emails, Mitchell simply responded, "I don’t believe they will without a court order."